There is something almost pathetic about the frantic
attempts by Democratic spin doctors and liberal media pundits to somehow put a
good face onto the mess the Democrats have gotten themselves into. The
impeachment effort failed, but it sure boosted Trump’s chances of re-election –
his popularity is now at an all-time high, recent polls show more people now
identify as Republicans than as Democrats for the first time in ages, and he
has received a massive infusion of campaign donations from a hugely energized base.
Beyond that, the economy is booming, wages are up especially
for workers at the bottom of the economy, unemployment is at a 50-year low, and
Democrats keep insisting simultaneously (a) that the economy is terrible, and
(b) that the fact that the economy is wonderful isn’t due to anything Trump has
done. Meanwhile a majority of Americans polled think they are better off this
year than they were under Obama.
It looks increasingly likely either (a) that Sanders will be
the Democratic nominee, which will pretty much lock up the election for Trump,
or (b) the Democratic establishment will find a way to deny Sanders the
nomination, which will so enrage his followers again that they will either stay
home or vote for Trump (as about 1 in 11 apparently did in 2016), which will
pretty much lock up the election for Trump.
The trouble with spinning propaganda is that if it is good
enough one starts to believe one’s own fables. I suspect that is what is
happening to Democrats. The media is full of liberal pundits and columnists
telling liberals what they desperately want to hear, about how much trouble
Trump is in and how the winds are so favorable for Democrats to take back power
in the next election. The truth is that while Trump is a thoroughly
unprincipled man, he is far, far better than any Democrat currently running at
reading the public mood and playing to his base. Liberals, following their emotions
rather than their reason, have been underestimating him all along, and are still
underestimating him, and it is going to cost them the next election if they don’t
get real and face up to the very difficult task ahead of them.
I remember the old Jewish saying: “Don’t pray for a new king;
he might be worse than the old one”. I would be delighted to see Trump replaced
by a pragmatic, principled, competent moderate of either party. But an
ideologue full of impractical revolutionary ideas, especially one who is so ignorant
of recent world history that he/she thinks socialism solves all problems, doesn’t
fit that description.
Well, Peter Zeihan has been arguing for some time now that
both parties are falling apart, which happens from time to time, and that it
takes a decade or so for them to reshuffle themselves into their new
configuration of coalitions, which may or may not carry the old party name. We
are apparently still in that process, which is why both parties are still in
chaos making openings for outliers like Trump and Sanders.
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