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It was the moment America has been waiting for, the moment the D/S/C field was pared down to two contenders.  Ok, three, but the D/S/Cs aren’t going to let Tulsi Gabbard anywhere near Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.  Waiting, that is, until the Coronavirus struck, and hope of using it—anything–to destroy Donald Trump once more swelled in the wizened breasts of D/S/Cs everywhere.  So the “debate” was held in a CNN station in Washington DC with no audience.  Somehow, I didn’t miss the crowd going wild for D/S/C candidates promising to take their money and liberty.

Why won’t D/S/Cs give Gabbard a chance?  After all, they did it for Mike Bloomberg, and they are the party of women, fighting a valiant, never-ending war against the Republican war on women.  Of course, Gabbard doesn’t have megabucks, and her mere presence, physically and mentally, will remind voters Biden and Sanders are an eye blink from 80.  That, and she’s not nearly as crazy.

This time, gentle readers, I watched the whole thing.  I’ve had more pleasant root canals.  The punditocracy are claiming Biden really didn’t mess up too much, but that’s comparing his performance to how badly and often he normally messes up.  A case in point is his recent “virtual town hall.”  Take the link and watch.  Gropin’ Joe’s handlers cut it off after only 5 minutes as Joe mindlessly—actually mindlessly—rambled on and on, and actually walked off camera, apparently oblivious to where he was and what he was doing.  Their post “virtual town hall” story was it ended abruptly because of “technical difficulties.”  That’s their story and they’re stickin’ to it.

A significant portion of the debate was devoted to the Coronavirus and how they’d do sooooo much better than Trump, who is, of course, the embodiment of all evil, and the greatest existential threat to the universe, ever.  More on that later.  The three moderators—who cares who they were?—did everything they could to play to what they obviously thought to be D/S/C strengths.  It didn’t help.

The usual themes were present:  Trump is bad, bad, bad.  They alone can save the country, the world, and the universe.  Prosperity is as bad as Trump, and they’re going to save us from it by doing away with tax cuts and modernity.  They’ll give us free stuff, free college, particularly free medical care, free money and health care for Coronavirus-related anything, and everything is now Coronavirus-related.  Trump bad.  Bernie still wants to put executives in jail, and both want to return us to a pre-industrial age that will be powered by unicorn farts and fairy dust.  They want no income inequality and an “economy that works for everybody.”  Above all, government is going to pay for everything for everybody, because money is freeeeeeeeeee!  And Trump bad.

On to the fossils—er, candidates:

Gropin’ Joe Biden:  I suspect Joe was injected with go fast juice.  He was loud, intense, angry, and often resorted to a cruel death’s head grin.  It was an amazing contrast with his performance only a few days earlier at his aborted virtual town hall.  He was pale, his left eye tended to be half closed, and the skin on his forehead was so tightly drawn, it was essentially petrified and unmoving.  He’s aging at an amazing pace, right before our eyes, kind of like the baddie in the Indiana Jones movie that made the wrong choice.

We’re so used to his nonsense, we tend to overlook the usual nonsense and pay attention only to the really outlandish nonsense.  Biden can barely complete one thought/sentence before another comes careening into the first, explosively spreading the half-formed fragments of sentences and ideas around the stage.

Joe sprang some news on America: he will choose a female vice president, and his first Supreme Court nomination will be a black female.  Presumably one or both will be lesbian, trans and surely Hispanic.  Joe launched, repeatedly, into criticism of President Trump’s handling of the Coronavirus, and then laid out a plan that was stolen virtually point by point from what Mr. Trump has already done.  According to Joe, who kept calling the Coronavirus SARS and the Swine Flu, he and Barack Obama did it sooooo much better.  Not so much:

Remember the H1N1 pandemic? According to the CDC, from April 12, 2009, to April 10, 2010, there were an estimated 60.8 million cases, 274,304 hospitalizations, and 12,469 deaths in the United States due to H1N1. Clearly, the United States wasn’t prepared for it. We didn’t see any travel bans to slow the spread of it.

As PJM’s Victoria Taft noted about the H1N1 outbreak, ‘American health officials declared a public health emergency on April 26, 2009,’ yet sought to downplay the announcement, calling it ‘standard operating procedure.’ Barack Obama didn’t declare a national emergency until October, after millions of people in the United States were already infected, at least 20,000 were hospitalized, and over a thousand had died. Had a national emergency been declared right away, it would have freed up resources to address the pandemic earlier. Perhaps if the Obama administration had treated the outbreak more seriously, fare fewer than 12,469 people would have died during the outbreak.

The total current Coronavirus death toll in America as this is written is about 80.  Joe is adamant that his ideas go into effect right now!  Everyone has to be “held harmless,” which means anyone who loses a penny for any reason has to be compensated in full–by the government–because money is free.  He kept rambling in vague generalities about making plans to make plans to make plans about plans and RIGHT NOW, but everything is going to be free.

Another surprise was Joe is not going to deport illegal immigrants, except maybe those convicted of a felony, but he’s not for open borders, no sir!  He also noted he’s doing “virtual town hall meetings.”  Has he seen his last one?  That’s not the sort of thing to which one wants to call attention.

Joe is going to save Social Security, and 12 years of education are not enough, so everybody has to have 16, for free of course.  One supposes folks won’t have any choice about that, so it’s probably a good idea to get your kids thinking about their college major by the time they leave Kindergarten.  He’s definitely going after guns, and he’s outraged that people can’t sue gun manufacturers for selling legal, non-defective products.  He’s still lying about that one.  Did you know Joe was a pioneer in supporting gay marriage on national TV?  Yeah, me neither.  Trump is the worst existential threat to America, health care should be a right, he’s going to impose the Green New Deal, rejoin the Paris Climate Accords, and rejoin the Iran Deal (he bragged about making that one).  He’s going to have the Congress codify Roe v. Wade, and called the idea illegal immigrants take any jobs from Americans “a Republican canard.” If Joe gets his way, there will be millions and millions of jobs open.

Joe tells us we don’t need a wall because we can secure the border by “national technical means.”  He’s not going to force anyone to wait in Mexico for a hearing on their immigration status, and he’s not going to put anyone in jail in America while they’re here illegally waiting for a hearing, because that has worked so well thus far.  They just don’t show up, which greatly lightens immigration judge’s caseloads. Joe absolutely supports sanctuary cities/states and when asked if illegals arrested by cities or states should be turned over to ICE, he gave an emphatic “NO.”  That’s going to make a good campaign commercial, which is probably why Joe said “Our future rests upon the Latino community being fully integrated,” apparently whether they want to be or not.

And in perhaps the best evidence thus far of his memory problems, Joe said when Obama and he first met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they told them America’s greatest threat was climate change(?)! Joe followed that with this: 

The single greatest threat is climate change to our national security. As populations have to move because they can no longer live where they are because their islands are sinking, because you saw what happened in Darfur with the change of weather patterns. It causes war. It causes great migrations.

What was that about Joe making perfect sense again? He also said beetle infestations in the Northeast, like where Bernie lives, are causing diseases like the Coronavirus.  Joe is going to mandate high speed rail everywhere so he can get millions of cars off the road:

No more subsidies for fossil fuel industry, no more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling including offshore, no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill. Period. Ends.’

‘No new fracking and, by the way, on the Recovery Act, I was able to make sure we invested $90 billion in making sure we brought down the price of solar and wind that is lower than the price of coal, that’s why not another new coal plant will be built.’

‘We in fact have the ability to lay down the tracks where no one can change, change the dynamic, and that’s why we should be talking about things like I’ve been talking about for years: high speed rail, taking millions of automobiles off the road.

He several times mentioned fixing things so no successor could change anything he did, which is a neat trick in a representative republic, unless of course, it’s not a representative republic anymore.  At one point, Joe said “knock on wood,” accompanied by rapping his own forehead.  One could almost hear the empty echo.  He also kept saying he’s going to send legislation “to the desk of Congress.”  That must be a mighty big desk.

Bernie “Crusty Commie” Sanders:  Bernie doesn’t much change, except his hair was a bit wilder than in the recent past.  His face was red, his eyes wild and angry, his gestures unrestrained and frenetic.  Bernie reminded everyone he’s for democracy and again authoritarianism, but given multiple chances to prove it, could not resist praising communist dictatorships, because yeah, they kill millions, but they were once nice to a puppy and they deserve credit for that, don’t they? Asked about what consequences should befall China for starting and hiding the contagion, he dodged the question and praised them.  They eat puppies.

Instead of the Coronavirus, he kept talking about Ebola, but it didn’t matter, because he kept dodging question about that to return to his usual themes of income inequality, the evil corporations, climate change and the absolute evil of ICE.  Bernie is upset some people live “paycheck to paycheck,” so he’s going to give them lots of free stuff, give all illegals citizenship and free medical treatment.  He is absolutely going to stop ICE enforcing immigration law.  He is also absolutely going to destroy Wall Street, energy companies, drug companies and insurance companies and put their executives in jail, but he’s all for democracy and against authoritarianism, yes Sir!

Oh, and Trump is racist, sexist and homophobic, and “nobody is talking about open borders.  Trump lies about that.”  Bernie then spent the rest of the night talking about how he’s going to open the borders.  The moderators suggested climate change is responsible for infectious diseases, so what would Bernie do about that?  He dodged that one, but said we have only 7-8 years before we have irreversible damage, like the East Coast being underwater.  He’s going to do away with fracking and fossil fuels, and Biden’s climate plan just doesn’t go far enough.  It’s not crazy enough and not nearly expensive enough, though, as usual, Bernie wouldn’t say how expensive his was going to be.  Oh, and he’s going to get Russia and China to work hand in hand with us to fix the climate.  Can Iran be far behind?

Bernie wouldn’t declare he’d pick a female Veep, but he’s leaning that way.

Final Thoughts:

Bernie Sanders won’t be the nominee, but he has a victory of sorts.  He has led the entire D/S/C party so far to the left there is little daylight between them and socialism/communism.  Joe has become so woke the campaign commercials write themselves.  It’s not all Bernie’s fault, though.  There is also a major element of pandering to all the social pathologies and psychoses that are the contemporary D/S/C party.

They’re both for exactly the same things.  The only difference is Joe pretends not to praise communists, and he promises to bankrupt America somewhat more slowly then Bernie.  Both are absolutely going to take everyone’s money and liberty.  All that needs to be worked out are the niggling details.  Joe is a stealthier totalitarian than Bernie, which is why the D/S/C party is–for the moment–supporting him.

Bernie did manage to befuddle Joe, accusing him of various non-woke votes and stances from 30 years ago, and he was less confused, in general, than Joe, but both are as anti-liberty and anti-American as it’s possible to be without running on a ‘gulags for all” ticket, though Bernie’s campaign functionaries are doing their best in that regard.

We can only hope America will reject their totalitarian nonsense, but with half the country, and virtually all the media clamoring for it, it might be a near thing.  One thing is certain: they’re going to ride the Coronvirus horse until it tramples Trump or drops.  Expect them to demand universal mail-in ballots.  It’s soooo much easier to cheat that way.  Can’t let a good crisis go to waste.

This is the best the D/S/C Party can produce?  The Democrat Party is dead.