90 Miles From Tyranny

Sunday, February 9, 2020

This Isn't Good Recycling Bernie...

Democrats Hate What Trump Is Highlighting about Them

President Donald Trump's campaign strategy came into sharp focus during the State of the Union address, and the Democrats are horrified at the mirror held up to their faces.

The campaign strategy has three components. The president will tout the incredible record of achievement hidden by the media. He will engage in sustained and aggressive outreach to minority voters who have been victimized the most by Democrat policies. Finally, he will force the Democrats to defend the indefensible. It is those last two components that left the Democrats stuck on stupid.

Frozen Face, whose attempt to be the equivalent of the prepubescent heckler making fart noises behind the teacher's back was somewhat stymied by her inability to show any emotion, clearly planned her in-kind contribution to the Republicans long before the speech.

She was transformed into the equivalent of a toddler angrily holding her breath on national television because she knows that every lethal word is scoring true while she is powerless to do a thing about it. The president has an amazing record to run on. She has her failed impeachment gambit and crazy pen ceremony, ensuring that House Democrats have nothing to run on.

Consider a few of the indefensible Democrat positions that were artfully highlighted:

1. Socialism. One of the best lines in a speech loaded with them was "Socialism destroys nations. But always remember: Freedom unifies the soul." The president's team will hammer this theme between now and the election. This issue creates a conundrum for Democrats in 2020. The younger core of the party, largely indoctrinated at Marxist educational factories, is pining for socialism and will tolerate nothing less. But many of the older voters they still need with a better understanding of history are horrified at the prospect. The president needs to drive this issue home in the hopes of reaching history-illiterate younger voters because America is nearing a disastrous tipping point on this issue. The speech also did a nice job of showing how socialism is an immediate threat to wiping out the private health plans of 180 million Americans.

2. Opposition to School Choice. Poorer Americans, many of them minorities, are harmed disproportionately when forced to send their children to failing schools. The Democrats, buried in the pockets of the teachers' unions, have no room to maneuver on this issue. The fiscal argument also strongly favors school choice since it is costing more by the year to send kids to public schools. In the Northern Virginia area, where I live, it costs between $15,000 and close to $20,000, depending on the county, to educate each student every year. To spend that much to send students into often unsafe environments where they are certain to fail is ludicrous. As the president noted, "no parent should be forced to send their child to a failing government school." My only quibble is that schools are failing only when examined from an American perspective, since they are doing exactly what Democrats want, which is cranking out...

Pete Buttigieg High School Essay Praised ‘Profile In Courage’ Bernie Sanders

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg took issue with Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “my way or the highway” politics at Friday’s debate — but a 20-year-old essay written by Buttigieg had nothing but praise for the self-described socialist.

In the early moments of the ABC-hosted debate in New Hampshire, Buttigieg warned against “my way or the highway politics” and when moderator George Stephanopoulos asked whether he was referring to Sanders, he said that he was.

Just two decades earlier, however, Buttigieg won the John F. Kennedy “Profiles in Courage” essay contest with a piece lauding Sanders — both for his willingness to take unpopular stands and his ability to work across the aisle.

Buttigieg began by praising the Vermont senator for his fearlessness with regard to claiming the name “socialist”:

Sanders’ courage is evident in the first word he uses to describe himself: ‘Socialist’. In a country where Communism is still the dirtiest of ideological dirty words, in a climate where even liberalism is considered radical, and Socialism is immediately and perhaps willfully confused with Communism, a politician dares to call himself a socialist? He does indeed. Here is someone who has ‘looked into his own soul/ and expressed an ideology, the endorsement of which, in today’s political atmosphere, is analogous to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Even though he has lived through a time in which an admitted socialist could not act in a film, let alone hold a Congressional seat, Sanders is not afraid to be candid about his political persuasion.

Buttigieg went on to note Sanders’ early acceptance of same sex marriage, his willingness to challenge the NRA and his independently organized drug-purchasing trips to Canada that were intended to draw attention to the rising cost of prescription drugs — all issues that Sanders still prides himself on 20 years later.

Buttigieg then argued that simply taking a principled stand, while courageous, was not the full picture of Sanders. It was his ability to bring both sides together, Buttigieg explained, that truly made him a...