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Why Is Democratic Political Leadership So Poor?
Townhall.com ^ | January 17, 2020 | Laura Hollis

Posted on 01/17/2020 5:27:01 AM PST by Kaslin

There was another Democratic debate Tuesday night. Does anyone watch these anymore? What a snoozefest. The best part was a Daily Caller tweet that had a promotional photo of the six Democratic debate participants and asked: "What's the name of this album? Wrong answers only." (Find it. The boundless creativity of commenters will keep you laughing for hours.)

CNN commentator Van Jones admitted after the debate, "There was nothing I saw tonight that would be able to take Donald Trump out."

But why? Do Democratic voters -- especially those living in cities or states run by Democrats -- ever ask themselves why their political leaders do such an awful job?

Here are a few reasons for some of the failures of modern Democratic political leadership:

1. They do not learn from history. Case in point: Some of the most prominent national Democrats are actively pushing socialism, despite the abject failure of statist regimes. No matter how many countries' economies have struggled or collapsed under communism and socialism, we have Democrats claiming, "It will be different this time." No, it won't.

2. They have no sense of economics. Democrats act like they can tax limitlessly. They ignore proof that the money can and does run out. Furthermore, the financial projections for their pet projects are always wrong. Yes, always. And by a huge margin. Medicare. Medicaid. Social Security. Obamacare. So when Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren promise you that the government can pay for college or health care for all Americans (and for every immigrant who crosses the border), and that it won't cost middle-class families a dime, you can bet that dime -- and everything else you own -- that that's an error of monumental proportions.

3. They do not understand business, and they demonize all business as "big business" (as if "big business" is, in and of itself, a bad thing). But most business in the United States is small business. There are about 29 million small firms in the U.S., and about 23 million of those firms have no employees, only owners. Of the remaining 5 million or so that do have employees, 80% employ fewer than 20 people! And most companies -- even those that are incorporated -- are family-owned or family-controlled.

This kind of ignorance matters, not only because we depend upon business for products and services and employment and tax revenues but also because it is wrong to try to turn Americans against their fellow citizens for personal political advantage.

4. They push policies that cater to tiny minorities of people, willfully oblivious to the impact those policies have on the vast majority of people affected by them. Consider the push for transgender bathrooms and participation of transgender athletes on sports teams. By even the most generous calculation, the percentage of Americans who identify as a gender other than their biological sex is a fraction of 1%. And yet millions of people who do not have this issue are supposed to embrace trans bathrooms, locker rooms and other private spaces, as well as the clear unfairness of biological males competing against biological females.

5. They tackle minute issues and leave major problems unaddressed. California can ban plastic straws but cannot seem to do anything about the urine, feces, vomit and used needles on its sidewalks and streets.

6. Their sense of compassion is skewed. Mentally ill and drug-addicted people belong in treatment facilities. But we eliminated mental health facilities because involuntary commitment was deemed uncompassionate. Now cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco have tens of thousands of people living on the streets, where disease and crime are rampant. This is not compassion. The same can be said of Democrats' push for welfare policies, which growing numbers of black leaders acknowledge have devastated the black family, creating generational poverty, drug use, educational failure and massive incarceration of black men.

At what point are Democrats held accountable for the failures of these and other policies?

Politicians of all political parties can be stupid, venal and crooked. But as long as the government remains limited and most Americans are free to run their own lives, the impact of political stupidity and corruption can be marginalized.

The problem with today's Democrats is not only that their preferred policies are wrong-headed; it's that they want more and more control over every aspect of our lives. The more control politicians have, the more their selfishness, stupidity, ignorance and corruption will cripple us.

Van Jones is right: Nothing the Democratic presidential candidates are selling is likely to persuade a majority of American voters to elect any of them in 2020. The Democratic candidates could reverse their fortunes and up their odds using just a little common sense. One wonders why they refuse to do so.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2020demonrats; 2020election; berniesanders
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1 posted on 01/17/2020 5:27:01 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
2. They have no sense of economics. Democrats act like they can tax limitlessly. They ignore proof that the money can and does run out.

To most of their base this really doesn't matter.

As long as they continue to promise free stuff and demonize big business and anyone making more money than their supporters they will have a huge voting base.

Dims need a permanent underclass.

2 posted on 01/17/2020 5:29:30 AM PST by ealgeone
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To: ealgeone

They sure do.


3 posted on 01/17/2020 5:31:50 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
That's easy:

They're like the kid in the candy store... when you don't know what you want, you want everything.

Example-They’re always pandering to some ‘group’, no matter how small or artificial.

Next thing you know, they'll pitch their BS to redheads with one brown eye and one blue eye, a humpback and a history of some kind of abuse, etc.

4 posted on 01/17/2020 5:32:31 AM PST by SMARTY ("Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us - by obligations, not by rights".)
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To: Kaslin

5 posted on 01/17/2020 5:34:38 AM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change with out notice.)
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To: Kaslin

“1. They do not learn from history.”

More so, this this is the fundamental axiom which creates them and causes all the other enumerated points. They actively reject all the lessons of history, however hard learned and costly the lesson.


6 posted on 01/17/2020 5:43:00 AM PST by ctdonath2 (Democrats oppose democracy.)
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To: Kaslin

I haven’t read this yet — and I will — but my first thought reading the title is:

Why does sh*t stink?


7 posted on 01/17/2020 5:45:35 AM PST by samtheman (I hope someone close to Trump is reading FR every day.)
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To: Kaslin
The reasons stated are good and compelling explanations for the absurd positions taken by Democrat candidates and leaders. I would suggest another more fundamental, underlying reason.

Even though progressives tacitly embrace Marxism, they are also in psychic bondage to their own doctrine of critical thinking which leaves them in a sea of relativism without restraint on their lust for power. God players, they are without check. Their own religion is themselves, "we are the ones we have been waiting for;" anything less is banal.

Therefore in the contest for power, leverage is gained on the margins. One gains points not by actual fixes but by flamboyance. One succeeds not by competence but by charisma. One advances not advancing reason but by tickling emotion.

There is no ultimate set of values to restrain excess. To the contrary all the forces pull toward the extreme.


8 posted on 01/17/2020 5:47:03 AM PST by nathanbedford (attack, repeat, attack! Bull Halsey)
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To: grey_whiskers

Excellent


9 posted on 01/17/2020 5:47:51 AM PST by samtheman (I hope someone close to Trump is reading FR every day.)
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To: Kaslin

If not for the full-scale, endless propaganda campaign from the mainstream media, the Democrat party would struggle to get 20% at the polls. Their policies are that bad! Their leadership is made up completely of people who are only interested in gaining power, and only to pretend and lie about trying to help the country.


10 posted on 01/17/2020 5:49:56 AM PST by Repealthe17thAmendment
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To: Kaslin

DemonicRats promise something for nothing and they promote wealth envy.


11 posted on 01/17/2020 6:04:24 AM PST by Old Yeller (Auto-correct has become my worst enema.)
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To: Kaslin

Obviously their tired old messages - something for nothing, free everything, and you’re a victim of... whatever you want to name - resonates with enough voters to get them elected. It must be human nature.


12 posted on 01/17/2020 6:09:40 AM PST by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel.)
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To: nathanbedford
I think their doctrine is more "Critical Theory" than critical thinking.
13 posted on 01/17/2020 6:19:05 AM PST by bankwalker (Immigration without assimilation is an invasion.)
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To: Kaslin

In order for a Liberal to adopt a politically correct life(style), they have to first, willingly and willfully, reject all common sense, logic and reason.


14 posted on 01/17/2020 6:19:10 AM PST by oil_dude
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To: Kaslin

It’s clear at this point that none of their so-called leaders run the Democrat Party. The MEDIA runs it.

90% of them are confirmed Leftist/Socialists who are determined to steer the party in that direction. They are the ones pulling the strings, and acting as cheerleaders for AOC and her ilk.


15 posted on 01/17/2020 6:23:16 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog (Patrick Henry would have been an anti-vaxxer)
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To: Kaslin
"There was another Democratic debate Tuesday night. Does anyone watch these anymore? What a snoozefest."

What.? You don't like the circus..?? The freak show is the best part...

16 posted on 01/17/2020 6:23:47 AM PST by unread (A REPUBLIC..! if you can keep it....)
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To: bankwalker
Right. Thanks for the correction.

No matter what the moniker, the result is nihilism opening the way to tyranny. The absurd present predicament of the Democrat party is merely a whistle stop on the way to that tyranny.


17 posted on 01/17/2020 6:25:43 AM PST by nathanbedford (attack, repeat, attack! Bull Halsey)
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To: Kaslin

It is the obvious result when every decision in the Party is determined by an emotion based political ideology rather then reason.


18 posted on 01/17/2020 6:29:40 AM PST by MNJohnnie (They would have abandon leftism to achieve sanity. Freeper Olog-hai)
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To: Kaslin

as i’ve previously stated...

demonrats refuse to understand anything...
there’s no reasoning with people who believe a man’s anus is a vagina...


19 posted on 01/17/2020 6:31:03 AM PST by heavy metal (your reward will be in heaven not on your paycheck...)
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To: Kaslin

Ideaology aside: Barack Obama is the reason. Beginning with 2010 midterms, their farm team lost over 1000 elected democrats nationwide.

4 or 5 elections and 10 years for dems to rise up through the ranks....gone for so many Ds. Many were more sane than what jumped in to fill the void.


20 posted on 01/17/2020 6:48:22 AM PST by chiller (As Davey Crockett once said: Be sure you're right. Then go ahead. I'm goin' ahead.)
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