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Bye Bye Bernie
Townhall.com ^ | March 10, 2020 | Bill Murchison

Posted on 03/10/2020 6:07:01 AM PDT by Kaslin

The stock market on Monday took a look at the world around it and swooned, delivering a decisive blow to the Sanders candidacy and its proposed revolution.

Who wants a political revolution when economic forces are hard at work wringing vitality and optimism out of the economy? Isn't that the question? The less we see and hear of Comrade Bernie amid the crash of his prospects, the sooner we can recover a measure of common sense in our deliberations.

Common sense is the commodity that's coming-apart in recent years has made the greatest noise. The retreat of common sense from its necessary place in the middle of public affairs has left the field to the wildest notions, not least Sen. Bernie Sanders' notion, derived from all the socialist enterprises you ever heard of, that government can bludgeon a nation and people into bliss.

"You!" (Such is their address to us.) "Forget what you thought you knew. In regard to anything you want to know about anything worth knowing -- just ask the smart people, the people with your best interests at heart. The people who want to install Sanders in the White House so he can take the nation apart and put it back together in accordance with his enlightened ideas."

Americans in 2020, their present president included, have an affection for language our mothers used to correct with soap and water. I will say to the aspirations and exhortations of the revolutionaries, the What-a-Great-Thinker-that-Bernie-is crowd: Hogwash! Stuff and nonsense!

I hope that conveys a sense of the direction -- backward, proudly backward -- in which our society must point itself in order to cleanse the important elements of life from the malarkey (a Joe Biden word) that passes in our time for wisdom.

Today's revolutionaries ignore the commonsense reality that economies don't build themselves. Someone has to build them -- through imagination, daring and hard work. Along with luck. And maybe that doesn't produce absolute equality (by the reckoning of the University of Wherever's sociology department), but it creates conditions whereby, in a climate of free choice, adjustments and twirls of appropriate knobs can improve matters.

The great heresy of the Sanders movement is that economic joy -- such as we more or less experienced prior to late February -- will stand up to all and any pressures. Coronavirus, say, or Arab-Russian tensions over oil supply and prices.

Sure, it will. Just look at the stock market. Look at the challenge involved in reviving and resuscitating it -- upon dealing successfully (a consummation devoutly to be wished) with the human fears and unforeseen circumstances that took the air out of the beach ball. To the socialist revolutionaries who look up to Bernie, adoration in their faces, you just declare a green revolution; you initiate "Medicare for All"; you abolish college tuition debt; you proclaim housing a human right. And don't worry about the price. We'll just tax the bill-yuh-naires and corporations.

Not that Biden, as an economic savant, is to be confused with Milton Friedman. Biden believes in Big Government -- however, not in revolution and overthrow. He proposes, in accordance with the Gospel of Common Sense, to enlarge existing commitments, not uproot 'em. Democratic voters who paused a few days back to think over the difference between evolution and revolution seem to acknowledge and even appreciate that difference.

On the day of the market mess, a New York Post poll showed Biden with 52% support among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents; the poll likewise assigned Sanders an unfavorable rating of 36%. The Real Clear Politics preprimary average for Missouri placed Biden 18.6% ahead of Comrade Sanders. The pro-Biden gap in Mississippi: 55 points.

Upon these statistics the Trump campaign -- an earlier, more idiosyncratic product of the present revolutionary instinct -- should gaze with apprehension. A Democratic turn, however partial, toward common sense would suggest powerfully that political success depends to a higher degree on results than on bombast.

"Bombast"? In a paragraph referencing the president, I mention untethered rants? Unfortunate. Let's just say that, whoever the claimant may be, claims in the real world don't equal reality. This least-common-sensible of eras may be figuring that out. We have days to go, nevertheless.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2020demprimary; berniesanders; feelthebern

1 posted on 03/10/2020 6:07:01 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

I would prefer a match up between Trump and Sanders. This would be the most ideological transparent politcal choice ever. Let’s have it out with them once and for all.


2 posted on 03/10/2020 6:10:04 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn....)
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To: Kaslin

The radical left welcomes an economic crash. It is a crisis that they can take advantage of. They would use it to seize more power.

Communist tactic. Cause a breakdown in the civil order, use the ensuing mass confusion to establish a new form of government.


3 posted on 03/10/2020 6:14:32 AM PDT by I want the USA back (Lying Media: completely irresponsible. Complicit in the destruction of this country.)
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To: Kaslin

I have to shake my head and laugh at the editorial, as it is serious. Bernie was never a candidate; he played his paid role well...he is a placeholder, dumpster fire for the planned brokered convention. He loves playing this role; there is no work involved and he gets to keep other peoples’ money and he can say what he wants without consequence...there is really no acting involved...much like Tom Cruise, who has never played another role other than the one he plays in all his movies...and they’re both crazy.

None of the commies were candidates, just actors. You have to WORK when you are president...Bernie is not capable of that, nor is Warren or any of the others. Obama got a pass because his “working” infrastructure was put in place by his puppetmasters...Bernie has no infrastructure.


4 posted on 03/10/2020 6:16:01 AM PDT by CincyRichieRich (Vote for President Trump in 2020 or end up equally miserable, no rights, and eating zoo animals)
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To: I want the USA back

This stock market drop and coronavirus will be a forgotten memory come election day.


5 posted on 03/10/2020 6:20:58 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (The Democratic Party is communism)
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To: Kaslin

“Bye Bye Bernie”
Somebody brought their A game. It sounds like a great name for a Broadway musical.


6 posted on 03/10/2020 6:23:52 AM PDT by mkmensinger
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To: Kaslin

How does one use Biden and economic savant in the same sentence?


7 posted on 03/10/2020 6:26:07 AM PDT by Quilla
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To: mkmensinger
...or a movie w/Ann Margaret


8 posted on 03/10/2020 6:48:20 AM PDT by newfreep ("INSIDE EVERY PROGRESSIVE IS A TOTALITARIAN SCREAMING TO GET OUT" - DAVID HOROWITZ)
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To: Kaslin

The Dems will do the same with Biden as they did with President Wilson. Prop him up and run the country without him in secrecy.

When a secret president ran the country!
Health Oct 2, 2015 1:42 PM EDT

Late on the evening of Sept. 25, 1919, after speaking in Pueblo, Colorado, Edith discovered Woodrow in a profound state of illness; his facial muscles were twitching uncontrollably and he was experiencing severe nausea. Earlier in the day, he complained of a splitting headache.

Six weeks after the event, Dr. Grayson told a journalist that he had noted a “curious drag or looseness at the left side of [Wilson’s] mouth — a sign of danger that could no longer be obscured.” In retrospect, this event may have been a transient ischemic attack (TIA), the medical term for a brief loss of blood flow to the brain, or “mini-stroke,” which can be a harbinger for a much worse cerebrovascular event to follow — in other words, a full-fledged stroke.

On Sept. 26, the president’s private secretary, Joseph Tumulty, announced that the rest of the speaking tour had been canceled because the president was suffering from “a nervous reaction in his digestive organs.” The Mayflower sped directly back to Washington’s Union Station. Upon arrival, on Sept. 28, the president appeared ill but was able to walk on his own accord through the station. He tipped his hat to awaiting crowd, shook the hands of a few of the people along the track’s platform, and was whisked away to the White House for an enforced period of rest and examination by a battery of doctors.

Everything changed on the morning of Oct. 2, 1919. According to some accounts, the president awoke to find his left hand numb to sensation before falling into unconsciousness. In other versions, Wilson had his stroke on the way to the bathroom and fell to the floor with Edith dragging him back into bed. However those events transpired, immediately after the president’s collapse, Mrs. Wilson discretely phoned down to the White House chief usher, Ike Hoover and told him to “please get Dr. Grayson, the president is very sick.”

Grayson quickly arrived. Ten minutes later, he emerged from the presidential bedroom and the doctor’s diagnosis was terrible: “My God, the president is paralyzed,” Grayson declared.

President Woodrow Wilson, seated at desk with his wife, Edith Bolling Galt, standing at his side. First posed picture after Mr. Wilson’s illness, White House, June 1920. Courtesy the Library of CongressPresident Woodrow Wilson, seated at desk with his wife, Edith Bolling Galt, standing at his side. First posed picture after Mr. Wilson’s illness, White House, June 1920. Courtesy the Library of Congress.

What would surprise most Americans today is how the entire affair, including Wilson’s extended illness and long-term disability, was shrouded in secrecy. In recent years, the discovery of the presidential physicians’ clinical notes at the time of the illness confirm that the president’s stroke left him severely paralyzed on his left side and partially blind in his right eye, along with the emotional maelstroms that accompany any serious, life-threatening illness, but especially one that attacks the brain.

Only a few weeks after his stroke, Wilson suffered a urinary tract infection that threatened to kill him. Fortunately, the president’s body was strong enough to fight that infection off but he also experienced another attack of influenza in January of 1920, which further damaged his health.

Protective of both her husband’s reputation and power, Edith shielded Woodrow from interlopers and embarked on a bedside government that essentially excluded Wilson’s staff, the Cabinet and the Congress.

During a perfunctory meeting the president held with Sen. Gilbert Hitchcock (D-Neb.) and Albert Fall (R-N.M.) on Dec. 5, he and Edith even tried to hide the extent of his paralysis by keeping his left side covered with a blanket. Sen. Fall, who was one of the president’s most formidable political foes told Wilson, “I hope you will consider me sincere. I have been praying for you, Sir.” Edith later recalled that Woodrow was, at least, well enough to jest, “Which way, Senator?” A great story, perhaps, but Wilson’s biographer, John Milton Cooper, Jr. doubts its veracity and notes that neither Edith nor Dr. Grayson recorded such a clever rejoinder in their written memoranda from that day.

By February of 1920, news of the president’s stroke began to be reported in the press. Nevertheless, the full details of Woodrow Wilson’s disability, and his wife’s management of his affairs, were not entirely understood by the American public at the time.

What remained problematic was that in 1919 there did not yet exist clear constitutional guidelines of what to do, in terms of the transfer of presidential power, when severe illness struck the chief executive. What the U.S. Constitution’s Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 on presidential succession does state is as follows:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/woodrow-wilson-stroke


9 posted on 03/10/2020 6:51:31 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (Polticalwire.com is naming the Wuhan virus as BidenÂ’s running mate, they are gleeful.)
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To: CincyRichieRich
It is looking like there will be no brokered convention. Biden will play the same role as von Hindenburg did in the Wiemar Republic's last election in 1932 if the sheeple are not smart enough to reelect Donald J. Trump.

The veep pick will be the one with real power. Maybe. Or maybe just a malleable puppet like ObaMao.

10 posted on 03/10/2020 6:53:56 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (The politicized state destroys aspects of civil society, human kindness and private charity.)
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To: Vigilanteman

Baraq’s Third Term is what they call it.


11 posted on 03/10/2020 6:55:06 AM PDT by nascarnation
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To: Vigilanteman

There never was going to be a brokered convention because that would have torn the Dems apart. If Burnie got a pluarlity of delegates he was going to be the nom. That’s why the kenyan cleared the field for Biden.


12 posted on 03/10/2020 7:05:36 AM PDT by lodi90
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To: I want the USA back
That method is known as the Heglian Dialectic.
13 posted on 03/10/2020 8:18:06 AM PDT by Joe Brower ("Might we not live in a nobler dream than this?" -- John Ruskin)
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To: Kaslin
The great heresy of the Sanders movement...

Did he mean fallacy? I get what he's trying to say, but the whole article is weirdly written.

14 posted on 03/10/2020 9:19:18 AM PDT by Moltke (Reasoning with a liberal is like watering a rock in the hope to grow a building.)
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To: Vigilanteman

It is looking like there will be no brokered convention.
.....
Soooo, what makes you say that?

We have no idea what they will do; they divide by zero when they want to...their rules can change on a dime.


15 posted on 03/10/2020 2:03:10 PM PDT by CincyRichieRich (Vote for President Trump in 2020 or end up equally miserable, no rights, and eating zoo animals)
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