Self-awareness is not a common Washington characteristic.
Posted on 02/11/2016 1:51:59 AM PST by Zakeet
THE STUNNINGLY handy wins by two anti-establishment candidates in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday are prompting conversation about similarities between New York businessman Donald Trump, the Republican victor, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the socialist victor on the Democratic side. The similarities are important - but the differences are more so.
Both have positioned themselves as outsiders appealing to voters who believe the system, and the leaders of the two major parties, have failed them. The grievances they speak to are real: a sense that the economy has left too many people behind, that globalization and technological change are helping the few while stranding the many.
Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders offer convenient scapegoats and simple-sounding solutions. For Mr. Sanders, the "greed" of the "billionaire class" has rigged the system against working people. Tax the 1 percent, and everyone else can have free college and free health care. Political obstacles can be swept away by a "political revolution." America's enemies will be fought by a mythical Sunni Muslim coalition. The villains for Mr. Trump are "stupid" people running the government who allow foreigners to take advantage of the United States. The solution - well, his solution - is to elect Mr. Trump.
We think both men are dangerously if seductively wrong in their facile diagnoses and prescriptions. But Mr. Sanders's platform is at least well-meaning.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The villains for Mr. Trump are "stupid" people running the government who allow foreigners to take advantage of the United States. The solution, well, his solution, is to elect Mr. Trump.Trump doesn't understand, like Reagan, that government is the problem.
Government isn't inept because of "stupid people" running it. DMVs are the same all over the world because they are run by the government. Government is a monopoly, and monopolies are fat and lazy. This is why government's role is society should be minimized.
Bernie Sanders as “well meaning” reminds me of Putin’s textbooks saying that Stalin meant to create a fair society.
Sarah Palin:
“It’s no surprise pundits and politicos are determined to destroy a candidacy they can’t control or shape with their mere words. Expect marginalization of anyone speaking well of Trump’s efforts. He’s a threat to the permanent political class. Non-traditional candidates always are because when they’re in touch with the people, they show their guts and just do the right thing. They go rogue—and take flak from all sides. Some of us have the scars to prove that.”
“Itty-bitty pundits thinking it’s clever to mock Americans’ opinions are finding the joke is on them. Cozy in their seat of judgment, blowing each other’s horns, protected by a glass screen. Ask yourself: just who ARE these windbags? And what do they build? Towers of paperclips? Lists of Twitter followers? Trump’s supporters are delightedly defying pithy prim “opinion makers” who think Americans are incapable of choosing our leaders without their dictates. The more the spotlight-seekers smear Trump, the more popular he gets. A friend emailed, “Tell those smart alecks bashing Trump on TV, ‘I love him because YOU hate him!’””
In a roundabout way, the Post has hit on the magic of Trump’s formula: he is a Republican who campaigns and fights like a Democrat. The Post and other Democratic mouthpieces and hacks have good reason to fear such a combination.
Once again they tap into the useful idiot young the lazy, the dependent, the uneducated Bernie sez the millionaires will pay, do they really think the millionaires will stick around and pay, who will pay? you will pay! but but but bernie sed............
Indeed
Why did you post this garbage?
Oh, my, that certainly is giving Sanders a lot of credit. It is way more than he deserves.
The socialist end-state is always a society that looks a lot like feudal Europe--most people living in miserable poverty, with a very few positioned at the top living in luxury. No one who dreams of such an end-state has good intentions.
I think it was a good article to post. Sanders is selling young people on the snake oil that the government has any money other than what their parents give it and that government can successfully manage ANYTHING. Trump is trying to over shout that by declaring the hubris of the politicians and the corrupt bureaucracy. The USA is destined to become Venezuela - we need to have this fight, no matter how bloody.
There are a few areas where the government has legitimate roles. Namely, in national security and consumer protection.
Unfortunately, the efforts made so far to create a socialist worker's paradise are bankrupting the government. Legitimate functions of government are being cut back in order to keep the fire hose of "social" spending (i.e. wealth redistribution) going at full force. With such misdirection of public funds, the economy continues to suffer; the unemployment rate falls not because people are getting jobs, but because they stop looking for work.
We need a strong economically literate person to try to turn things around. Trump seems like that person.
If the ugliness of Trump should scare us, what should the untrustworthiness of Hillary do to us? How about that article WaPo?
The absurdity of the enemedia questioning Trump’s credentials after foisting the token idiot from Kenya on us (twice) is lost on many people. Trump was more qualified than Obama when he was 15 years old, and the Kenyan Pirate’s agenda was much more frightening than Trump’s.
The reality is that college educated voters overwhelmingly voted for both these guys. And college educated people who had been the ones buying the Washington Post have stopped reading it over the past ten years in droves.
The scary thing is the world that the Washington Post candidates have left us. Deflation is killing the world because lots of things that had value are shown to be worth much less. Just wait until the US government stops supporting colleges or drugs. Boom. Just wait until the fed runs out of ways to monetize its dept, boom.
The reality is the people who we have elected lately were Fabian candidates. Pretty boys who fit the suit and could lip sync from cue cards. Those people sold the American citizens to lobbyists, and foreign governments, and government retirements. And to keep their pyramid scheme going they need to import workers by the millions.
-PJ
Should it scare us more than the realization that the American electorate elected not once, but twice:
An unknown, obscure, unaccomplished, radical, racist, lying, Alynskyite, pathologically narcissistic, thin skinned, vindictive, anti-American candidate who has embarrassed and alienated our friends and encouraged our enemies while orchestrating a flood of illegal aliens and unwanted, undesirable refugees, and while doing all this, has managed to saddle our country with so much debt it will never, ever be repaid?
Should we be as scared as all that?
“Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders offer convenient scapegoats and simple-sounding solutions.”
We’ve tried complex-sounding solutions MY ENTIRE LIFETIME and they haven’t worked all that great either.
Perhaps a simple solution or two is really all that is needed?
Right...I posted at #34, but didn’t see yours first.
How true.
Self-awareness is not a common Washington characteristic.
Folks this comes from the WaPo editorial board and not a mere opinion piece from one of their polluted lackeys. This is as Washington Cartel inside the beltway as you can get and speaks volumes. We so need to remove them and theirs from their perches and positions of influence. They should be Lois Lerner’d into submission, purged and forced into our version of “diversity classes” and re-education camps “lite”.
It really is bizarre; Obama needed a teleprompter to speak to young schoolchildren, but he is “qualified”? When the Paris terrorist attacks occurred, he said the French shared our values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - then the white person working the teleprompter corrected him with liberty, equality, and fraternity, which he promptly regurgitated.
Token idiot.
I like it when the WaPo is scared.
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