Why the Democrat Party Will Lose... Again

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari.)

Look, fatheads...

   We're all onto you. Maybe in your delusion bubbles, you don't think we are (and obviously, we don't know the extent of your corruption even though in 2016 the DNC had collapsed under the weight of it, a collapse most vividly delineated in the abrupt ouster of Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and being replaced with Donna Brazile, another corrupt right wing hack) but, yeah, we are.

   Every four years, every general election year, you decide in smoky, back rooms (No, Barry, you didn't do away with them. Far from it- You ran one out of your place in Georgetown) who the candidate is going to be. You ask corporate executives for their input as well as the hundreds of lobbyists and corporate and political insiders that make up the superdelegate pool. They aren't now, have never and never will tell you to anoint an actual progressive like Bernie Sanders. Not that that should be up to you or them.

   Ideally speaking, in an actual functioning democracy, unlike the Potemkin village erected every leap year like an aging, dilapidated traveling amusement park that quadrennially comes to town, it's up to the people. Maybe you didn't get the memo from 1824. But like that down-at-heel amusement park, it serves as a temporary meeting place for bad actors like local drug dealers and pickpockets and all the games of chance are so rigged so that you end up spending half your paycheck to bring back that Chinese-made stuffed unicorn for your girlfriend that you could've gotten at Walmart in a tenth of the time, with none of the frustration and for $1.99.

    Because this is what the Democrat nominating process is. The straw, push and, to a certain extent, even the exit polls are decided in advance and the anointed candidate asks for your vote not because they want you to (heaven forbid!) actually decide who the next president will be but so they can have enough votes to discard, knead and mold to their liking so hopefully their right winger and not the other right winger will end up at the top of what will surely become the dust heap of history.

    This time around, the similarities between the two candidates, to anyone who can actually bear to open their eyes from a tight monster-under-the-bed squint, are so stark that I'm sure more than one disgusted Democratic or Republican or Independent voter has seriously wondered, "What's the use?" And it seems from its actions that the Democrat Party and DNC invest more firepower, time and energy attacking guys like Sanders than they do the Republican.

    The change in attitude between candidate Trump and candidate Sanders was striking then and now. Trump was allowed to be interviewed without serious challenge even after mocking a disabled reporter, bragged about his hand size (hence another part of his anatomy), said John McCain wasn't a war hero because he was captured, that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue without losing any voters and dismissed bragging about sexually assaulting women on the Hollywood Access tape as "locker room talk."

      Bernie was compared to the coronavirus on CNN.

     And now, with Biden effectively out of sight and with none of Trump's always brazen visibility, Democrat insiders are already panicking when Biden's teleprompter goes down or he wanders off camera range or apologizes for even the mildest criticism of Trump. Now those same insiders are drawing a bead on progressive voters and preemptively firing salvos and blaming us for what will surely be yet another humiliating defeat for the Democrat Party. Cue "Blaming the Progressives" to the tune of Elvis Costello's "Watching the Detectives."

But, but... his age!

If there's any one single tiny patch of real estate on which the Trump campaign and Bernie Bros can peacefully coexist, it's that Biden's way too old for the presidency. And by that, I don't mean chronologically (Bernie, after all, is a year older than Biden) but mentally. 17 days after election day, Joe Biden will be 78, the same age Bernie is now. However, when Bernie threw his hat in the ring at Brooklyn College March 2019, the so-called progressive media jeered that he was too old yet didn't say the same of Biden when he doddered into the race.

   When Bernie had a minor heart attack and quickly got the issue resolved with a minor stent procedure after which he emerged healthier than ever, the media short-stroked it for several news cycles. But when a blood vessel in Biden's eye literally exploded on live national TV during a debate, hardly a mention was made in the 4th estate. It got plenty of virtual ink in the 5th but not the 4th where and when it would've mattered.

     Plus, unlike Biden, Bernie still has all his marbles and doesn't yell at and threaten potential voters, a clear hallmark and symptom of Alzheimer's. He's not once mistaken Jane for his sister, thought he was running for the Senate or woke up thinking it's 1920 again. And he doesn't need a teleprompter to tell him what to say because he's been saying the same things since the early 1960's.

     And the numbers aren't looking too hot for Biden. Less than a week ago, the NY Times (which, it ought to be pointed out, endorsed Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar), said, "While [Biden] has held consistent leads in most national and swing-state polls, they have not been altogether comfortable ones.” Part of it is a historically-wide 29% enthusiasm gap. Late last March, an ABC/Washington Post poll (pdf) discovered that 53% of Trump voters were "very enthusiastic" about voting for their man while only 24% of Biden voters could say the same.

     Republicans vote out of rage, Democrats out of fear of Republican candidates and incumbents. And we're always on our back foot cowering in the corner pissing in Mason jars because whatever Bogey Man right wing voters keep putting in office is bound to be worse by conspicuous relief to whatever Bogey Man (or woman) the Democrat Party tells us we need to rally around. Except that didn't play so well four years ago and especially less so now.

     Both are septuagenarian white men who snarl at voters when challenged about anything. Both have been accused of sexual assault. Neither had any use for single payer health care even during a historic pandemic that's killed 100,000 Americans. And, at least as far as Iraq and gun rights go, Trump's actually more in the progressive camp than Biden ever will be. But in case you needed convincing that Biden's not going to win this November in whatever pathetic, diseased sham of an election we'll be permitted to have, consider this:

     Biden's just asked Amy Klobuchar, the bluest of the Blue Dogs, if she'll consent to being vetted for the VP running mate position. Plus, Joe Biden's been caught telling one voter after another who differs with him, "Then don't vote for me." Because, after five decades in politics, Joe Biden is too senile to remember that when you're quoted on the internet telling one voter not to vote for you, you're actually telling 100,000 or 1,000,000 not to vote for you. Think I'm exaggerating? Remember a certain letter Camp Clinton put out in 2016 to Bernie supporters telling them she neither needed nor wanted their vote?

     Can anyone remind me how well that supreme act of arrogance worked come Election Day?