I have been watching the gradual, then sudden, dissolution of a political party. My parents were Democrats. They were shocked when they learned I had voted for Richard Nixon in 1960. Jimmy Carter was a failure as a President but I wasn’t really worried about the country when he was in office. His actions with Iran and the Panama Canal were harmful but they were a matter of policy. Ronald Reagan, not a governor I was fond of in California, was a successful president. He was able to work with the Democrat Party in spite of some far left loonies like Chris Dodd. Many of the far left members of the Democrat Party favored communists like the Sandinistas but they were kept in line by the old pols to whom graft and spending were more important. Tip O’Neill would let Reagan win the Cold War as long as Reagan let the Democrat Congress run up the deficit.
Bill Clinton changed much of this dynamic in two ways. First, he was a lot more ideological than previous presidents and second he was incompetent at it. Clinton is a very smart man but his wife, Hillary, was far too obvious in her corruption. First the 900 FBI files, then the White House Travel Office. Both were scandals that primed him for a big loss.
Then the 1994 elections turned the Congress over to the Republicans and we learned how little they were interested in Conservatism. They accomplished nothing before being ousted by Democrats in 2006. This, of course, was followed by the housing and mortgage collapse of 2008. There was some attempt by Bush administration officials to rein in Congress and the debt explosion but it was probably too late anyway. The 2008 election placed Congress in Democrats’ hands for the first time with a Democrat president since 1974. Clinton’s two years did not result in much happening. The first Obama Congress spent like drunken sailors but were quickly reined in in 2010.
What might happen if Biden won the presidency and the Democrats got a majority in the Congress ?
In the past until now, there was zero chance that the hard Left would ever win an American election. No socialist has ever come close. Even Bernie Sanders accepted that the Democratic establishment for six years broke rules, leveraged candidates to drop out, and warped the media to ensure that he would remain a septuagenarian blowhard railing at the wind from one of his three houses. George McGovern was buried by a landslide. Most Democrats, after Kennedy and until Obama, never won the popular vote unless possessed of a Southern-accented hinting at centrism.
Only the Great Depression and World War II ensured four terms of FDR, who still knew enough not to let his house socialists ruin the wartime U.S. economy.
But in perfect storm and black swan fashion, the coronavirus, the lockdown, the riots, anarchy and looting, all combined with Trump Derangement Syndrome to be weaponized by the Left—and the media far more successfully than with their failed pro forma, legalistic efforts with Robert Mueller and impeachment to destroy the Trump presidency—have pushed socialism along.
I thought Obama was an empty suit. Biden is an empty head.
Who is behind all this and why ?
Why would any socialist go after the sympathetic mega-funders of the Washington Post, the Atlantic, Google or Apple News, Twitter, or Vox?
Left-wing billionaires are not so strange as we might think. After all, they can afford to be socialists. They like the idea that fewer may follow in their footsteps. They think social activism offers them penance for their hard-driving acquisitiveness. Most of all, they feel their knack for making money is proof that they have the wisdom, the right, and the need to redirect the lives of less successful others—and for the good of all.
Otherwise, the plutocratic class will spend hundreds of millions—a proverbial drop in the bucket in their fortunes—to consult with lawmakers about how to avoid their own progressive legislation and policies. It will hire phalanxes of tax lawyers, trust evaders, and philanthropy scammers that will make the architects of the Clinton Foundation seem a poor joke.
The real enemy in 2021 would be the upper-middle-class as it always is, the kulaks—and not really the professionals such as the lawyers, media grandees, and professors—although many should expect to become collateral damage.
I tend to agree with this analysis. There is a small club of super rich right now who seem determined to rule the rest of us. Why ? I think it is the arrogance of those who think they are much smarter than the vast majority. Some of this is true but there is also a tendency for those well informed in one field to assume they are equally well informed in others. They may also assume that knowledge in one area is more important than another. A nuclear physicist may not know how to change a tire or to install a new garbage disposal. We used to laugh at absent minded professors but those absent minded individuals may have the power of life and death over others who will be afraid to laugh.
Democrats who might have been wary of the promises of Socialists and impractical dreamers before seem to think that a faceless, nameless bureaucracy will run things efficiently in spite of extreme policies offered as the rationale for governing.
I would not be so sure of that.
The principalagent problem, in political science and economics, (also known as agency dilemma or the agency problem) occurs when one person or entity (the “agent”) is able to make decisions on behalf of, or that impact, another person or entity: the “principal”.[1] This dilemma exists in circumstances where agents are motivated to act in their own best interests, which are contrary to those of their principals, and is an example of moral hazard.
The Founders were well aware of this problem and tried to protect the citizens with certain provisions of the Constitution.
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
Democrats seem willing to put in place an anonymous bureaucracy. Some of this is simply Trump hate but some is the downstream results of Progressivism 100 years after it should have died.
Great analysis of the past leading to today. As to the Trump vitriol I think that (A) he was unexpected and it was assumed that Hillary would have cemented Obama’s changes (mainly by executive fiat), and (B) Trump fights like the Dems do 0 throws it back at them which was unexpected.
But I have talked with a number of people who have traditionally voted Repub and they don’t like his contentious manner. Does that mean they will vote for Biden?
I don’t think so.
You are absolutely right in that the absence of the Scoop Jacksons has allowed the party to go full-tilt left.
In the mid-1990s, I worked around a Scoop Jackson-esque “true believer” Democrat. Good guy, retired veteran, DA civilian. Active in the Democratic party, working his way up the hierarchy from precinct worker to bigger things in the Washington State Democratic Party. He was always proselytizing the Party, which I found annoying, but he was a good guy. He could not see any blemish on the Democrats, in any way–They were his heroes, and the Republicans were all the caricature “baddies” to hear him talk. He was always the “cheerful warrior” for the Democrats, a decent man and fairly good-natured about everything political. You could discuss things with him, and he’d be open to it, none of this “cancel culture” BS we have today.
Sometime around the middle of the Clinton Administration, he got picked up to go back east for some party function–A two-week or so seminar of some kind for people identified as up-and-comers in the party structure. I don’t know what the hell went on there, but when he came back, he was a changed, far more somber man. He quit saying anything even remotely positive about the Democrats, and he gradually withdrew from working for the party until he was pretty much just your normal politically inactive guy. He was actually embarrassed to admit being a Democrat, there at the end of the time I was around him. I never could get him to comment about whatever it was that he witnessed or participated in during that training/indoctrination seminar, but something there changed his life.
Only thing I ever got out of him about the whole thing was a distressed statement to the effect that “…they’ll be hunting Democrats through the streets with dogs, one of these days… And, they’ll be right to do it…”.
I’m really not so sure I want to know what he saw, to tell the truth.
In the mid-1990s, I worked around a Scoop Jackson-esque “true believer” Democrat. Good guy, retired veteran, DA civilian.
My father-in-law was like that. He was active in the California party and knew Hubert Humphrey. He worked for Hughes Aircraft and was in the Army Reserve, ended up a Lt Col. I cannot imagine him in this party.
Only thing I ever got out of him about the whole thing was a distressed statement to the effect that “”¦they’ll be hunting Democrats through the streets with dogs, one of these days”¦ And, they’ll be right to do it”¦”.
The first part of the quote is originally from Phil Gramm.
The second part is his assessment of whether it would happen.
Phil Gramm was also one who saw the light.
William Philip Gramm (born July 8, 1942) is an American economist and politician who represented Texas in both houses of Congress. Though he began his political career as a Democrat, Gramm switched to the Republican Party in 1983.
The Clintons were brazenly corrupt. Obama is a product of the thoroughly corrupt Chicago machine. Biden’s entire family has been enriching itself for decades.
What do the Democrats want?
To continue to loot the system, that’s what.
Duh.
What Brian said – that and to continue in power so as to continue the looting.
Never mind that this would reduce the US generally as places like Baltimore, Detroit and St. Louis are already reduced. As long as they are still in charge.
It isn’t just the sneaky, behind the scenes underhandedness or the nepotism and the ineptness, ala Gruber, Ben Rhodes.
It isn’t just that the “Rules are for thee, but not for me.” Hillary is the poster child.
It isn’t just about the useless top heavy, regulatory state, serving the entrenched interests, and favored Special Interests, while suppressing growth and American competitiveness.
It is about the willingness to denigrate and demonize the Middle while stiffing them, people whose only crime is their increasing alarm over their own livelihoods and the future standard of living for their children. I guess they are just not down with their children being leveled to stoop labor. Think where we all would be if these people had their way on Energy Independence. The Middle would be on its knees. Sheesh. What is the economic rationale of a college education without worthwhile jobs. Republicans imagine everyone in the middle will become entrepreneurs, cattle trading speculators in the future’s market, join the military or ricochet between amazing dead end temp service jobs.
In addition, our political structure is a big cost shifting scam involving K Street, the government, media, even academia, foundations, NGOs etc. They get all the gain, but they offload the pain, by shifting the cost of their failures and misadventures onto the public. Mean while, the charities, foundations, and other non-profits game the tax code. As Eric Hoffer has pointed out, many worth while causes eventually turn into businesses, then into rackets.
I’m voting for 1)JOBS (real jobs that grow the pie), 2)as diversified an economy as is practicable, and 3)the “Bill of Rights. I don’t delude myself that Dems are down with any of my priorities and the Republican hierarchy, only very reluctantly.
What might happen if Biden won the presidency and the Democrats got a majority in the Congress?
We’ll survive. But it’s really unlikely that both of those things will happen. This isn’t 2008 and Joe isn’t …the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. Rather, he’s an old, worn out, lily white Democratic senator from a corrupt northeastern state who only appeals to old, white Democrats. Young Democrats will stay home in droves on election day and Trump will win the Electoral College again, which probably also means that the GOP will keep the Senate.
What do the Democrats want?
To continue to loot the system, that’s what.
Duh.
That is what Democrat politicians want. It was not my question. Why would Democrat voters want that ? The system, going back to Tammany Hall, was always a bargain that allowed some graft in return for relatively competent government. The early Irish immigrants in NY City needed help getting food and shelter. Tammany did a lot of that. Later, we see in “The Godfather” how the Mafia did something similar for the Italians. Democrats played both sides with blacks. In northern cities, they helped them while in the South they held them down.
Why do Democrat voters want this mess ? That was my question.
Most voters in your country would like health care. Democratic voters are more open about this. Your country has left far too many people behind. You do not take care of your poor and damaged. You mainly throw them in jail. You have the largest jail population, per capita, on the planet.
This is not how civilized countries operate. Your Democratic voters know this and would like some changes. Republicans too but they are much quieter.
So these chickens are the ones that are roosting, all over country. ;)
Oh stop, we all know that the keyword left out of nationalized healthcare is “rationed”. I doubt very much that MOST Americans would accept that. I have encountered nitwits that actually believe that if America nationalized healthcare that children with orphan diseases would be cared for and the families home free. Being the grandparent of a child born at 22 weeks, I realize that if he had been born in Canada, the UK, the Netherlands….anywhere but OZ or the USA he would have been snuffed or pushed into a dark corner to succumb.
PenGun is an example of the allure of “free stuff.” That’s all.
I have previously written at length about a useful reform for our system but it involves a market mechanism to control usage, anathema to Democrats. PenGun seems oblivious to the existence of a similar mechanism for Canada. I assume he is lying to conceal the fact that a single payer system does not work.
The Democrats had a chance at “reform” and botched it. The fact that 85% of the US has employer paid health plans and is satisfied with them is ignored. Obama care is an expanded Medicaid, a welfare system. The law was written to incorporate the employer plans into it but the Democrats knew that if they tried, they would find themselves being hunted with dogs, as the saying goes.
The Democrat voter does want things but has no idea how to get them.
It was a central tenant of Soviet propaganda that things were so much better than the benighted West. Their cars were so great that people would wait for 20 years to buy one. At one time I believe there was even a waiting list for the waiting list. Everyone here knows that is the exact model adopted by the Canadian “health” system. Since everyone dies eventually, how much can it matter? It’s free, isn’t it? Beggars can’t be choosers.
Does anyone her believe that Black lives actually matter to those behind and funding BLM? Not even the stooges in the streets can keep up a bare pretense. The only groups that can keep a straight face are the MSM and the Democrat leadership. The same party that stood off to the side of the KKK, always just close enough to exploit them for votes.
I hope Trent’s surmise that evidence is being gathered and resources marshaled for some sort of definitive action is correct. I also hope it’s more effective than the last 60 years of the “War On Drugs” where removing the “kingpins” just created upward mobility for the lower level.
“I assume he is lying to conceal the fact that a single payer system does not work.” I do my best to tell the truth. Our medical system is kicking your medical system all over the place, a classic single player system. It serves the Canadian population very well indeed.
A part of your inability to deal with the pandemic springs from the way your medical system is set up. You are really screwing up the corona virus response. To the point you have to fudge your numbers by denying the CDC its mandated authority, and bringing the numbers into a place they can be controlled. Among the worst in the world and we’ll see where your numbers go, no matter how you try to hide them.
Hunted with dogs. LOL. Kinda defines your pitiful right wing culture. I’m gonna go wander where the bears are today, I’ll give them your best. ;)
Most voters in your country would like health care.
Most voters in my country have health care.
A part of your inability to deal with the pandemic springs from the way your medical system is set up. You are really screwing up the corona virus response.
Here you go, Pen. The 20 worst deaths per million population from the Chinese Communist Party virus:
Which ones have a a full or partial government monopoly on health care?
You might like this site Roader: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
I’m not sure what your point is but Canada is near the bottom on that list and America near the top. I don’t actually believe your numbers anymore anyway, and I’m not alone.
The Democrats are not actually a hive mind.
There are decisions made at a high level, pushing the over all actions of The Party, and these decisions are made by individuals for personal gain. These individuals not extremely intelligent, and able to predict all consequences of an action. They are vicious infighters who are out for number one. In particular, they are wedded to the old logic of the political calculus, not aware to even look for whatever future logic comes from changing the political calculus.
Pelosi and Schiff are elected by San Francisco and West Hollywood. They are safe, 1. as long as gays think that the GOP will badly hurt them 2. as long as the GOPe is willing to apologize, and as long as GOP and independent voters take those apologies as a concession of wrong doing.
Trump is a pretty serious unwelcome surprise for them. Pushing so hard on “Trump will kill the gays” and “Trump will kill the blacks” is a political necessity for them precisely when uniformity of support is degrading among those demographics, and Trump stands a serious chance of picking up support there.
What results will actually happen? I have no clue.
Maybe we have some sort of realignment/preference cascade, and I couldn’t tell you how that would play out.
>Trump stands a serious chance of picking up support there
No he doesn’t. Sodomites, blacks, and Reform Jews all vote 80%+ hard left Democrat. They are the most loyal tribes of the left, and will remain so. Conservatives wheedling them and modifying their position to make it more palatable will not affect this; it is merely a form of political Danegeld. Conversely, no amount of Democrat treachery, destruction, or vandalism will change it. The most that can be hoped for is that their turnout will be sub-par for any given election. But it will not change how a single one of them votes. Not one.
PS: ‘Approval rate’ has no correlation with ones political affiliation.
This is the world we live in. Stop deceiving yourselves. It is infantile.
I don’t actually believe your numbers anymore anyway, and I’m not alone.
I don’t either, because pretty much they’re all generated by people who want to make Trump look as bad as possible.
Hence the inclusion of all most every death in those numbers as being caused by covid, and such events as the bizarre fraud coming out of Florida where every test taken in certain areas was positive.
And that’s just the fakery we know about.
How much more fraud is taking place, as yet unknown to the general public?
I bet quite a lot.
A part of your inability to deal with the pandemic springs from the way your medical system is set up.
Well done. Begging the question is one of my favorite logical fallacies.
“Well done. Begging the question is one of my favorite logical fallacies.”
Well thank you. I have seen costs of about $1000 for the test, for corona virus. Now that was a while ago and there has been some changes, but that seller claimed it was a bargain.
Is it possible that could affect how many poor people get tested?
I’m not sure what you’re looking for, Mike. You lived in California. You should be well aware that contemporary politics isn’t transactional, it’s tribal. You vote against the party that you think doesn’t like people like you. Things are starting to realign somewhat thanks to Trump, and if he cared more about politics he could have really moved that much further forward, but for now that’s the reality.
Brian, that may be an explanation for a lot of Democrats but I still see people who should know better and wonder if they really believe the stuff they seem to think. There is, of course, the possibility of a sort of tulip mania going on and that might be it. The super rich, who seem to be funding this, are immune from the consequences and I do wonder about motives. The flight from the cities has just begun and the results of that should be interesting.
The “super rich” think the GOP is the party of rural yokels and evangelical nutjobs, who don’t like them (and who they despise, of course). Totally tribal.
There’s a very strong class snobbery that Trump could be exploiting far better than he is. As discussed here previously, it’s a big part of the whole “white fragility” idiocy–the liberal whites trying to differentiate themselves from the white trash.
Brian, I agree about the rich. There is a biography of FDR called “A Traitor to his Class.” by a leftist historian named Brands. The first half is pretty good but once it gets into the administration and the Depression, it is unreadable. All leftist twaddle.
To some degree that fits Trump but he has never had illusions about who he was and where he came from. A fair number of billionaire tech people, like Brin and the Google CEO are not Americans and seem more comfortable with a medieval society. Soros seems to be another example. There have been a few stupid marketing decisions by foreign born/raised executives, like the Gillette thing about trannies. Some is just cultural.
}}} I’m not sure what your point is but Canada is near the bottom on that list and America near the top. I don’t actually believe your numbers anymore anyway, and I’m not alone.
a) handwave.
b) Canada is in the upper part of the bottom third and America is right in the middle of the list. Don’t wank off so hard.
c) yes you are. I can’t recall anyone here showing you any respect in like 4-5 years…
Delusion. ALSO not a river in Egypt.
}}} The flight from the cities has just begun and the results of that should be interesting.
PostModern Liberalism is a social cancer. Literally, not figuratively.
Now it’s metastasizing, as people in Cali leave and infect other states with the same lunatic idiocy that has been ruining Cali for decades.
Notice the steady shift leftward of AZ, NV, and TX. Notice the nearly absolute swing of traditionally conservative VA, wagged by the outflux of DC bureaucrats.
Or did you mean “interesting” in the apocryphal Chinese proverb sense of the word? I suspect it’s going to be violent, no question.
Now it’s metastasizing, as people in Cali leave and infect other states with the same lunatic idiocy that has been ruining Cali for decades.
I think that phase is over. A lot of California wealthy leftists went to places like Colorado in the 70s and 80s and moved the politics way left. Much of this is the attraction of expensive resorts like Aspen. Those leaving now, like us and my younger son, are escaping the destruction and unlikely to bring the virus with us. Texas is an example of your point, I agree, but Austin seems to attract the techies. San Antonio has always been deeply corrupt. I have family in Oregon and, outside Portland and the college towns, it is pretty conservative.
Hey how ya doin’? That would be a) I guess.
For b) With our universal medicare we have had not bad results, they could have been better. You have horrible results with your medical system and its getting worse.
Respect. I guess that’s c). I am baffled as to “yes you are” but respect is given or not, I don’t care, its up to you. You may have noticed continued insults, seem to bother me not at all. ;)
I don’t actually believe your numbers anymore anyway, and I’m not alone.
Pen, the Worldometer numbers you linked to and the RealClearPolitics numbers I linked to appear to be the same although it looks like RCP left some tiny countries out. Worldometer deaths per million population:
San Marino: 1238
Belgium: 847
UK: 674
Andorra: 673
Spain: 608
Italy: 581
Sweden: 564
Peru: 552
Chile: 476
France: 462
USA: 453
Brazil: 409
Netherlands: 358
Ireland: 357
Sint Maarten: 350
Mexico: 339
Ecuador: 312
Panama: 300
Isle of Man: 282
Channel Islands: 270
Armenia: 240
Canada: 235
Switzerland: 228
North Macedonia: 224
Bolivia: 221
“Obama care is an expanded Medicaid, a welfare system.”
That doesn’t seem quite right. There was an expanded Medicaid portion, and my partner was accidentally signed up for it one year after I screwed up our income when signing up one year on the Exchange. We didn’t find That out until BC/BS cancelled her policy, that I was paying for, about halfway through the year, because, unbeknownst to us, she had automatically been put on Medicaid. I had to prove to them that she didn’t qualify for Medicaid, with a letter from them that our income was too high to qualify, before BC/BS could insure her again. Luckily, my previous profession had trained me how to browbeat bureaucrats.
But what we mostly see of Obamacare is the Healthcare Exchange, where we have to go every year to get her private healthcare insurance (inevitably BC/BS because they have good interstate coverage, and we live in two states). It costs us dearly, because of the adverse selection ramifications of covering uninsurables (and making too much money, so we don’t get a subsidy). But since she is probably still in that group, we are thankful that those who aren’t, but are still participating in the system, are essentially cross subsidizing her. She had literally been dropped for a single one week late insurance policy premium, and had been unable to obtain decent insurance at any price, for several years, until Obamacare and its Exchanges. I agree that there were much better ways of handling the preexisting condition problem, but we seem to be benefiting from it, and by the time that the entire system blows up, she will hopefully be on Medicare.
Proving that you can’t be on Medicare is the largest hurdle to sign up for Obamacare. The problem is that Medicare has an asset test whereas Obamacare doesn’t, and when states’ exchanges see an annual income <$50K then they automatically make you go through the Medicare asset tests, which are time consuming and intrusive. I've had to walk several retired friends through this mess and the best way to get kicked out of Medicare is to if necessary inflate your assets so you're well higher than the maximums.
The problem with the country by country death toll numbers, in terms of the US is that we have a federal system with 50+ different subsystems. The top three states in terms of deaths in this country: NJ, NY, and CN are all completely controlled by Democrats, and their governors did pretty much everything wrong that they could. They all had a policy of forcing nursing homes to accept known COVID-19 infected patients, turning them into charnel houses. (Likely because they cost Medicaid a lot less there than if they had remained in a hospital – esp since they had plenty of unused COVID-19 beds, including the Navy hospital ship Comfort). And, yes, they have the motorized Petri dish commonly called a subway system. In any case, drop out those three states (or preferably also subtract MA too) and the US ranking plummets.
Let me also note that Canada has a low rate of COVID-19 infection at least partially due to their population density, or actually lack, thereof. The lowest infection and fatality rates in this country are precisely in the states with the lowest population densities (and are often adjacent to Canada). MT here has a population density of maybe .5% of NYC, and infection rate of maybe 1%.
“ Proving that you can’t be on Medicare is the largest hurdle to sign up for Obamacare. The problem is that Medicare has an asset test whereas Obamacare doesn’t, and when states’ exchanges see an annual income <$50K then they automatically make you go through the Medicare asset tests, which are time consuming and intrusive. I've had to walk several retired friends through this mess and the best way to get kicked out of Medicare is to if necessary inflate your assets so you're well higher than the maximums.”
Medicare or Medicaid? Our problem was the automatic signup for Medicaid. We didn’t want it, and were happily paying the BC/BS premiums when that policy was cancelled out from under her because she had automatically been signed up for Medicaid. We are looking forward to getting her on Medicare in a couple years. A combination of Medicare and a good Medicare supplement (including Part D) for me seems to do a better job paying for things (esp drugs) than her Gold level BC/BS plan. At least so far.
Medicaid. Sorry. Under a certain income level, the Obamacare application process automatically makes the applicant jump through the Medicaid application process which is a royal PITA. Once you’re deemed not eligible for Medicaid, however, the Obamacare renewal is automatic and you’ll never have to deal with the Medicaid pass/fail process again.
Assets are key and the cutoff is ridiculously low. You can have an owned primary residence but you can’t have more than something like $3K in other assets.
I wish I could find the article but if I recall correctly Megan McArdle reported that after a year or so of Obamacare, the vast majority of people who got actual new insurance coverage were covered by the Medicaid expansion portion of the bill. The exchanges largely cannibalized existing individual health insurance policies, had no impact on small groups, and (as far as I recall) no employers wanted to touch them.
The health plans destroyed by Obamacare were the small groups, many of which were subscribed by leftists, like orchestras and museum staffs. The “pre-existing conditions” ploy was mostly a PR venture to beat down resistance. There is no way such people can be insured. They used to be covered by risk pools and I dealt with them. That could easily have been fixed without blowing up the system for everyone else. The big problem with Medicaid has been the fraud but I am no longer involved in that.
Why do Democrat voters want this mess ? That was my question.
Great analysis. I’d say you can answer the question “Why” by looking at “who”. The current Democrat party is now a majority-minority party. Maybe not the leaders, but certainly the voters. Blacks, Latinos, Jews, Immigrants, Asians, etc. Add in the Gays and that’s pretty much the core of the Democrats.
And these Democrat minorities vote their identity. No matter what their economic status. As someone once said 50 years ago: “the Jews earn money like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans”. To these sexual, ethnic, Racial minorities to vote R would mean a betraying their “tribe”. They’re like the Old Southern democrats who would vote for JFK or Stevenson because the R’s were the Damn Yankees.
So, we get these “Yellow dog Democrats”. and the more immigration we have, the more we get. And This in turn gives the socialists in the party to freedom to go hard left. Elections are getting to be decided by demographics.
PenGun also ignores the fact that the US is the safety backup system for Canadian health. And not just For the well off and cutting edge surgeries either; for a while Billings Montana took care of the dangerous maternity cases for all Alberta and I think some of Saskatchewan too.
And no offense to Bruce Hayden here, but most Americans think of Billings as a pretty podunk place
Kirk, Spokane has an enormous health center, much larger than would be needed for the population of eastern Washington or even adding in the Idaho panhandle. Who do you think uses Spokane for healthcare ? It is the largest medical center west of Minnesota. There are nice bed and breakfasts in Spokane to cater to Canadians who come to shop and for health care. We used to refer to them as “Honkers”
PenGun doesn’t “ignore.” He lies.
Fair enough. And yes, I know about Spokane; I have acquaintances who work in healthcare there.
I used Billings as an example because — apologies to Bruce again ;-) — most Americans think of Billings as a more Podunk place than they do Spokane, and they think of Washington State as a less rural state than Montana.
If the US didn’t subsidize drugs, medical technology and national defense for Canada and Europe, they’d collapse. The smart Canadians and Europeans all know that they are enjoying free ridership on the Americans. If the US ever adopts their model of healthcare, everyone suffers a dramatic downgrade in quality of care.
The Democratic Party is made up of a coalition.
– College Educated Brainwashed – Mostly White
– Ethnic Minorities
– Unions
– Government Workers
– Media Elites
– Rich
– Hollywood
– Tech Elites
– LGBQ
– Globalists
– Atheists
– Environmentalists
– Moslem’s
– Liberal Jewish
– Never Trumpers
– Lawyers
– Chinese Grifters
– Internet Giants
Which is not the usual Marxist Class Structure.
Who Trump Appeals To:
– Small Business Owners
– Nationalist – USA First
– Blue Collar Workers worried about globalization
– GOP
– Christian Religious
– Jewish Conservatives
– Law and Order Voters
– Indians
Right now the Democrats need to get 95% of the Black Vote. My guess is Trump will get at least 20%.
Trump is also going after the Hispanic Vote.
Trump is forcing the large Democratic Cities to live by their own rules (Alinsky), and the soaring crime rate that resulted will help Trump.