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shakey1
07-24-2018, 06:17 AM
The Socialist Surge That's Not Coming

One of the really cool things about democracy is that voters tend to get what they want — which, um, can also turn out to be one of the really uncool things about democracy. A thing of real terror, if you want the truth.
I tiptoe past the presidential election of 2016 on my way to look at the democratic socialist surge that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez helped produce, supposedly, with her surprise primary victory in June over U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley of Queens and the Bronx.
So lavish, so gosh-durned ecstatic, are readings of the Ocasio-Cortez victory that, lo, last week the victorious candidate took to the trail with Bernie Sanders himself, hailing the new political dimension for which the two suppose Americans yearn.



In Wichita, Kansas, where candidate Ocasio-Cortez took up the cudgels for two local progressives, she and her "unapologetically left-wing message" (in the words of a New York Times correspondent) received whoops and huzzahs. "Change takes guts," she said. "What you have shown me, and what we will show in the Bronx, is that working people in Kansas share the same values — the same values — as working people anywhere else."
Well, we might want to keep certain things in mind, starting with the words "unapologetically left-wing message." American voters show a marked distaste for unapologetically left-wing messages, just as they do for unapologetically right-wing messages: however you define either one.

The immediate trouble here is the nature of the left-wing message that helped dispose of Rep. Crowley of the Bronx. Candidate Ocasio-Cortez doesn't advocate uprooting capitalism so as to replace it with "The Thoughts of Chairman Mao." She does have distinctly non-Trumpish — and for that matter, non-Bushian, non-Reaganesque, even non-Clintonian — notions.



Her progressive policy agenda includes: 1) Medicare for all; 2) abolition of the Immigrant and Customs Enforcement agency; 3) tuition-free public college; and, a little incongruously, 4) abolition of those privately owned prisons few voters have probably ever heard of.
She wants, in other words, a lot of your money: promising wonderful outcomes once she gets it. Sen. Sanders makes the same pitch. Neither refers specifically to "your money," but that's what it comes down to.
Donald Trump, it could be argued, made the political environment safe for over-the-top declarations: e.g., he was going to wall off Mexico from the United States and make Mexico pay for the wall. I am not sure anyone outside the Trump bedroom ever took such a ridiculous notion seriously. It was an attention-grabber. In the cases of Medicare and college tuition for everybody, things get dicier. You could do these things. They are personal — unlike a southern wall no one but immigrants would ever see. The personal stuff is what socialists like to do: something for you, something for her. At someone else's expense, naturally. The only folk likely to oppose it are fat cats, famous for their supposed wealth and theoretical indifference to the poor. They can go jump in the lake, making a soggy mess of their job-creating potential, but at least we'd have their money.
Or would we? Likely not. Beating up on people with ideas can make socialists feel very good indeed, but it butters no parsnips. No socialist economy in the history of the world has ever succeeded in the long run, as opposed to the feverish, over-excited short run, when it's easier for government to make promises than to plan for what happens if and when promises go awry. Cheers and accolades for the occasional socialist victor in politics don't contradict Margaret Thatcher's biting bon mot about socialists' running out of other people's money to spend.




It is not that better medical care and affordable college belong outside the perimeter of civilized political discourse. It is that some proffered answers to these challenges make sense, whereas others don't. It is that most Americans sense, at a glance, the deceptiveness of the promise to load their table with great gooey slices of pie in the sky: expecting voter gratitude in return. No wonder, I imagine, that polls show public preference sharply lessening for Democratic control of Congress.


https://www.creators.com/read/william-murchison/07/18/the-socialist-surge-thats-not-coming

Anti Federalist
07-24-2018, 06:43 AM
BIG mistake.

Do NOT sell these people short.

Most AmeriKunts are in favor of lots of "free" government shit.

Carlybee
07-24-2018, 06:48 AM
BIG mistake.

Do NOT sell these people short.

Most AmeriKunts are in favor of lots of "free" government $#@!.

And most are stupid and don’t understand simple commerce much less economics. Most of them just like the idea of protesting something so they can be an “activist”.

Anti Federalist
07-24-2018, 06:59 AM
And most are stupid and don’t understand simple commerce much less economics. Most of them just like the idea of protesting something so they can be an “activist”.

Exactly right.

Because of this, having no real job, business or responsibilities, it's easy to get them in the streets.

Freedom folks were joyous that we got 15,000 or so in the Ron Paul march years ago, after months of planning.

The Bolshevik left can get a half a million in the streets within a week.

Madison320
07-24-2018, 07:58 AM
BIG mistake.

Do NOT sell these people short.

Most AmeriKunts are in favor of lots of "free" government $#@!.

I agree and we're long overdue for a big economic downturn. That's going to give the socialists a huge lift. I can just see the narrative: "Bush crashed the economy and then Obama fixed it, now Trump and Capitalism wrecked it again."

Schifference
07-24-2018, 08:12 AM
And most are stupid and don’t understand simple commerce much less economics. Most of them just like the idea of protesting something so they can be an “activist”.

I think it is more like a sickness or disease. My son has very intelligent friends that have drunk the koolaid.

AuH20
07-24-2018, 08:13 AM
BIG mistake.

Do NOT sell these people short.

Most AmeriKunts are in favor of lots of "free" government $#@!.

Because they are economically illiterate. Many Obamacare supporters were dismayed when they realized that the 'Rich' weren't exclusively going to pay for the program. Sticker shock arrived in their mailbox.

Carlybee
07-24-2018, 06:05 PM
I think it is more like a sickness or disease. My son has very intelligent friends that have drunk the koolaid.


That too, although I think intelligence becomes very watered down once you've stopped thinking for yourself...ergo..a relative term.

Anti Globalist
07-24-2018, 06:44 PM
Don't underestimate the socialists. Even when you think they're done for, they always come back stronger.

AuH20
07-24-2018, 07:17 PM
For now. Human IQs are dropping and what to do you think they are going to grasp onto first?