Molly Ball’s article at Time.com gave me the giggles:
“I am very, very worried,†says Marianne Burke, a 62-year-old special-ed teacher. “I’m terrified. We’ve got to get it together as Democrats.†But she can’t make up her mind either: Buttigieg is inspiring but inexperienced; Klobuchar’s debate closing was powerful, but does she have a chance? She worries that the strong economy is giving Trump a boost and doesn’t understand why no one seems bothered by his outrageous behavior.
“I just want to be inspired,†she says. “I’m so tired of Trump and everything he represents. We need somebody who’s going to bring out the best in all of us.â€
Perhaps Buttigieg, who’s elevated inoffensiveness to an ideology, is the right vessel for this yearning for unity. But these days Democrats don’t feel like they can trust their own instincts. There’s a pervasive longing for a deus ex machina—something to free them from the pain of making this decision, with its awful weight. Won’t someone just figure it out for them?
If New Hampshire voters are concerned about making “the right choice”, they should worry no longer. They will make the wrong choice. There is no right choice. There are likes and dislikes but there is no one right choice. Where did they ever get that idea?
I hate to be judgmental but a very large number of people in New Hampshire, particularly southern New Hampshire, are actually tax refugees from Massachusetts. There is a characterization for fleeing higher taxes and then voting in support of them: cognitive dissonance. They should change the license plates from “Live Free or Die” to “The Cognitive Dissonance State”.
Dave, you seem to be on a roll with some of your crisp closing lines!
Meanwhile, I’m having less and less of a clue what people really want, in light of our founding message being “Of the people, by the people….†especially after seeing a Bernie video showing the massive crowd he attracted in Whittmore Arena, Durham NH. It’s mind-boggling to believe a Bernie Bro government, one touting an enormous bureaucracy, can attract so many excited people to a primary event.
I think a lot of people are hungry for change. Me, too.
But I also know enough to believe that catastrophic change is unlikely to benefit me and mine or, indeed, most of the people who want that sort of rapid, major change.
I have Bernie fans in the family. I’ve explained that the most you can expect from his presidency is gridlock.
They all say that they don’t care. So be it. Drive the rich overseas.
They’re as angry as Trump’s voters.
Stock up on popcorn.
Agree with you, Dave. The Bernie Bros seem willing to at least talk about conducting a violent revolution if they do not get their man elected and if elected he’s not allowed to more or less peacefully impose his vision of governance on us. This is doubleplusungood. Violent revolution is not only destructive and deadly but usually ends in a tyranny far worse than the one revolted against. The French Revolution. The Bolshevik Revolution. The overthrow of the Shah. Call me apocalyptic, I hope we don’t have to find out the hard way why the Founding Fathers added the 2A to the Constitution.
“They should change the license plates from “Live Free or Die†to “The Cognitive Dissonance Stateâ€.”
Or, alternatively, the situation that seems to often pertain with progressives: taxes for thee, but not for me.
There is a huge enthusiasm gap. The Democrat candidates get “crowds” of dozens or hundreds, and Trump gets crowds of thousands, sometime tens of thousands. Bernie got only half the votes he got in 2016, and Trump vote total was twice as large as any incumbent, Democrat or Republican, previously.
That said, 50 years of communist indoctrination in our schools and colleges has produce two generations of people willing to vote for a communist. Half or more of my nieces and nephews in NH are at least socialists. It may not happen this year (pray to God it doesn’t), but it will happen. And we will follow Argentina and Venezuela into economic collapse.
“two generations of people willing to vote for a communist”
Damn straight! I stay up late every night polishing my hammer and sickle. After the gay witches leave and we have killed a few babies at the order of the VA governor. Good times!
Steve