I can't believe anybody who watched it will come away thinking that Bloomberg is a good candidate. He got completely eviscerated. Liz Warren, whatever else you may think about her, is very, very smart, and definitely deserves her title as Harvard Law professor. She took Bloomie apart limb from limb, leaving him speechless and flustered. Bernie & Biden got in some good shots as well--Charles Hurt remarks that "it was almost like Mr. Bloomberg joined the stage to give Mr. Biden a hand. I mean, next to Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Biden came off like a brain surgeon."
Bloomie--visibly embarrassed--slunk off the stage at the end with his tail between his legs, He got very little air-time, and apart from calling Bernie a "communist" (true), he scored no punches. If debates count for anything this should end his campaign. I guess there's another one next week--we'll see if he even shows up.
Money will buy you a seat at the table. But after that a successful candidate has to connect with voters in some personal way. TV ads can never do that. The only candidates this round who have that personal connection are Donald and Bernie. Trump routinely draws crowds of thousands at his rallies, and that is the key to his success. The man is an expert storyteller and entertainer. He also has a compelling political message, which (contrary to rumor) is not far-right, but is instead dead center in the American political spectrum.
Bernie can also draw a crowd--I read that his Las Vegas rally scored 10,000. I don't get the attraction, but it's obviously there. None of the others--not Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar or Warren, and certainly not Bloomberg--can pull an audience.
So I think the election comes down to two competing visions for America, represented by Bernie and Trump. The odds strongly favor Trump given that Bernie is too far Left. But Bernie is a wildcard--he could pull off a victory. Some of his more reluctant supporters are suggesting "we should take him seriously, but not literally." That is, don't believe the hyperbole about Medicare for All, because that will never happen. What will happen is a change in the environment in which the current medical system works (or doesn't). I think that will be much for the worse, but it's not the same thing as a revolution.
Compare this with Trump (about whom Salena Zito coined the famous seriously...literally phrase) and his early promise to deport all illegal aliens. He's made no serious effort to do that. Indeed, I think actual deportations were higher under Obama. I don't think Trump was ever serious about that promise.
But Bernie just might believe his own bullshit. In that case his election will destroy the country.
By the way, I don't dislike Bloomberg. In terms of actual policy he's not that bad (apart from wanting to spend a trillion dollars on a mostly imaginary climate problem). His stop & frisk strategy was an anti-crime measure, not something racist, and arguably it worked. For a staunch supporter of gun control it's hard to imagine him doing anything different.
The Democratic Party is disintegrating before our very eyes. I'm not sure what will take it's place, but something will. Old-fashioned social democracy such as existed from Teddy Roosevelt through Obama is dying out--not just in this country but around the world. I suggest that's because since 1975 global economic growth per capita has slowed down, and in that environment people are less willing to pay taxes to support other people's welfare benefits. It's a much less charitable, zero-sum world that we live in today. Until and unless per capita growth can resume its earlier course, the call for ever more generous government bennies will fall on deaf ears.
Further Reading:
- Book Review: Capitalism Alone
- Book Review: Donald J. Trump
- Boring Jeff Mackler Runs for President Again
Note: Due to health issues, blogging may be light for the next several months.
No comments:
Post a Comment