Week 25 of the Quarantine
SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA – We have two pieces of bad news… both becoming clear over the last two weeks.
First, the Republican Party is dead. We’ll roll the corpse over tomorrow and have a look.
But sadly, the Democrats are alive and well.
Waste of Time
Here at the Diary, we try to ignore politics as much as possible. Like TV, Facebook, and dinner parties, they’re a waste of time.
Besides, we have no desire to take something away from anyone else, neither with a pistol or an election. If we can’t earn it – or at least steal it honestly – we don’t want it.
But many of our Dear Readers take their politics seriously. So, we’ll do our best to offend as many of them as we can.
Besides, politics is getting harder and harder to ignore. It muscles into our private lives like Antifa crashing a kumbaya singalong.
Left and Right are shooting at each other, while knuckleheaded politicians crash the economy… and trash our civil society, too.
Pathetic Affair
The Democrats’ big shindig, a week ago, was a pathetic affair. It was little more than a gripe fest aimed at Donald Trump (although Mr. Biden didn’t once pronounce his name).
The Democrats are convinced that Mr. Trump is a dangerous moron… probably the only thing on the whole agenda that they are right about.
Tulsi Gabbard won more delegates than Kamala Harris. But Ms. Gabbard dared to challenge the party’s Clintonesque warmongering… and endangered its support from the armed wing of the Deep State.
Ms. Gabbard may have some other good ideas, too, but we never got to hear from her; she was not invited.
And with her out of the way, the hacks and has-beens were able to pick up the old bones and gnaw away.
Inequality… racism… LBGT+ … free medical care… free this… free that – from eternal life to cheap broadband… they were for it all.
And they had a solution for every problem… even those that don’t exist. Joe Biden:
[I won’t] put up with foreign interference in our most sacred democratic exercise: voting.
“Sacred” is the right word. Like the virgin birth… Q Anon… and super heroes – you have to believe.
Patriotic Duty
For one thing, it takes a remarkable suspension of disbelief to think that foreigners would want to diddle with U.S. elections. “Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake,” said Napoleon.
In the upcoming election, we have a worn-out husk on one side, ready to go along with everything. On the other is a delusional grifter, who might do anything. Why would any foreign nation bother to meddle?
As for the voters themselves, it must take an amazing lack of self-esteem to want either of these clowns to tell them what to do.
“Can I buy a Chinese-made phone? Do I have to wear a mask? Can I go out of my house now? Should I save my money… or spend it? Should I hate the Russians? Should I send my boy to the Middle East so someone can shoot at him… or to Portland? Why is it so hard to make ends meet?”
Seriously? Do you want Joe Biden or Donald Trump to answer these questions for you?
Either way, here’s Biden’s answer:
We’ll have a national mandate to wear a mask – not as a burden, but to protect each other.
It’s a patriotic duty.
Really? A patriotic duty to wear a face mask?
Dumb as Ever
By this time in his speech, Joe Biden was rolling up his sleeves and getting down to business. Here’s his plan:
With modern roads, bridges, highways, broadband, ports and airports as a new foundation for economic growth. With pipes that transport clean water to every community. With 5 million new manufacturing and technology jobs so the future is made in America.
With a health care system that lowers premiums, deductibles, and drug prices by building on the Affordable Care Act he’s trying to rip away.
With an education system that trains our people for the best jobs of the 21st century, where cost doesn’t prevent young people from going to college, and student debt doesn’t crush them when they get out.
With child care and elder care that make it possible for parents to go to work and for the elderly to stay in their homes with dignity. With an immigration system that powers our economy and reflects our values. With newly empowered labor unions. With equal pay for women. With rising wages you can raise a family on. Yes, we’re going to do more than praise our essential workers. We’re finally going to pay them.
We can, and we will, deal with climate change. It’s not only a crisis, it’s an enormous opportunity. An opportunity for America to lead the world in clean energy and create millions of new good-paying jobs in the process.
Yes, Dear Reader, the Democrats are alive and well. And dumb as ever. They have one tired and ineffective solution to everything: more government.
Bad Math
But wait… how to pay for all this stuff? At least Biden did suggest a source of funds:
And we can pay for these investments by ending loopholes and the president’s $1.3 trillion tax giveaway to the wealthiest 1 percent and the biggest, most profitable corporations, some of which pay no tax at all.
Really? End loopholes and raise taxes on the rich? Is anyone able to add and subtract?
This year, the feds are closing in on a $4.2 trillion deficit – funded almost entirely by printing “fake” money. A little of that gap might be filled by raising taxes on the rich, but probably not much.
A substantial increase in tax rates – say, capital gains or death duties – would collapse the stock market. Instead of paying capital gains, the rich would be taking capital losses… and paying less tax.
And of course, the rich have lobbyists… with whom Mr. Biden is very familiar.
For many years, he was the go-to pol for Delaware’s big banks. And (along with Donald Trump) he’s a major recipient of Big Pharma/Insurance company campaign donations. No doubt, they still have his phone number.
The Real Problem
But the real problem with the Democrats’ get-together was not the usual hollow promises, double-dealing, and idea-free speeches. Those are what you’d expect.
But you might also expect that at least one person might have noticed that the U.S. is headed towards a fiscal/economic/social catastrophe.
Its financing scheme – covering huge deficits with printing-press money – has ruined every country that has tried it. And yet, not one word was said about it.
Michael Bloomberg attacked Trump’s economic record… and rightly so, but only to discredit The Donald.
Like the other speakers, he stuck to the basic template for the whole program – bemoan the problems of the poor, the unemployed, the downtrodden, the BIPOCs, the economy, the climate…
…but never question the real causes.
No one wondered why GDP growth is running at the lowest levels since WWII. Or why debt is growing more than twice as fast. Or why working-class wages are lower today than they were 50 years ago.
Or why there are now 30 million people on the unemployment rolls. Or why the economy might never recover from its current slump.
Or why the lives of so many Americans – Black and white – are so miserable… or how they might actually be made better.
Instead, like so much of the rest of American public life, the Democrats’ convention was fake… not really facing up to any of the problems and dangers now threatening the country… and not having any sensible idea of what to do about them.
Tomorrow: GOP. R.I.P.
Regards,
 |
Bill
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