The Patriot Post® · Take Sanders's 2020 Campaign Seriously and Literally
“We must make our election between economy and Liberty, or profusion and servitude.” –Thomas Jefferson (1816)
“I don’t mind people coming up and calling me a communist.” —Bernie Sanders
The 2020 Democrat primaries are upcoming, and a large field of Democrats have declared their presidential candidacies for the latest of the perpetual presidential campaign cycles.
Most notable among them are Elizabeth “Honest Injun” Warren, Kamala “The Toker” Harris, Amy “Staff Slayer” Klobuchar, Cory “Spartacus” Booker, and, of course, Bernie “Feel the Bern” Sanders.
Lesser known among the announced are Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, former HUD Secretary Julián Castro, Maryland Rep. John Delaney, wealthy New York Entrepreneur Andrew Yang and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
Yet to announce is Barack Obama’s former VP, Joe Biden, who will prove to be the moderate candidate in the field, and most likely the most “non-compos mantis” among them.
Contemporary Demo presidential primary strategy now dictates that the Left should field a lot of candidates with the objective of rallying each candidate’s respective constituency, and then folding all those constituencies into one massive amalgamation of identity politics idiots, a “collective constituency of dunces” as I fondly refer to it, in order to defeat the sitting president.
Recall that in 2016, the GOP’s contentious infighting between the primary losers and the unexpected victor, Donald Trump, prevented the successful merging of many of their respective constituencies. That notwithstanding, shockingly and thankfully, Trump narrowly defeated his leftist opponent, Hillary Clinton, with the help of his legions of “deplorables.”
But a major reason Trump won in 2016, despite the absence of many “Never Trump” voters from his primary competitors’ camps, was because Clinton and the DNC sandbagged Bernie Sanders, alienating many of his Millennial supporters. They protested at Clinton’s convention: “Hell no, DNC, we won’t vote for Hillary.” And, fortunately for our nation, many of them didn’t.
That contentious Clinton/Sanders battle is ongoing, as is the desire of many Sanders supporters for “justice.” This week, Sanders’s former presidential campaign spokesman, Michael Briggs, blamed Clinton cronies for leaking news that Sanders spent more than $350,000 for discounted private luxury-jet commutes. “You can see why [Clinton is] one of the most disliked politicians in America,” Briggs said. “She’s not nice. Her people are not nice. … They’re some of the biggest a—holes in American politics.”
Most likely the reason Clinton and Sanders lock horns is because they’re so much alike — both socialists — although only Sanders has the integrity to admit it.
Currently, the Vegas odds favor Kamala Harris to win the 2020 Demo primary, and there’s a conventional wisdom among some GOP armchair strategists that “The Bern” constituency is burned out.
But the naysayers are wrong. Sanders is leading a significant ideological shift in the Democrat Party.
In 2016, columnist Salena Zito wrote that Trump supporters “take him seriously, but not literally.” However, when it comes to Bernie Sanders, I highly recommend that his opponents take him seriously and literally.
Since announcing his candidacy, Sanders is crushing his opponents’ fundraising efforts, and his campaign has already signed up more than a million collectivist volunteers.
In his 2019 State of the Union Address earlier this month, President Trump singled out the populist drift toward socialism, declaring, “Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.”
This was directed most notably at Sanders and his rising-star protégé, 29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Ocasio-Cortez is the author of the latest iteration of the “Red Old Deal” supported by Democrats in the last century, which she’s recycled into the “Green New Deal” for this century. It’s a $93 trillion socialist scheme to bankrupt America.
Trump had good reason to use his SOTU platform to call out Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and the growing ranks of socialists in Congress: According to the latest Public Opinion Strategies survey, 77% of Democrats believe “the country would be better off if our political and economic systems were more socialist.”
Overall, 45% of voters hold that belief, while 51% do not. That’s a perilously narrow margin of voters who still embrace American Liberty. However, it should be noted that the vast majority of voters are bound not by deep ideological beliefs but by the winds of populist rhetoric, and that is what most polls reflect — what I call the “Pollaganda Effect.”
Offending all logic and reason, we have in our midst a new generation of unapologetic socialism deniers. They’re advocating the failed socialist policies of the past, which have created the urban poverty plantations that now, effectively, enslave tens of millions of poor Americans.
The once-noble Democrat Party platform is no longer one for the oppressed but one for the depressed, and that depression is now epidemic derangement.
Notably, Trump also affirmed our nation’s support for the people of a regional neighbor whose tyrannical socialist regime has left the nation in ruins: “We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom — and we condemn the brutality of the Maduro regime, whose socialist policies have turned that nation from being the wealthiest in South America into a state of abject poverty and despair.”
But Sanders and his sidekick are not retreating from their devotion to socialism and to Nicolás Maduro, even as he blocks humanitarian aid to the Venezuelan people.
Sanders was asked by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, “Why have you stopped short of calling Maduro of Venezuela a dictator?” He replied, “There are still democratic operations taking place in that country,” and then went on to condemn U.S. assistance there, saying, “The United States has a long history of inappropriately intervening in Latin American countries. We must not go down that road again.” But Sanders refused to tag Maduro as a “dictator.”
For her part, Ocasio-Cortez insists, “The U.S. should not anoint the leader of the opposition in Venezuela during an internal, polarized conflict.” Especially when you adore the current socialist dictator.
Looking toward 2020, when asked about a running mate, Sanders said: “I think we would look for somebody who is maybe not of the same gender that I am, and maybe someone who might be a couple of years younger than me, and somebody who can take the progressive banner as vice president and carry it all over this county to help us with our agenda, and help us to rally the American people.” (Kamala Harris, check your Twitter feed.)
In the meantime, he’ll team up with young Ocasio-Cortez and tour the primary circuits, larding his campaign with “useful idiots” of all ages and priming her as his socialist successor when she’s of age.
Bottom line: Sanders will be a significant factor in the 2020 election cycle. Last time around, Clinton lost to Trump in large measure because she lost so many of Sanders’s constituents. But in 2020, he’ll bring a big base into the primary.
Despite the Trump administration’s accumulation of a long list of MAGA accomplishments, the post-primary Democrat constituencies will combine around a unifying theme — “Hate Trump” — and on that, they can all agree.
And they’ll be backed by the Socialist Billionaire Club, which includes Jeff Bezos, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, and Tom Steyer. And, of course, they’ll have the full support of Leftmedia propagandists hell-bent on ensuring Trump’s defeat.
Should be another fun-filled election cycle!
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776