Democrat purity tests are no way to beat Trump
It wouldn’t be a surprise if at least one Democrat woke up this morning and began to think about voting for Donald Trump in November.
As outlandish as that sounds, Trump can at least claim to represent something much closer to the norms of American life than some of the wax saints lined up on the stage in Nevada last night. Trump might be (and is) an appalling creature but at least his flaws are circumscribed by our vulgar nature; better a little body chemistry than some abstract notion of goodness that only exists in the minds of the most zealous advocate of #MeToo cultthink. Forget about politics being the art of expediency or this contest being about beating the most lawless president in American history come the election in November. It wouldn’t have been out of place had Elizabeth Warren dragged a valet on stage who had cleaned Mike Bloomberg’s car circa 1982 and could report that Bloomberg had indeed used a non-PC term while filling out 22 across of his New York Times crossword. America can burn as far as some of these Democrats are concerned. They’re far too busy staking another sinner out under the sun.
Some of the blame must rest with Bloomberg who didn’t have a good answer when asked about NDAs holding former employees to silence. One wonders why he wasn’t adroit enough to make the easy and obvious pivot to attacking Trump. “Am I perfect? No. But am I better than that louse in the White House? Damn right, I am!” Where were the highly paid consultants prepping him what was the most obvious attack?
That will be the big headline of the day but it also misses the larger point. If you’d have forgotten, you’d have been hard-pressed to remember the name of the sitting president whose was barely mentioned during the two-hour debate.
Elizabeth Warren’s sanctimonious piety reached new levels, scolding the impure Blumberg in the nave of whatever church she’s erected around her personal safe space. It was risible to witness. Joe Biden joined in, looking more like the fighting Joe supporters had hoped to see from the beginning. Maybe he’s back. Perhaps he isn’t. It was, nevertheless, sad to see him join the circular firing squad that Barak Obama had warned about. These were the purity tests.
If you’ve lived a life in which you’ve never had an impure thought or said something you might later have regretted, you’d have enjoyed Bloomberg’s torture. The question from out here in the real world, however, is how a guy worth sixty billion has managed to reach his eighth decade without at least one lawsuit quoting copious debauchery and a dozen Playboy models. A few NDAs blocking some misjudged comments might seem like a trivial reason to invalidate him from a race against a self-confessed “p***y grabber” yet, there he was: not contrite enough in this new age of chastity when Bernie Bros can lurk on the internet to send anonymous death threats to anybody who questioned the virtues of a guy who spent his formative years singing the praise of Soviet Russia.
By the debate’s end, Democrats had taken their biggest step towards ensuring that Uncle Bernie will be their nominee, almost destined to lose in November. It’s a victory and defeat easy to predict, not simply because we’ve seen it before with the equally cultish figure of Jeremy Corbyn, whose campaign was predicated on the same belief that revolution was fermenting. It wasn’t. Nor is there much evidence of it in the United States. Sanders engages leftist Democrats precisely in those areas where he alienates moderates.
To suggest, as Sanders did, that there was something shameful about building a multi-billion dollar company from nothing is precisely why this race is a farce. He might have had a point that it’s a “cheap shot” to conflate socialism with communism, as Bloomberg did here, but it’s not too cheap a shot. That will be Trump’s strategy come the autumn and there is simply no answer to it. Trump will scream “socialist” and Sanders will answer “yes”, perhaps bringing out the photo album of his trip to the glorious Soviet Russia of his younger years.
It might still be too early to write off the other candidates but none stood out. Bloomberg, certainly, emerges damaged from Nevada, though perhaps wiser too. The flagellation he received in Nevada might have gone some way to rid him of the evil spirits that supposedly dwell in the billionaire but obviously not enough to stop his opponents from whipping at his open wound.
If he is to rescue his candidacy, he needs to solve these problems quickly. It should be possible but nothing is certain. He shouldn’t have allowed those blows to land in the first place. Might he not be as prepared as his ad spending had suggested?
Pundits had Warren winning big on the night, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if her whispering piety doesn’t sit poorly with a broader public. Buttigieg was little better; another moralist dressed in moderate clothes. He attacked Amy Klobashar for having made mistakes. “Not everyone is as perfect as you, Pete!” she hit back. Again, network pundits didn’t like it. Some called it “childish”. Yet it was a genuine emotional response and a welcome break from the pre-packaged attack lines. At that moment, it was clear to see that there really is something worryingly about a man who thinks he can become Leader of the Free World at the age of 38, having been mayor of a city-that’s-little-more-than-a-large-town.
What is also clear is that these candidates are ready to destroy each other over the smallest failing or hint of moral impurity, thereby clearing a path towards Trump’s re-election in November. They’re enacting all the very worst traits of Democrats and, arguably, liberals in general. They’re so busy fighting their sanctimonious battles, they’re oblivious to the war that’s already slipping away. Too often it’s easy to think of the Trump presidency as an aberration or a mistake. Nights like Nevada remind us that he isn’t. America got the president that Democrats deserve.