Spare Me the Magical Thinking

Published at 23:30 on 21 February 2020

One one hand we have moderate and conservative Never Trumpers rooting for Bloomberg. At least the right-wingers who enabled Trump got a right-wing president out of their deal with the devil. The enablers of the centrist Trump won’t get bupkis. (Think that women, minorities, and progressives won’t get turned off big time by Bloomberg’s history of right-wing authoritarianism, sexism, and racism? Think this won’t hurt in enough key swing states to enable a second Trump term? Think again.)

On the other we have Bernie supporters looking more and more like a Bernie cult. I actually ran across a campaign on social media to get people to pledge not to support the Democratic nominee in November unless it’s Bernie Sanders. Yes, they are accepting pledges today. When Sanders has less than 1% of the delegates needed to secure the nomination. When voters in only two of the fifty states, and small states at that, have had their say so far.

I’ll sound like a West Coast hippie who’s read books on Buddhism for saying it (wait… I literally am a West Coast hippie who’s read such books), but: Such is the ability of attachment to blind people to obvious truths.

If you’re a conservative who is disgusted by Trump, you dream of being able to vote against Trump while also voting for right-of-center politics. Bloomburg is therefore a dream for you: a way to do that, even within the confines of a two-party system which would normally preclude that. This can easily blind you to how much Bloomberg himself is like Trump, and how impractical his candidacy really is.

If you’re a leftist, Bernie represents a longtime dream of being able to install a socialist in the highest office in the land. Again, this is something that the two-party system has normally precluded. This can easily blind you how much a liability the “socialist” label is likely to be in this general election, as well as how the checks and balances inherent in the US political system would act to severely frustrate any Sanders Administration’s ability to make and implement policy.

So much for understanding the cause. I just wish there were some way to wake people up and stop the tragedy I see unfolding.

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