Monday, March 11, 2019

Laugh now, but. . .

Kurt Schlichter, discussing the antics of the Big Three (AOC, Omar, Tlaib) strikes again:
Not only does it rile up Nancy because these clumsy radicals have stolen the spotlight and made it immeasurably harder to pull off her “We’re sensible” scam on the swing seat suckers but it rankles because none of these debutantes have paid their dues. Nancy and the rest of her leadership worked for years and years accumulating power, rising through the ranks, and when they finally regained power suddenly these newbies who paid no dues but have a lot of Twitter followers showed up and took over the Democrat agenda. That’s got to be infuriating, and you can see it when Nancy talks about them – she can’t say it out loud, but you know what’s running through her mind is, “Who the hell do these upstarts think they are?”

Well Nancy, they seem to be your party’s future.
And if you doubt the heartburn it's causing the "sensible" types who got elected in the "Orange Man Bad" reaches of suburbia, consider Exhibit A, Dean Phillips, as reported in a perceptive profile from Politico Magazine:
Like many rookie lawmakers—at least, those of his moderate tribe—[Phillips] doesn’t want to rock the boat. Those Democrats who flipped red districts campaigned on promises not to clash emptily with Republicans; the irony, of course, is that they arrived in Washington only to realize that the g. reater threat to their jobs is coming from the left flank of their own party.

Phillips approaches the subject like he approaches every other political subject: gingerly. “It’s creating some interesting challenges in that some very young and new members have followings. Two people, their collective following exceeds the entire remainder of the Democratic caucus,” he says, deploying some digital hyperbole in referring to Omar and Ocasio-Cortez. “By definition, they become to the public the voice of a party, they become even de facto leaders of a party.”

As if this point isn’t explicit enough, Phillips adds, “This majority was achieved not by winning in AOC’s district or Ilhan Omar’s district, [but] by victories in districts that had not been terribly favorable to Democrats in the past. … So if there’s a tension in the party, it’s how do you maintain that majority?”
Let's assume, for sake of argument, that Phillips is sincere. In that case, he really should have primaried Erik Paulsen. But that wouldn't have worked, so instead he boarded the crazy train. I have no sympathy for Phillips at all; he should be made to defend his colleague Omar at every turn, or, if he really has the courage of his convictions, he should start denouncing her. But he won't. Dean Phillips wanted to be a Congresscritter in the worst way, and now he has his wish.

Back to Schlichter (emphasis in original):
The moderate Dems will have to turn on the radicals or get turned out. It already happened once as a couple dozen Dems joined Republicans to add an amendment to a gun grab bill that mandated reporting illegal aliens to ICE if they tried to buy a firearm. Ocasio-Cortez and her group opposed it. In fact, the Lil’ Kommissar even threatened to put these rebels on a list to be terminated (via primary now) for daring to *squints real hard* want to report to immigration authorities any illegal aliens trying to illegally buy guns.

Do it, AOC. DO IT
Nothing like intra-pinko cannibalism. Turn the Democrat Party into the Donner Party. While you consume each other, I’ll be here gobbling cruelty-free, carbon neutral popcorn.

But, of course, there is always a chance that things don’t go the way we hope, and that there are enough historically ignorant suckers in the big blue cities to allow these freaks to take over the levers of power. Sure, the Democrats’ pain is hilarious, but the fact that a major political party has surrendered itself to the zealots of an ideology that has murdered 100 million people is not so hilarious. Maybe if the socialists get in charge here, they won’t bring misery and murder. Maybe the ones in Congress now are so smart and competent that they can actually make this blood-splattered ideology work. But it’s going to be a hard sell for the Dems to get us to bet our lives on it.
It's not funny at all.

5 comments:

3john2 said...

Pesky first-time firebrands are not new to Washington. Think back to Wellstone's gadflying and shoving cassette tapes at Bush, or even Bachmann's arrival. There was a time when the Swamp had its ways of bringing upstarts into line either through committee assignments or discreet wood-shedding. This new "transparent", Celebrity Congress-critter era (transparent ambition, at least) perhaps derails that. Speaker Robespierre, I mean, Pelosi, may have bitten off more than her botoxed cheeks can chew.

As for Ilhan Omar, her big mistake as a politician is in letting people know what she is really thinking.

Mr. D said...

There was a time when the Swamp had its ways of bringing upstarts into line either through committee assignments or discreet wood-shedding.

If Pelosi had thought it through, she’d have put Omar on the Agriculture Committee and let Collin Peterson smother her with ADM chloroform. And now it’s biting them in the butt.

Unknown said...

Who would be upset if Omar was sent to Siberia/agriculture? Nobody that real should matter.

Bike Bubba said...

Technically, she already lives here in Minnesota. No? (a Ukrainian coworker of mine who keeps track of Moscow/Kiev temperatures told me that had the Germans invaded Minnesota, the results would have been about the same--except of course that the peasants in Minnesota are armed)

And as a former owner of farmland, I'm pretty glad that Omar isn't on that committee. Farming is screwed up enough without her "help". And as a conservative, I'm even gladder that Omar and Ocasio-Cortez are becoming the voice of the Democratic Party. It has the chance of being as beneficial for conservatism as Hilliary's abortive attempt to nationalize healthcare in 1993-4.

Mr. D said...

And as a former owner of farmland, I'm pretty glad that Omar isn't on that committee. Farming is screwed up enough without her "help".

That's the point, of course -- she wouldn't help. She'd pout instead and contribute nothing, which would be an improvement on what she's doing now.