You’ve read that Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the main challenger to Joe Biden. You’ve heard that his idealistic volunteers will light up the political world with their noble principles, as they did in 2016, and perhaps upset Biden and ride to the Dem nomination on a bubble of socialist fervor.
You’ve heard wrong.
The reason none of that is likely is that the vast majority of Bernie supporters are made up of only two constituencies: old hippies and gullible youngsters, neither dispositive in this fight. The hippies are trying to relieve their blood-soaked youth when their moral and physical cowardice consigned millions of people in Southeast Asia to communist slavery if not death. The toddlers are just very dumb and will not turn out to vote in any case.
As they have little life experience but live within a pop culture that tells them they are precious and brilliant, one could possibly give them a pass for buying into the market-driven narcissism that defines their essentially voyeuristic lives. But view them as a political force?
Yeah, right.
During the time of the student tumult of the late 1960s, when the student-left marched countless children to Washington to demand the U.S. abandon those who had trusted us all over Asia, it was thought that voters in their 20s or younger mattered in elections and that their power would give that warmongering rascal Nixon a kick from office in the 1972 presidential election. Well, it kinda didn’t work out that way. Nor has it since.
You see, the marches were a fun way to skip class and impress dull-witted contemporaries with your commitment to the cause. However, did the scruffy malcontents find the energy and follow through to get off their ass and actually vote in the numbers their parents did? Uh, no.
That’s why Nixon won 49 out of 50 states that year and proved forever the virtually mythical quality of the youth vote. It is the same today. I mean, have you seen those kids?
Pink-haired, tattooed, and pierced through the frontal lobe, conformist to the core they parade in childish lockstep for old man Bernie from Vermont via Moscow. They and their lost cause elderly hippie associates will give the senator some glamour, as the Bolshie press showers affection on the candidate they wish could win.
Though when homeowners, people in business, professional people, people in the trades, etc., you know, grownups, vote in the Dem primaries it won’t be for a doddering socialist who yearns for the prosperity and stability of Caracas. It’ll be for one of the new crop of socialists who know much better how to hide their views to make them palatable. The disgraced 44th president taught them that.
Sanders may be a king or queenmaker. He may give a rousing convention speech. He may even get a cabinet slot, probably some slum like Labor, if they win. But he has no chance whatsoever of being nominated.
He knows, and anyone who understands politics knows, he’s just along for the ride.
Update: As of press time 5:08 EST Friday morning, Theresa May steps down as UK prime minister on Friday, June 7th as a 50th birthday present to Jacob Rees-Mogg. Her ending in tears resignation statement, though viscerally defensive and a bit PC, was generally dignified.
The Tory leadership race begins. Let’s hope May does not pull a “Love Actually” PM move during the president’s upcoming visit.
The most important part of this dramatic international development? I have a serious crush on Beth Rigby.
More on this story on Monday.
