At one time, academic historians were in general agreement that President Lyndon Johnson would be recognized as the greatest of all presidents. A few funerals later, he's probably fallen to the stature of a minor post-Rooseveltian. Perhaps one reason is that the Great Society's record is not what the true believers would have others believe. I am on record as attributing much of the now-missed-by-self-styled-"progressives" unionized, monopolized, and cartelized 1950s to the unusual position the U.S. economy enjoyed after World War II.That post foreshadowed the "victory dividend" line of argument I have subsequently used. Having the resources to attempt to build back better is one thing, but it's not the same thing as having the knowledge to do so, and the capability to make it happen.
The "wouldn't it be nice" ratchet has been screwing over people much longer than that: the interstate highways, and urban renewal, and the Great Society, and the story is always the same: self-congratulation over good intentions never compensates for bad policy. Go, read and understand Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Anointed. I'll wait.That's the tragedy. What are the elements of the farce?
Let us begin with Cornel West offering himself as a non-Democrat, non-Republican option for the presidency.
West, a political philosopher — and consummate agitator — has been attacking Biden from the far left, describing the embattled president’s administration as simply a “postponement of fascism.”I'd strike that "postponement of" on the basis of Dementia Joe's Independence Hall rant, and the fits of pique he engages in whenever Congress or the Supreme Court exercise their Constitutional powers, but I digress.
In addition, West continues to make a clear and effective race-based argument against the Democrat Party, correctly — in my not-so-humble opinion, accusing the party establishment of treating the Black electorate like “a plantation where you got ownership status in terms of which way you vote.”
Spoiler: West’s argument is not only correct, it has been correct for six decades, beginning with President Lyndon Johnson’s disastrous 1965 War of Poverty and continuing downhill ever since.
Rather, there are some of us old enough to remember what worked in the wake of failed technocracy of the 1960s and 1970s.
As recently as the Eighties, we had a pretty good lesson on what works with regard to economics and how to knock back inflation. What’s needed now is economic growth and reduced government spending, but the former is anathema to Democrats and honestly, neither party has done much of anything about the latter.No to that second count, and there is plenty of blame to go around. I'm also old enough to recall the final years of the American High, and at the time Received Wisdom was that the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Interstate Highways were good use of public money. Oops.
As long, though, as people believe that Spending Public Money will accomplish Good Things, there will be Democrats to run on that manifesto.
To the approval of the cheering section.
In Philadelphia on Thursday, Biden gave us a taste of how he was going to run on “Bidenomics.”That plan? Piddle away energy independence, print money, subsidize cronies, and browbeat productive people for not paying enough taxes.
“I’m not here to declare victory. We got a long way to go in the economy,” Biden said. “I’m here to say we have more work to do. We have a plan that’s turning things around pretty quickly. Bidenomics is just another way of saying ‘restore the American dream.’”
Mr. Biden was nominated by the Democratic Party bosses as an un-frightening figure to set atop Bernie Sanders’ socialist program and to hide in his basement while the Democratic machine staged an epic triumph of ballot harvesting. He didn’t see “to the ravages of the pandemic;” he aggravated them even after Trump had produced a vaccine three years ahead of what had been projected.Perhaps so, as the old-time religion still has purchase in the electorate. A few days ago, Georgia's Representative Greene fired up the fans at a Turning Point, suggesting that Our President intended to complete the New Deal. The social media types in White House communications promptly found a few clips of Dementia Joe's lucid moments, and put out a quick message: Indeed.
Yet [Peggy Noonan's] concern is justified: the weary and befuddled people of the great United States of America simply cannot notionally look themselves in the mirror next year and reelect a senescent, sticky-fingered, ill-tempered, spavined, pocket-borough political wheelhorse who in his prime had trouble with the truth, elemental elocution, and complex issues, to four more years as president. Presumably the same puppeteers, fixers, and election managers who picked Joe Biden out of the ditch three years ago after he came fifth in the New Hampshire primary with 11 percent of the vote, and installed him as the candidate, can execute the same trick in reverse.
I approve this message. pic.twitter.com/f1q5giNM8j
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 18, 2023
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