Fighting Like Mad: The American Way

It seems that the American Way, certainly in Primary politics, is to fight like a cornered rat.  I see the ugly sight of Democrat candidates for president criticizing each other's economic policies.  Each other's foreign policies.  Health plans.  Plans to reduce gun violence.  Immigration Reform plans.  Education policies.  Voting Rights reform.

None of the candidates seem at all happy with how their fellow-candidates are approaching any problem.  Listen, kids: there just isn't enough space for each candidate to come up with a unique plan for each of these policy areas that's going to be any good.  I keep saying: yes, they have to have some sort of plan for each policy area, but they really should be open to adopting the best features of the plans put forward by their competitors.

But it appears that for any candidate to concede that one of the others has a good idea, brands him or her as a loser forever.  This is stupid.  Any one of their health plans is probably fairly all right.  They range from practically what we have now, to Medicare For All.  I personally think that Medicare For All would be wonderful--especially since I'm getting old, and need more health care each year than the year before; but some of the other plans are pretty good, too.

They're all unified in their approaches to gun control.  They all have similar approaches to reining in the unsavory practices of the big Wall Street investment banks.  They all have good plans for environmental policy reform, and energy, and for the economy, streets ahead of what the Republicans have offered for decades.

But in order for each of them to appear differentiated from the others, there seems now to be a temptation to adopt recklessly poor choices in their plans.  Rather than say: "I think a policy like Elizabeth Warren's would be what I like," they have to say things like: "Elizabeth Warren's plan is pure garbage; I have a better plan (which I rescued from the dumpster, but let's not talk about that,) which I have polished up."

I sincerely wish these candidates would relax, and give the audience at a debate a glimpse of  a face of someone we can happily vote for!  But the moderators seem determined not to ask them questions that would show them at their best, but rather to have them battling each other as fiercely as possible.  Why not give them knives, or Tridents, and put them in an arena?

Just last week, some commentators reported that some Democrat Supporters (read: big money donors) have been looking around for yet other potential candidates who might be induced to enter the race at the last minute.

Come on, now, people!  As Steve Colbert suggested, this looks very much as though these big Democrat supporters are afraid of Elizabeth Warren's tax plan!  Yes, there are some very wealthy liberals, who are apparently nervous at these sorts of tax plans.  To put a good face on it, they probably dislike the prospect of the government taking their excess wealth and putting it to fairly good use; they want to do their own charity.  Oh sure; if I were a billionaire, I would feel the same way.  Trump probably feels the same way, too.  (Jk.)  But though the Warren tax plan looks frightening to those of moderate means, they do not reduce these mega-billionaires to the level of people of modest wealth by any means.  They would still have enough wealth to buy up Alaska.  Or Greenland.  So they need not panic because of taxes.  But they might be anxiously looking for more millionaire-friendly Presidential candidates anyway.

Rest assured, none of the Democrat candidates are socialists, not by a very long shot.  That will probably not happen for fifty years.  But if, in the decades to come, conditions in the US deteriorate very badly, because of the greed of the wealthy, the depradations of the warming climate, the faltering international trade arrangements, corruption in government, and being overextended in foreign wars, we would be extremely fortunate if we manage to move to a socialist government at that point.  Socialism becomes attractive when conditions are bad.

But things are not that bad.

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