Mimsy Were the Borogoves

Editorials: Where I rant to the wall about politics. And sometimes the wall rants back.

Why is the media saying Sanders lost the debate?

Jerry Stratton, November 3, 2015

A lot of my far-left leaning friends are confused about why media talking heads keep saying that Bernie Sanders lost the debate. A lot of the media is in Hillary Clinton’s camp, true, but a lot of them are openly pro-Sanders. And members of both camps say that Sanders lost.

Many journalists on both sides think socialism has never received a fair shake in the United States. They don’t seem to understand that socialism—especially the so-called Democratic Socialism that Sanders espouses, in which private industry remains free, mainly, to assist government—inevitably leads to cronyism and corruption. Socialism practically means cronyism and corruption.

They, the media, believe in a kind of magical socialism run by an angelic political elite, and that if socialism just received a fair hearing voters would approve it. That open hearing is what the pro-Sanders crowd—and a lot of the pro-Clinton crowd—hoped for in Bernie Sanders.

To an extent, I agree with them. Up to the debate, I thought it would be good for Sanders to be the Democrats’ nominee because Sanders could articulate an argument for socialism, it would receive a fair hearing, and one of the pro-freedom candidates in the Republican Party—Fiorina, Cruz, Carson—would provide an articulate argument in favor of freedom.

But the debate changed that. There were two ways for Hillary Clinton to win the debate: she could have provided a clear contrast between her progressive politics and Sanders’s socialism, or Sanders could fail to provide a contrast between Hillary and himself. That’s why his refusal to distance himself from her corruption was interpreted as a loss. The media talking heads are claiming that they think Sanders lost because he didn’t “bring the fight” to Clinton. That his compassionate absolution of the Clinton Foundation and State Department email scandal lost him the debate. But that narrative is lipstick on a pig. The pro-Clinton side doesn’t want to acknowledge her corruption, and the pro-Socialism side (which of course overlaps) doesn’t want to acknowledge the truth that Sanders spoke about their ideology. Because Sanders spoke an important and inconvenient truth when he condoned Clinton’s corruption and cronyism—that this is socialism.

There is no question that the Clinton Foundation/State Department records/emails scandal paints a picture of a cronyist and corrupt politician. While it is possible to dispute how extreme the corruption went, this is only because Hillary Clinton destroyed so many of the records, tens of thousands of emails at least. But there is no question that the Foundation/emails scandal shows cronyism and corruption on Clinton’s part, it’s just a question of how much.

There is a general rule of thumb about political campaigns that rarely fails. When a politician tells you they’re going to do great things, take it with a grain of salt. When a politician tells you they’re going to do bad things, believe it and then some. Bernie Sanders looked corruption straight in the eye and said you’re good, corruption is not a real issue worth fighting.

When Sanders condoned this behavior, he made it clear that he does understand where socialism leads, and he’s okay with it. It might still be reasonable, sort of, to believe in a magical socialism that doesn’t lead to cronyism and corruption. But after the debate, it is no longer reasonable to believe that Bernie Sanders agrees with you. That’s why media talking heads declared Clinton the winner. Partly because he failed to differentiate himself from Clinton, but in large part because they don’t want to acknowledge Sanders’s truth about socialism.

In response to Election 2016: Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.

December 28, 2015: Bernie Sander’s Ponzi scheme

I called it corruption, John Hinderaker calls it fraud, but it’s the same thing.

Only under socialism could Fidel Castro become the richest warlord, relative to his subjects’ wealth, in recorded history. (And that was the least of his sins.) Only under socialism could Maria Gabriela Chavez, daughter of socialist tribune of the people Hugo Chavez, beloved by the American left, waltz off with a $4 billion fortune. But then, she was a piker: Chavez’s Minister of the Treasury stashed $11 billion in Swiss bank accounts.

“Ponzi’s mistake was that he should have gone into politics.” And the people who perpetrate the Ponzi scheme that is socialism know what they are doing. They’re putting themselves in the position of being able to reap the benefits of their schemes. Look at some of the examples Hinderaker gives. These aren’t just run-of-the-mill socialists; they’re the heroes of the left.

That’s why Sanders didn’t criticize Hillary’s “damn emails”. The emails proved nothing but that Hillary Clinton is corrupt, and Bernie Sanders wants to share in that corruption. It’s why he’s a socialist politician. All politicians are in the position to be corrupt, but socialism makes corruption official policy.

  1. <- Primary Parable
  2. Why should US lead? ->