Tag: Democratic Party

Box Wine Aunties for Williamson

The Portly Politico12 Comments

Yesterday I wrote of a “New Great Awakening,” an awakening of the fast swath of forgotten men and women to the realities of the progressive Left’s destructive ideology.  Blogger photog at Orion’s Cold Fire inspired the post with his piece “The Great Awakening,” which brought to mind a key point about our national debates:  our concerns are primarily theological, not political, in nature.

I’ve written quite a bit about Americans’ desperate search for meaning (also here), for a deeper spiritual Truth that motivates our culture and our lives.  Increasingly, Americans are abandoning traditional Christian faith, embracing instead alternative forms of spirituality, from the mundane and trite —“living your best life”—to sinister, like witchcraft.

It’s no surprise, then, that the dark horse—or, perhaps, the black cat—candidate in the Democratic presidential primaries is self-help guru and author Marianne Williamson.  Williamson made waves during the first set of debates with her “Love is a Battlefield” pronouncement, and has become something of an Internet meme.

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Photog’s Prognostications

The Portly Politico5 Comments

Fellow blogger and e-friend photog of Orion’s Cold Fire has a piece up today about some of the events percolating in the long 2020 presidential election season (as well as a little Brexit shout-out to Boris Johnson, the odds-on favorite for Prime Minister).

According to photog, a recent New York Times piece from popular Leftist economist Thomas Friedman suggests that slightly-less-radical progressives are getting worried by the antics of certifiably-crazy-radical progressives, for fear that those antics will cost Democrats the 2020 election.  Much of the op-ed is Leftist boiler plate talk about mortgaging the environment for quick growth now, along with some baseless claims of racism, but there is an acknowledgment that giving free healthcare to illegal immigrants and eliminating our borders is a tad unrealistic.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Controlling Spending

The Portly Politico5 Comments

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

It’s been a crazy week, with President Trump successfully maneuvering the ultra-progressive “Squad” of Congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley as the faces of the entire Democratic Party.

Lost in the shuffle—indeed, what seems to be an afterthought for most politicians and Americans now—is excessive government spending.  Virtually all of the major Democratic candidates for president in 2020 endorse policies like Medicare for All that would balloon an already-engorged federal deficit (around $22 trillion, I believe).  President Trump, for all of his successes with deregulation and trimming bureaucratic fat, has not done much to cut the budget substantially—indeed, he didn’t even campaign on cutting entitlement spending.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Lazy Sunday XVIII: SubscribeStar Posts

The Portly Politico59 Comments

For the past few weeks I’ve been pushing my SubscribeStar page more regularly, as readers have no-doubt noticed.  I’ve picked up one subscriber; naturally, I hope more will sign up!

Here’s the pitch:  I post a new, original essay exclusively to my SubscribeStar page every Saturday.  I also made #MAGAWeek2019 a SubscribeStar exclusive—that’s four posts about people or ideas that made America great (this year’s list:  John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, President Trump’s Independence Day Speech, and fast food).  For just $1/month, you get access to these essays.

To put that in perspective:  I’ll probably buy a pizza today for $12.  That’s what a one-year subscription to my SubscribeStar page will cost.  That’s at least fifty-two (52) original pieces, not including bonus content and current and future #MAGAWeek posts.

Even if you can’t read them on the Saturday they’re released, they will always be there!  And with new content every week, your subscription gains value with each post.  Right now there are ten SubscribeStar exclusive posts, including the #MAGAWeek2019 ones, and that number will continue to grow.

I’ll also post additional special content from time-to-time, in the vein of the #MAGAWeek2019 posts.  The long-contemplated Portly Politico Podcast, should it ever launch, will also be exclusive to SubscribeStar.

With all that said, this week’s edition of Lazy Sunday is dedicated to looking at the great SubscribeStar Saturday posts that are already on the site (excluding the #MAGAWeek2019 posts, which were the subject of last week’s Lazy Sunday).

  • “The Portly Politico Summer Reading List 2019” – The long-awaited successor to “The Portly Politico Summer Reading List 2016,” this list of recommended summer reads will give you plenty of conservative brain food to feed your mind and your soul.  I give detailed reviews of my four recommendations.
  • “Asserting Conservatism” – This essay argues for defining conservatism in positive—that is, on its own—terms, rather than as merely against the Left.  Standing athwart history, shouting “STOP” was a necessary step in the Buckleyite days of old-school National Review, when international Communism threatened to infiltrate and topple our institutions.  Culture Marxists have accomplished what Soviet Marxists could not, and it’s time to push back, not merely stem the tide.  Doing so will require a vigorous articulation and defense of conservatism—and a willingness to fight against Leftists.
  • “Christians Protect Other Faiths” – Christianity gets a bad shake, considering it built Western civilization (with an alley-oop from ancient Greece, Rome, and Israel).  The tolerance Christianity teaches is a boon to believers of other faiths, as Christ teaches conversion through persuasion, and the basic dignity of all people, Jew and Gentile.
  • “Immigration and Drugs” – This piece pulls from a couple of posts at VDARE.com, which linked illegal immigration from south of the United States border to the opioid crisis.  One solution from the author:  bomb the poppy fields in Mexico, not just Afghanistan.
  • “Mid-Atlantic Musings” – During #MAGAWeek2019, I was in New Jersey.  This post is a reflection of my visit (spoiler alert:  I very much enjoyed it).  It also details my one-day trip to Coney Island, which is basically Myrtle Beach in Brooklyn.
  • “The Real Color of Environmentalism is Red, Not Green” – Yesterday’s post, in which I compare Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ludicrous Green New Deal to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s original New Deal.  Both rely on excessive federal and executive power, and the Green will ruin the economy and our nation just the way the original one did.

So, there you have it!  There’s a lot of great material, with more coming every Saturday.  Please consider subscribing to my SubscribeStar page for just $1 (or more!) per month to gain access to these and other essays.

Happy (and Lazy!) Sunday!

–TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT: Third Party Opportunity?

The Portly Politico1 Comment

Last night’s first round of Democratic presidential primary debates was what I expected—a contest between largely identical candidates competing to see who could promise each other more free goodies.  Cory Booker came off as a bit light in the loafers, with a bulging lazy eye and a peeved reaction to Robert Francis O’Rourke’s cringe-inducing Spanish (per the rumors that Senator Booker is a closeted homosexual, I thought the look on his face was a mix of annoyance and arousal, but who can say).  Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts just came across as an angry scold.  When will Democrats learn that running a nagging woman is not going to win them elections?

Only Tulsi Gabbard, the mega-babe from Hawaii, seemed interesting, but she barely received any screen time.  Then there were cookie-cutter dudes like Mayor Bill de Blasio and Washington Governor John Inslee who just looked the same, not to mention that guy from Ohio.  In fact, the forgettable dude from Ohio got one of the biggest applauses with a quintessentially Trumpian promise to restore manufacturing (never mind that The Donald has already accomplished that).

Tonight we’ll get more of the same, though hopefully entrepreneur and math nerd Andrew Yang will spice things up with Asiatic wonkery.  Otherwise, the only thing to see will be how many racial gaffes Vice President Joe Biden makes (I would love it if he made reference to Yang’s “Asiatic wonkery”).

So far, it all looks like good news for Trump.  Of course, a weak, generic Democratic field might attract some doomed third-party hopefuls.  That’s why for this week’s #TBT, I thought I’d look back to a lengthy piece from 2016 about the structural disadvantages of third party candidates, “Third Party Opportunity?“

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Lazy Sunday XIV: Gay Stuff

The Portly Politico72 Comments

Apparently, June is Pride Month, so there’s a lot of gay stuff going around.  If you’re part of the expansive LGBTQ2+ABCDEFGetc. community in New York City, you get two parades to show off your bedroom antics.  From deplatforming conservatives to avoiding prosecution for hate-crime hoaxes, it’s never been a better time to be out and proud.

To celebrate “pride”—which I take to mean loudly proclaiming who you like to sleep with while wearing ass-less chaps in public—this week’s Lazy Sunday looks back at the influence of gay stuff on our body politic.  Enjoy!

  • “Gay Totalitarianism” – This post discussed the prevalence of homosexual hate-crime hoaxes, the most ubiquitous being Empire actor Jussie Smollett’s claim that a couple of white Trump supporters assaulted him with bleach and nooses in a tony, largely gay Chicago neighborhood early in the morning.  I linked to Pedro recent piece for American Greatness, “Our Queer Decline,” which deftly analyzed this phenomenon:  if homosexuals really faced persecution, they wouldn’t feel safe lying to the authorities about being attacked.  Instead, they know they’ll have the full support of and sympathy from the government, corporations, and the media.

    As the Smollett case showed, agents within the government would simply refuse to enforce the law via prosecution.  The issue here is not that gays are receiving legal protection—like all Americans, they should be protected from assaults on their persons—but that there is a dual-standard at play.  Jussie Smollett received egregious preferential treatment in part because he is gay (and, presumably, because he’s black and connected to the Obamas).

  • “Buttigieg and Buchanan: Redefining Morality” and “Bland and Gay” – These twin screeds explore South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s appeal to voters—and his ungodly misinterpretation of Scripture regarding his homosexual lifestyle.  The former essay pulls heavily from a piece Pat Buchanan wrote for Taki’s Magazine about Buttigieg’s radical redefinition of Christian teaching on homosexuality (essentially, Buttigieg’s argument is “God made me this way, so I’m supposed to ignore His teachings on homosexuality”).

    The latter essay attempts to explain Buttigieg’s appeal to voters, which seems to be waning a bit.  At the time, I argued that Buttigieg’s popularity was due to his blandness—he speaks largely in indefinable generalities, a la Barack Obama’s “Hope and Change” slogan—mixed with the mildest splash of exoticism—his homosexuality.  Now that same-sex marriage is legal and homosexual behavior is largely normalized in the United States—but still, we all tacitly acknowledge, abnormal—Buttigieg’s gayness offers the slightest frisson of excitement for voters.  The thought process seems to be “oh, he’s a safe, non-offensive, boring white guy, but I can virtue-signal on the cheap because he’s gay!”

  • “First They Came for Crowder” – This piece covered the demonetizing of conservative comedian Steven Crowder, all because a flamboyant “journalist” at Vox pitched a hissy-fit.  If that’s not proof that being gay aligns you with the full power and influence of big corporations and our techno-elites, then there’s no convincing you.

There you have it!  Some celebratory reading for Pride Month 2019.  Here’s hoping your Sunday is as fabulous as Milo Yiannopoulos.

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Leftism in a Nutshell

The Portly Politico1 Comment

You’ve got to admire the balls of the Left.  Yes, their wild policy prescriptions come from a combination of ignorance, wickedness, and magical thinking, but that doesn’t stop them from putting out some crazy ideas.

Take this piece from Gavin McInnes’s former rag, Vice:  “The Radical Plan to Save the Planet by Working Less.”  The headline says it all:  let’s just not work so hard, gah!

Naturally, click-bait headlines like that don’t tell the full story.  The “degrowth” movement the piece discusses is classic progressivism:  we should support a robust public transportation system and give generous welfare benefits so people can spend less time working.

The “degrowth movement” is an inversion of Obama-era economic thinking.  Recall the sluggish recovery following the Great Recession, and how Obama informed us that low-growth was the “new normal” we’d all have to learn to love in America.  Now that the economy is roaring under President Trump, progressives are flipping the script:  “oh, wait, too much growth is a bad thing because climate change!”

Like most Leftist economic ideas, it’s premised on denying people choice and subsidizing loafing with generous bennies:

Degrowth would ultimately mean we’d have less stuff: not as many people working and producing materials, so not as many brands at the grocery store, less fast fashion, and fewer cheap and disposable goods. Families would perhaps have one car instead of three, you’d take a train instead of a plane on your vacation, and free time wouldn’t be filled with shopping trips but with non-money-spending activities with loved ones.

Practically, this would also require an increase in free public services; people won’t have to make as much money if they don’t have to spend on healthcare, housing, education, and transportation. Some degrowthers also call for a universal income to compensate for a shorter work week.

I’m all about saving money and avoiding empty consumerism.  I’ve written that there is more to an economy than faceless efficiency units slaving away for plastic crap from China.  I’m not unsympathetic to the idea of taking more time for family and personal edification (as a good deal of the workweek is wasted in meetings and busy work).

But this “degrowth movement” is absurd.  It’s all premised on a government somehow funding a massive welfare state as the citizenry becomes less productive.  Even the sympathetic economist they interview for this ideological puff piece argues that cutting growth to reduce carbon emissions would only have a marginal impact environmentally, but would be devastating socially and economically.

It just goes to show you that the Left hates the idea of hard work.  For them, work is an imposition, and we’d all be better off enjoying endless relaxation and luxury.  It’s the seduction of never-ending childhood: a paternalistic state provides all the goodies so we can watch TV and pursue pleasure all day.

Work is ennobling.  It’s important to earn a living wage for honest, valuable, productive work.  But beyond that, work provides a sense of purpose and accomplishment (I think this is particularly true for men, although women derive great satisfaction from work, too, especially the difficult, important work of raising children).  There is an identity to holding a job, and a sense of satisfaction from doing that job well.

Can one enjoy a good quality of life by pursuing a more minimalist approach?  Yes, of course:  if anything, Americans spend far too much money, a good deal of it on empty baubles.

There is a simple joy to minimalism, and I enjoy “spending” money on savings (it’s very satisfying to watch savings and investments grow).  But subsidizing lollygagging and calling it “investing in infrastructure” is not the sign of a great nation or civilization.

Bernie’s (Cell) Bloc Voting

The Portly Politico3 Comments

Blogger jonolan at Reflections from a Murky Pond has a post about Bernie Sanders’s recent suggestion that convicted, incarcerated prisoners should be able to vote. The piece, “Bernie’s Folsom Pledge,” points out not just the absurdity of such a position, but the devastating political outcomes it would have.

We all understand the former implicitly: incarcerated felons are paying their debt to society, so their usual rights—freedom of movement (now “arrested”), the ability to vote, etc.—are forfeit. There is a fruitful discussion to be had about when, and under what circumstances, former convicts might be restored their right to vote, but the notion that inmates should be able to cast ballots undermines the very concept of punitive imprisonment.

The latter point—what would the political impact be if we allowed prisoners to vote—is not considered as frequently. In part, that’s because the idea was, until relatively recently, completely ridiculous. But we live in an age in which what was once decent, traditional, and commonsensical (and, therefore, never seriously questioned or in need of articulate defense) is challenged constantly, if not already destroyed utterly, so we have to engage in mental exercises that were once entirely abstract and academic.

jonolan does a great service here in a very succinct post way. Here he details the terrifying impact a prison population could have on local elections:

Focus on the State, County, and Local elections.

Imagine, if you will, the great harm that incarcerated felons could do in those elections, especially ones for: Police Chiefs, Sheriffs, District Attorneys, Prosecutors, and/or Judges. Remember, these are elections with a much smaller electorate and, hence, the population of a prison there could and likely would greatly impact the outcome(s).

Convicted felons voting for their jailers and captors: only slightly removed from the old cliche of the insane running the asylum. Turnout in these county elections (as sheriffs are usually elected at the county level) is so low that sometimes even a dozen (or fewer) votes can swing the outcome.

According to World Prison Brief, the prison population in the United States is around 2,121,600. I couldn’t find the average population of a typical American prison—perhaps a more patient and enterprising reader can—but imagine in a rural, low-population county what impact the prison population could have. Granted, prisoners might not even be registered to vote in the county in which they find themselves incarcerated (opening up another question: where, how, and in what precinct would prisoners be registered to vote?), but if they were, they could easily elect ne’er-do-wells to key law enforcement positions.

jonolan also points out the constitutional error implicit in extending voting rights to criminals:

Voting, be it for offices within each state or for elected federal offices is a matter that is wholly within the purview of each state. The federal government can only step in to prevent certain broad abuses, e.g., denying the “right” to vote based on race (15th Amendment), sex (19th Amendment), or advanced age (26th Amendment). As such, it is grossly inappropriate for any Presidential candidate to weigh in on this matter and to use it as a plank in his campaign’s platform.

As such, Bernie’s pro-prisoner proposal would require a constitutional amendment. That would mean proposal by 2/3rds of both chambers of Congress, then ratification by 3/4ths of the States. Of course, that’s Bernie’s shield: he knows it’s insane (and, as jonolan argues, it’s probably an attempt to shore up his iffy support among black voters), but he can call for it, virtually risk-free, while gaining some brownie points with progressives.

The whole proposal is yet another tiresome example of the destructive ideology of progressivism. In its endless thirst for new “rights” to grant and extend—always at the behest of government, of course—the Left forever pushes beyond any semblance of an orderly, sane society. It would be humorous if they weren’t so effective.

Beto Antoinette

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Today’s post is some low-hanging fruit (or free-range chicken?), but it’s too good to pass up:  arm-flailing weirdo and rat-faced rich kid Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, the Democrats’ favorite Hispanic Irishman, when asked about combating poor nutrition in poor rural communities, called for the establishment of trendy farm-to-table restaurants in those communities.

Commentators have been quick to pounce on O’Rourke’s out-of-touch policy prescription, comparing it immediately to Marie Antoinette’s infamous solution for French peasants who couldn’t afford bread:  “let them eat cake.”

The only difference is that the poor, much-maligned Queen of France never said it.  O’Rourke—after a fashion—did.  If there was any doubt that O’Rourke is an out-of-touch pseudo-hippie, this proposal destroys it.  Remember, this presidential candidate literally ate dirt after losing to Senator Ted Cruz.

As I was reading up on this amusing example of elitist cluelessness, I stumbled an interesting, instructive sideshow:  some policing on the Left.  The Washington Examiner piece linked above includes the following tweet from Washington Post reporter Annie Linskey, who live-tweeted O’Rourke’s Nevada town hall:

That’s a perfectly innocuous example of reporting.  O’Rourke said it, Linskey reported it.  Now, notice this tweet from the editor of Wonkette (her Twitter handle is “commiegirl1,” for crying out loud), a far-Left “news” site that seems to favor snark over substance (if you want your stomach to turn, just read through their headlines—these people have lost their way):

Schoenkopf is referencing a tweet from David Weigel (who wrote a great book about prog rock), another Post reporter, who writes vaguely about O’Rourke’s remarks about “food deserts.”  She then follows up with a nasty tweet, writing that “I would literally fire you if you pulled that sh[*]t at Wonkette, about ANYONE.”

So, Linskey accurately—and in more detail than her colleague—tweeted a simple fact, and this Leftist wacko ostentatiously, hysterically said she would fire this poor woman—if only she had the power to do so.

Two takeaways:

1.) That mentality—“I would destroy you given the power”—is indicative of the Left.  It must crush any opposition, perceived or real, which leads to my second observation:

2.) Even the slightest implication of opposition to a Leftist sacred cow (which, it seems, O’Rourke is at the moment) is punished, swiftly and ferociously.  The very fact that Linskey had the gall to report on O’Rourke’s gaffe was enough to condemn her.

I don’t know Linskey’s politics, but if she writes for the Post, she’s probably left-of-center.  Even if that’s true, the progressives won’t hesitate to devour their own.

O’Rourke’s star seems to be falling as Democrats turn to a more flamboyant nobody, but progressives still like him because he could possibly win them Texas.  Hopefully, voters of a populist stripe will realize this man cares nothing for them or their struggles.

Bland and Gay

The Portly Politico7 Comments

The Democratic field for 2020 is a circus of tribal interests. Each candidate represents some special interest group in the rainbow coalition of the Democratic Party: Kamala Harris is the Queen of Black Voters; Cory Booker is the closeted, melodramatic homosexual; Elizabeth Warren is the shrill, angry white lady; Joe Biden is the Old Obama Perv; Tulsi Gabbard is the ethnically-ambiguous babe (and the least bad of all of them).

But the candidate that has everyone all a-titter is South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the platitudinous gay man. Everyone seems to love this guy, notably upper-middle class white people and the tech industry. Breitbart‘s Allum Bokhari has a piece attempting to explain Buttigieg’s appeal to Big Tech and the closeted Leftists of the Never Trump movement.

Bokhari’s takeaway is this: Mayor Buttigieg is the kind of bland, copy-cat politician that the Establishments of both parties preferred prior to the 2016 election. He hearkens back to a time when the Establishment dominated politics with impunity.

There’s something to this analysis, I think. I’m continually frustrated with alleged conservatives who say they like President Trump’s policies, but cannot support him “on principle” because he’s “morally reprehensible.”

I recall a conversation with a friend and his wife—both devout Catholics—who dislike President Trump, largely (I perceived) for rhetorical reasons. The husband is given to virtue-signalling to the pieties of the day, but the wife is a bit more based. I pleaded with her to get over her distaste for Trump’s “meanness” and to cast her vote for him in 2020, as he’s the only candidate who is going to fight against abortion and for religious liberty. She told me she did not oppose the president for being a “meanie,” but because she finds him “morally reprehensible.”

I thought about that comment, and realized it’s nonsense. Saying the president is “morally reprehensible”—and, therefore, you’re not going to vote for him—is the same thing as saying you won’t support him because he’s a meanie; it just sounds better to frame it in moral tones.

Yes, yes, President Trump has done some immoral stuff, things many of us would shudder to contemplate. But who among us isn’t a sinner? What I care about are results. Cyrus the Great wasn’t a God-fearing man, but he restored the Jewish people to their homeland and paid to rebuild the Temple.

It’s a shame we have to keep reminding other Christians that a.) God uses all people to achieve His ends and b.) God forgives—and, as Christians, we believe in forgiveness!

But I digress. I intuit that what these cosmopolitan, upper-middle class whites want is, simply, a blandly non-offensive guy to say nice things and to appear “presidential.” In the current mix, the only figure that really fits that “Platonic ideal” of a president is Pete Buttigieg.

Add in a splash of mildly exotic gayness, and he pushes all the right buttons for these folks: they get to virtue-signal their support for a now-acceptable “alternative lifestyle,” while bowing to a vapid, clean-cut nice guy.

Pathetic. In a better age, we’d reject Mayor Pete for his Wildean antics. Instead, we’re elevating a Midwestern mayor with a slim record to presidential heights because it makes country club types feel good about themselves. “He’s nice—oooh, and gay! I like that combination.” Please.

Given the hysterical, limp-wristed lengths to which loafer-lighteners have gone to force their lifestyle on the general public, it seems like we’d want to keep them away from the highest office in the land. Pete Buttigieg’s twisting of God’s Word to endorse his flamboyant lifestyle is far more dangerous than Trump saying his favorite verse is “Two Corinthians.”

Get a grip, folks. MAGA MAGA MAGA!