by George Rasley, CHQ Editor
There were two lucid moments during last night’s Democratic Debate. The first was former Rep. John Delaney who, in his opening statement, delivered a scathing rebuke to Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizbeth Warren for their “fairy tale economics” that risk bankrupting the economy.
Sanders and Warren, Delaney said, are peddling “bad policies like Medicare for All, free everything, and impossible promises that will turn off independent voters and get Trump re-elected.”
The next lucid moment didn’t come until 8:51 p.m., and that was when Montana Governor Steve Bullock said Democrats who want to offer health care to illegal immigrants and decriminalize illegal immigration are disconnected from most of America.
Other than those two brief moments, the Democratic Debate was mostly a bizarre combination of charges that Donald Trump is a racist and promises of free stuff for everyone paid for by imaginary gazillionaires.
From our notes it looked like Sen. Elizabeth Warren was the first to launch an #OrangeManRacist attack, saying Trump, “disgraces” the presidency every day, and favors a rigged system that has “kicked dirt in the faces of everyone else.”
But Senator Amy Klobuchar was not far behind, saying she has had it with this racist president.
Beto didn’t use the “R” word, unless it was while we at the ‘fridge getting a beer, instead he called Trump cruel and lawless and said if he’s President, “we will choose to be the nation that stands up for the human rights of everyone…”. A totally meaningless word salad that pretty well sums up Beto himself.
Bernie did not use the “R” word either, instead he used the big “X” word, as in Trump is a xenophobe who is “demonizing” illegal aliens. Bernie seemed a little bashful on the whole Baltimore thing, given that he once equated the City of Baltimore to a Third World country.
The biggest and most grandiose #OrangeManRacist rant came when New Age author Marianne Williamson called out racial disparities by pointing to the wealthy Detroit enclave where she lives compared to the issues with clean water in nearby Flynt.
“I assure you. I live in Grosse Point. What happened in Flynt would not happen in Grosse point,” she said according to reporting by Geoff Earle, of the UK’s Daily Mail. “This is part of the dark underbelly of American society. The racism the bigotry and the entire conversation that we’re having here tonight. If you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days,” she said. “We need to say it like it is.”
Ms. Williamson‘s formula to defeat this “dark psychic force” was – you guessed it – MONEY.
She proposed a huge wealth transfer from white people to the descendants of slaves through reparations and said America will heal only “when there’s some deep truth-telling.”
Williamson argued that “anything less than $100 billion” set aside for black Americans “is an insult, and I believe that $200-500 billion is politically feasible today.”
“So many Americans realize there is an injustice that continues to form a toxicity underneath the surface, an emotional turbulence that only reparations will deal with,” she said according to Mr. Earle’s transcript of her comments.
But once the Democrats got by the #OrangeManRacist thing the debate did have some interesting, indeed downright funny moments. Setting aside Ms. Williamson’s yodeling, the biggest laugh came at Senator Elizabeth Warren’s expense.
Warren jumped in as Bernie Sanders tried to answer the first question of the evening framed by former Maryland Rep. John Delaney’s opening statement that Medicare-for-all is “political suicide.” Warren was then given the chance to respond and began to tell a story about her imaginary friend “Eddie” who has ALS, according to her.
After using up her response time, Warren was asked if she agreed with Sanders’ past statements that his health care policy will raise taxes for the middle class. Warren has stated that she is “with Bernie” on Medicare-for-all, the moderator noted. She began to answer the question before deflecting by quickly returning to her story about her friend Eddie.
We were getting totally confused by the Eddie thing, as was the audience which began to laugh, eliciting a scolding from Sen. Warren who said, according to the Daily Caller’s Shelby Talcott, “And I’d like to finish talking about Eddie, the guy who has ALS … This isn’t funny! This is somebody who has health insurance and is dying.”
(We note for the record that ALS, also called Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a rare incurable degenerative motor neuron disease that is always fatal.)
Before the Eddie diversion, Warren did claim that Medicare-for-all would not raise taxes for the middle class. Sticking with the taxing imaginary gazillionaires line, Warren said it would raise taxes for billionaires and lower taxes for middle-class Americans.
We might be wrong, but we think the image of Sen. Warren as “Scold in Chief” is one that is going to stick and will hurt her in the long run.
The breakout candidates of the night were probably Governor Bullock and former Rep. Delaney, but they were breaking against the Leftward tsunami in the Democratic Party, where sounding sensible is sure to earn you a nosedive in the polls.
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Photo “Democratic Debate” by CNN.
