Joe Biden has a lot of nicknames. Sleepy Joe, Creepy Joe, Uncle Joe, Dementia Joe, Alzheimer’s Joe, Basement Joe. You name it, Trump can nickname it.
Now, it may be time to add “Comrade Joe” to the list.
After embracing the core of Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders’ platform, the left might be stuck with the same policies they were afraid of when they tired and succeeded twice to derail the Sanders Presidential bids.
It is no longer enough to oppose Trump from the center. Now, the Democrats have pigeonholed themselves into opposing not just Trump, but all the vestiges of MAGA – even the traditionally innocuous ones, like, say, capitalism.
Fair enough.
Usually, Presidential elections are about different colors of lipstick on the same pig. Now, for the first time since George Wallace ran for office as a third-party candidate in 1968, we are facing a series of meaningful policy differences between the challengers.
Donald Trump’s America First platform is no mystery, but it’s largely been misrepresented in the mainstream.
Simply, the Bad Orange Man is of the opinion that America should not bankroll international governing initiatives, demonstrating this by removing the country from the ineffectual Paris Climate Accord and the compromised WHO.
Trump has sought to bring manufacturing back to America, enforce existing immigration laws, and generally allow We The People some brand of individual agency.
In another time – or aligned with another letter after his name – Trump would be wildly popular here and now instead of bound for retrospective respect a generation later.
Joe Biden, meanwhile, has been a United States politician for half a century, capping his career by serving as the Vice President under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017.
Historically, Biden has been an establishment Democrat – a rank-and-filer. Offensive to some, but generally inoffensive compared to the rest of the politburo.
Now, whether due to his apparent cognitive decline or simply the fact that he’s no longer calling the shots for his own campaign (or both), Biden appears to have embraced some of the more radical elements of Soviet-style communism.
Many of Biden’s new platform proposals would be laughed out of the room in any other election or political climate in the USA, but in the effort to divide and conquer (which is a valid, time-tested strategy, to be sure), about half of the country – 50% of the so-called Land of the Free – are embracing things like this:
- Ending cash bail – Allowing accused violent criminals to be released from police custody on their own recognizance, putting rapists and murderers back into the community as they await their trials.
- Eliminating “right to work” laws – Removing the option for workers to not join labor unions, making membership – and union dues – compulsory for all. Because workers aren’t taxed enough already.
- Eliminating private school vouchers – Forcing children to remain enrolled in failing public schools rather than allowing them to seek out private or religious schools with better educational standards and scores.
- Legalizing all illegal immigrants – Giving an estimated 10 million illegal aliens full citizenship, including the right to vote in elections.
- Defunding law enforcement – Stripping funds for the training and employment of police, further limiting response times and emboldening criminal activity (see NYC, LA for real-time demonstrations of the effects of this platform).
- Initiate reparations to minorities – America owes African Americans and Native Americans large quantities of cash for the past actions of one group’s ancestors upon another’s. Or something.
- Instituting single-payer healthcare – Putting every American on government-run health insurance programs, which was a bridge too far even in the Obamacare days.
- Banning all modern firearms – Biden only believes that people have the right to defend themselves with shotguns. “Fire two blasts” was a popular meme, and even Trump himself proved that executive orders alone can gut the Second Amendment.
All of those issues are certainly hot-button items in 2020, to be sure. And embracing a few of them might not be such a bad idea for a pol trying to make waves today.
But embracing all of them would – in any other time against any other opponent – be a death knell for the candidate’s campaign. We’d see Vegas political props on a contested convention trending into the -1000s.
Of course, those are just the tip of the iceberg in Biden’s new radical plan for America.
The biggest “anti-American” step Biden has taken to date is not included above. Those, at least, are heard of.
This one is unheard of (in America, anyway). Per Politico:
“Vowing to ‘make sure’ workers have ‘power and a voice,’ Biden added that, ‘It is way past time to put an end to the era of shareholder capitalism — the idea that the only responsibility that a corporation has is the shareholders,’ calling the notion an “absolute farce.’”
Well, it did work for Stalin…
This notion alone – that publicly traded companies should not be beholden to their investors and stockholders – should be enough to tank Biden, but it won’t be. Not today. Not this year.
And that’s fine. The times, they are a-changin.’ History repeats, and so on.
But it means that for the first time anyone with skin in the game can remember, the stakes are actually pretty high. And right now, at the best Vegas election betting sites, the money seems to be on Biden’s vision winning out.
2020 Presidential Election Winner
Via Bovada:
- Joe Biden -150
- Donald Trump +135
Via BetOnline:
- Joe Biden -160
- Donald Trump +130
Via MyBookie:
- Joe Biden -150
- Donald Trump +100 (EVEN)
Of course, there seems little chance that such campaign promises will ever actually come to fruition, even if Biden wins in November.
And that is perhaps what’s driving an awful lot of people who know better to actually vote for someone who wants to employ early-1900s Soviet-style politics in modern America: Nobody believes Biden would actually get it done, which is why he doesn’t seem like a threat.
And then, of course, there are those who actually do embrace these ideals, who actually do want these things for America. And again, that’s fair enough. That’s why there’s a vote every few years for lawmakers, and a vote every four for Presidents.
Still, it makes picking a winner at the betting boards awfully hard this cycle. The minority seems very, very vocal right now, but the “silent majority” might be a real thing.
As bettors, for now, our money is still on The Donald. He seems to have a lot more support than he’s credited for.
But Biden – who once felt like the weakest candidate of all time (and, frankly still does on a personal level) – has embraced the moment by letting his friends do the talking.
Maybe when he has to do the talking himself on stage in the first Trump vs. Biden Presidential debate, things will settle back to normalcy.
Or not.