America’s self-proclaimed champion1 just made an announcement that the media seemed to think was news. I can’t imagine why. Of course Hillary Clinton is going to change America by pandering to the very lowest level of society, people who aren’t citizens and can’t legally vote for her but have family and friends who will. Is this how we want our first female champion to begin changing America? Absolutely not, but it is the change America is eventually going to get if enough ask for it.
Bernie Sanders wants to change America, too. He is promising a political revolution.2 Sanders’ revolution and his intention to be our first avowed democratic socialist president should not have been a surprise to anyone. Like Clinton, Sanders will pander to the bottom by trying to get his money from the top.
Mike Huckabee wants to move to higher ground.3 He doesn’t stand a chance. Any serious contender knows that elections are about wallowing at the trough, not flying. Clinton and Sanders will be very good at wallowing.
Only one way to change America
It would be unpardonably naïve to suggest that left-wing propaganda is responsible for the groundswell of demand to change America that we have watched fester, lead to protests, and finally turn to violence (see: A Great Society Demands Respect). Obama’s failures, the recession and job loss, unfettered illegal immigration, shifts in sectors of America’s economy that have traditionally provided jobs to lower and middle income Americans, and a host of other factors are conspiring to disillusion and kill any dreams of living in an economy where good old fashioned capitalism gave you the leg up you deserved.
That’s a huge bottom
The bottom is big. The number being batted around by liberal America is 42%, as in 42% of workers have not made it to the promised land of $15.00 per hour jobs.4 It doesn’t matter if the figure is accurate. It only needs to be believed.
A Census Bureau report shows that 45.3 million people lived in poverty in the U.S. in 2013. 12.7 million were Hispanic.5 11 million were Black.6 That’s a lot of people. If they go to the polls, it’s a lot of votes from people who will want something in return.
In 2012 Clinton came out in favor of levying more taxes worldwide on people she considers elites, whatever that means.
Let the pandering begin.
What’s the best way to spend on the bottom?
Why does the left insist on confusing growth with spending? It plays better to people wanting a slice of what liberal Democrats will never be able to deliver.
There are two problems with Obama’s middle-class economics and whatever version will be embraced by the Democrat who wins the 2016 nomination. It isn’t about the middle class and it is only good for as long as the money holds out (see: Love Your Country, Not Our President).
Bernie Sanders’ Senate Budget Committee blames the disappearance of middle class jobs on the failure of Republicans to hand out cash:
The task of recovering those lost jobs and creating good new ones was made far harder by the misguided and now discredited austerity policies fought for by Republicans. The deep, immediate spending cuts Republicans demanded have dragged down growth and held back the economic recovery, costing millions of potential jobs in the process.7
Did you expect something more capitalistic? There isn’t a Democrat alive who doesn’t understand the two rules of liberal economics:
1. Spending is the same thing as growth.
2. The best money to spend is money that belongs to other people.
When the government spends, some of us win. Some of us lose. There is no better way to pander to a bottom that Democrats use for their own purposes than to offer trinkets like a minimum wage boost that will not put enough money in anyone’s pockets to enter the middle class but may take away their jobs and cost them money.
The Congressional Budget Office made clear what will happen if we seek income support from businesses:
Apart from the group of workers whose earnings rose because of a minimum-wage increase, other people would generally see a reduction in real income, CBO estimates. Some of the reduction would consist of lower earnings for workers who became jobless for at least part of a year because of the change in policy. Some would consist of lower profits for business owners. The remainder would come from higher prices, which would reduce real income.8
These vagaries of economics aren’t suitable fodder for campaign trail stumping. For Sanders, rallying with workers who think that $15 an hour makes sense, it boils down to a very simple vision:
A great nation will not survive, in my view, when so few have so much and so many have so little.9
That’s what change in America is going to mean in each and every election from here on out. Change for the better will be the sales pitch, but the real platform will be spending money neither the government nor businesses have to satiate the hungry masses.
This is not an uphill climb.
It’s a downhill slide.
Egomaniacal Hillary Clinton, socialist zealot Bernie Sanders, and other left wing abominations will make good on their words and change America if they get a chance. They just won’t change it for the better. Will people with little money get behind a woman who always seems to be hiding something while ducking scandals and promising change? What happens when too many still have too little because they were foolish enough to believe Sanders? They will find a candidate who will promise them even more. The job for more responsible Americans is to make sure those promising change don’t get their hands on any more of our money.