4541 Voting Our Feelings

That’s how they used to spell it.

The trump cult has swallowed the Kool-Aid.  This all started with the soft drink in the 1890s, the brainchild of a Nebraska Postmaster, Edwin Perkins.  The brand remains a good seller.  But it carries the weight of the Jim Jones debacle in which the religious cult leader caused the deaths of 900 followers who drank a generic version of the drink laced with poison.

So for the past 48 years, “Drinking the Kool-Aid” has acquired a sinister meaning.  And we are fond of saying “Drinking the Kool-Aid” has become shorthand for the irrational following of a madman.

This leads us to today’s thought: We vote our feelings, not our beliefs or thoughts.  Some Very Smart People are affected just the same as the rest of us dummies.  IQ doesn’t count.  

Buried among the trumpets, there are bound to be some people who see him as the scuzz he is but will vote for him even so. Why? 

--“I’m a Republican. The Dems are commies. I don’t want to live in a socialist state. He may be imperfect, but he’s OUR imperfect.”

--“He’ll keep the teeming hordes of people with dark skin from infesting our neighborhoods, raping our women and stealing our jobs.”

--“It’s about time someone tells it like it is.”

These are the pipedreams of the right.

You can’t break people from this kind of thinking, so don’t try.

About those Very Smart Voters, the ones on the left? They’re for this democrat or that because, well, it feels right.  And often they hide behind intellect.

--“We need a revolution.”

--“We need to eliminate billionaires,”

--“We need to tax the super-rich into poverty that matches our own.”

--“We need to end corruption.”

--“No Justice, No Peace.”

These are the pipe dreams of the left.

None of these pipe dreams has a future if we remember a few well-chosen things:

--Dreams, pipe or otherwise, don’t come true without the cooperation of the non-dreamers.

--No one’s agenda, no matter how extreme can overcome an overwhelming vote.

--No one’s agenda -- not trump’s, not Bernie’s, not Mike’s, not Biden’s (if you can figure it out) will be approved and become law in your lifetime, if ever.

So what’s the secret to this Kool-Aid Krowd? 

There are two.  One is as old as George Washington’s campaign for a second term:  Swill them with Bumbo. Our First President was not averse to ladling out stiff drinks to a walk-by campaign lineup.

The other: Swamp ‘em at the polls.

While the inconsequential candidates remain inconsequential, the consequential candidates are busy with inconsequential nonsense.

C’mon, people.  The only issue is trump.  Not the man, but the leader of the pack-gone-wild. Once gone, the so-called “base” will fall apart, the name of the game is winning. Nothing more, nothing less.  His surrogates -- McConnell and Graham, et al., will fade into oblivion where they unquestionably belong.

The Democratic Socialists don’t realize that the US is way more complicated than Denmark and way more diverse. The knee-jerk peaceniks don’t realize that pulling out of Afghanistan and the war for the so-called soul of Syria are marginal to many voters.

Sure, our overseas underworld deserves to be eliminated. Sure, the individualism over community of the Libertarians is unworkable. And the anti-establishment wackos don’t realize that “establishment Democrats” are people, too and they have values that are encouraged by the Constitution and by history.

I’m Wes Richards, the pro-establishment dupe and whore. My opinions are my own but if you don’t like them, you’re likely to be destroyed by normal and average Americans. And some Very Smart People.

© WJR 2020  

1405 Election Premortem

The challenge today is simple:  write a credible post on the 2014 midterm elections hours before the polls close.

Well… we were able to do that with space shuttle launches… guarding against delays by speaking weasel phrases while the video showed the rocket either launching or in a “hold,” kind of like a time out in football.

We were able to do it with funerals simply by not starting with “Funeral services are underway for ....” or “Funeral services were held today for…”

So why not the election, if we don’t call the winners.

Chances are we won’t have full results right away what with the closeness of some races and the hanging chad crowd.  But be advised all of the Supreme Court justices are on standby in case there’s an emergency in which a Democrat (other than Andrew Cuomo) wins anything but an uncontested seat for dogcatcher in East Acne, Idaho.

Serving in Congress, of course, has a term limit, starting with the first day in office and ending in death.  No member of congress’ term has expired, at least not yet.

On to governors and senators.

The big questions this year include what is the IQ of the average voter in Kansas where Gov. Sam “I never met a tax I couldn’t cut” Brownback has put the state to sleep on the steps of bankruptcy court.  Would you buy a junk bond from this guy? Yeah, probably.

Another big question is about the IQ of the average voter in Kentucky, where a win for Mitch McConnell  elevates him to Senate Majority leader, sparking a tea party rebellion that could enrich the already debilitating years-long paralysis.  The solution, of course, would be for them to ditch Mitch.

New York’s Cuomo shot himself in the foot by creating an ethics investigating body and then killing it when it got a search warrant for his closet.  Fortunately for Cuomo, and maybe even for the state, his opponent is a zero.

Now, let’s move to the below zero types:  

--As a teen, Pennsylvania’s governor Tom Corbett was hit squarely on the head by a falling nine pound dead groundhog and suffered irreparable brain damage.  Ordinarily this would make one disqualified for any work outside a sheltered workshop.  Fortunately, the state capital is a sheltered workshop.  But due to funding cuts, Tom’s wing has closed.  (The groundhog was bronzed and lives on a pedestal in the Great Rotunda of the capitol building in Harrisburg.

--Senator Mark Udall, campaigning heavily on women’s issues, apparently is learning the hard way that while women are interested in such things as reproductive rights, breast cancer, education and the welfare of children, they are, astonishingly, also interested in such arcane and traditionally masculine issues as foreign policy, budget, oil pipelines, global warming and legal pot.

--New Hampshire has decided between a failed carpetbagger from Massachusetts and an aging but native born incumbent woman Senator whose main offense is voting with President Obama.  When you think about carpetbaggers, you think Connecticut’s Jim Buckley in New York, Massachusetts’ Robert Kennedy in New York and Arkansas and Illinois’ Hillary Rodham Inevitable in New York.  Two out of three weren’t terrible.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2014