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  

mini 012 Remembering Ed Koch on his birthday

Mayor Koch would be 95 today, Thursday 12/12/19. Boy oh boy would it be fun to have him around these days!  Always audacious, he had the audacity to die back in 2013 at a mere 88.

As former Mayor Mike Bloomberg said at Ed’s funeral, here was the typical New Yorker: A Jewish guy buried in a Protestant cemetery in a Dominican neighborhood. No, Mike, not typical. Archtypical.

My own first look at his audacity came around 1958. It turned into a friendship of more than 50 years. What was audacious about him back then? Try this:

That was the 1950s. Washington Square Park. Sunday sing-ins. Audacious? Hell, yeah. The only thing worse he did back then than play the guitar was to sing.

But he already was a lawyer and he was the lawyer that fought City Hall for the rest of us and won over the Parks Department which wanted us to clear out of the park and stop the Sunday sing-ins.

Ed destroyed the DiSapio-Tammany Hall wing of the Democratic Party, which badly needed destruction.  He rose from City Councilman to Congressman to Mayor to Elder  Scold in quick time. But he never changed much.

When he was first elected, New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy and there was no help coming from Washington.  So he figured out how to do it on his own.  And then, he did it.

He supported W. Bush’s run for president. (We fought. We ate.) He was friends with Republican Senator Al D’Amato (all three of us fought, we all ate.)

He ran his segment on my radio show overtime. When I asked him what to take out to make it fit into the Bloomberg Radio computerized weekend program he said “I don’t care. Take out anything you want.” So, I did. He was harder to edit than he was to interview. And it cut into my breakfast hour. 

I loved the guy. Still, I do.

But Ed, if you can hear me, I know they never gave you a harp up there… so put down the cheap guitar, stop “singing” some Pete Seeger song and get your butt back down here.  New York and all of America needs fixing. And I know you’re the guy who could do it.

Wes Richards 12/12/19

4518 So You Want to Be an Influencer

“Everybody wants to get in on the act.” -- Jimmy Durante.  Everyone today wants to make money by doing ...um… nothing.  They want to be in videos hawking products. Or themselves. Or each other.

A Bloomberg survey reported by People Magazine says 86 percent of young people want to make Big Bucks on line by being no more than their lovely and talented selves.

People Magazine?  You remember magazines, right? They used to be places that were, well, influential.  Maybe that was before your time. If you’re reading this, maybe not.

It’s pretty easy work.  All you need is 10-thousand or more followers on You Tube or Facebook and -- at least if you’re President the United States -- Twitter.  Maybe make some test runs on WhatsApp or Instagram, just to get the hang of things.  Later, you’ll be ready for the big time.

Here’s how to make the video.  Do something ridiculous and film it. Try to subject your viewer(s) to some product placement.

You know… stick a big Wal-mart sign behind you. Or be holding a can of Bud Light. Or be swinging a bat at an Amazon box that is hanging from a rope.

If everyone becomes an “influencer,” then no one is one. Or even worse, you’re only influencing other influencers.  What you really want is your 15 minutes of fame and maybe a few extra bucks to pay the light bill you just raised while using all that fancy and expensive video equipment and editing software.

Everything old is new again. This whole thing to become famous was nicely summarized in the 1954 movie It Should Happen to You . In it, the main character, Gladys Glover, played by Judy Holliday rents billboards all over town with her name in huge letters. It worked 65 years ago, without any “social media.”  It probably will work now.  And it’s a lot easier, though more expensive than thinking up and then actually making a catchy video.

But don’t worry all that much about the expense.  Just max out another credit card.  It’s what we do.

TODAY’S QUOTE: 

-“No.” -- Attorney General William Barr when asked to declare that the president has committed no crime.

SPOILER ALERT:

-There isn’t a whole lot in “Anonymous’” book about the White House that you haven’t heard already except that the author is a pretty standard-issue conservative about tax cuts and shady Supreme Court nominees.

SHRAPNEL:

--Mike Bloomberg filing for a spot on the Dem primary ballot? Guess the thinking is “If a 77-year-old Jewish guy from New York can make it in a state like Alabama, he can make it everywhere.” But please remember that filing paperwork is not the same thing as actually running.

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

Comments? Send ‘em to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2019

1271 Charlotte Would Be Proud

1271 Charlotte Would Be Proud

In recent years, there’s only one person who could stand up against New York mayor Mike Bloomberg with a chance of winning: his mother, Charlotte who passed away in 2011 at the age of 102.

The mayor has a sister and two daughters.  But chances are they, like anyone else stay out of his path, at least when it comes to non-family matters.

So as his 12 years in office come to an end next week, we take a look back at his administration.

There are some things you need to know about the man.  First, if he climbs any higher on the Forbes 400 he’ll get a nosebleed.  Second, he’s already given away more than the combined lifetime incomes of the first hundred people reading this page. Third, he plays the role of “smartest guy in the room,” and sometimes -- actually often -- he really is.

The mayor, any mayor, is often remembered short term for his screwups.  Lindsay the ineffective.  Beame the accountant who couldn’t fix the books.  Dinkins the swamped.  Giuliani the Batman of squeegee crime.  Bloomberg: of the road use tax, Big Gulp’s public enemy number one, green taxis and no smoking.

Later, history redeems them.  Lindsay brought peace to a city of anger. Dinkins eventually did build something akin to the Great Mosaic. Giuliani led us through and past 9/11.

And Bloomberg? Parks.  Rebuilding. Fiscal soundness, improved schools, a plummeting crime rate, stronger enforcement of the gun laws.  And a city government that runs what passes for smoothly in comparison to earlier years.

Are you better off now than you were 12 years ago?  Sure. Jobs are expanding, the streets are clean by New York standards, the unions are still thorns in the sides of the government and private industry but not extinct.  

So, complain all you want about things like tax rates, crowded conditions, rude taxi drivers, slow buses, too many homeless.  But overall we’re better off with Mike in City Hall than we were with many of his predecessors.

Bloomberg reminded the rest of the country that New York is not just another place. It’s a national leader in finance, thought, media, and complexity. And City Hall is a national platform for those mayors who choose to make it one.

Bloomberg certainly did that.  Gun control, diet, health issues were not just city concerns this past dozen years. He made them part of the national conversation.

And even though he’d been regularly accused of trying to create a “nanny state,” the conversation needed to be started.

Did he accomplish all his goals? No way.  Did he handle every emergency perfectly? Of course not.  Just think about that big snowstorm and the overreaction to the next weather threats.

We worried back in the day that he was out of his element when he first ran.  We worried about what would happen if he won.  We worried about what would happen if he lost.

But all of those worries were unfounded.

What’s next?  He’s been vague.  Everything from wanting to go back to work at his company at least part time to “drinking a small soda on a no smoking beach” as he said the other day on Saturday Night Live.

One thing you can be sure of:  we haven’t heard the last of this guy. 

Another thing?  Charlotte would be proud.

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

(Note: your poster worked for Bloomberg News for seven years that began before Mike ran for office.)

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013