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