"Educated" affluent suburban blue Democrats love to portray rural Republican voters, especially those who support Trump, as easily pliable rubes who are ripe to be manipulated by politicians time and time again. "The NRA says 'boo' and they jump," is but one way for them to put it.
Yet here they are having the left spoke of the Uniparty Bush-Clinton-Gore-Kerry-McCain-Romney axis scare them into lining up like lemmings and voting in droves for the very embodiment of Old Guard insider Swamp baseball. All in the name of taking down the dreaded bogeyman President Trump.
The Comeback Cliques
The amazing political resuscitation of Joe Biden, unthinkable a few weeks ago as he stumbled and bumbled his way through dreary performances throughout the preliminary primary process, has nothing to do whatsoever with any campaigning skill or personal likability on his part. Biden was a drowning man who was saved by a mass panic by the Dem voter base that ultimately has its foundation in Trump Derangement Syndrome.
When leftist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was catapulted to front-runner status following a strong showing in Iowa's caucuses and victories in Nevada and New Hampshire, the Dem establishment was able to successfully implant the message that a socialist could never defeat President Trump in a general election campaign. This was a powerful siren call within a party that has been obsessed with one anti-Trump Armageddon scenario after another. The Robert Mueller Probe and Russian interference in our elections blew up in their faces yet Dems seamlessly transitioned to a rabid impeachment crusade fueled by a paper-thin Ukraine "scandal" championed by careerists in the U.S. diplomatic corps. Throw in the hysteria over the confirmation hearings for Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and it should be clear that opposition to Trump's presidency is the real glue holding a fractured Democratic Party together at the moment.
With no other candidate emerging to challenge Sanders in a thoroughly mediocre Democratic primary field, the powers to be inside the party were able to use one victory in a state perfectly set up for their brand of old-style politics as the lighter fluid to ignite a flailing Biden into overwhelming favorite status within a matter of days.
One State Starts a Wildfire
South Carolina 2020 for Dems was very similar to Wisconsin 2016 for Republicans. The party machines held sway and were able to help steer the outcomes they desired. The Republican establishment in Wisconsin was able to tap into a cozy network of elected officials, conservative talk radio hosts, and other mechanisms to thwart Trump and give a victory to his only remaining serious rival, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). In South Carolina, Biden was able to count on veteran state party officials and incumbent pols, like Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), to harness traditional Dem voters.
But whereas Wisconsin was a mere bump in the road for the populist outsider Trump four years ago, South Carolina instantly made the Dem establishment unbeatable. "You want to beat Trump. This is the only way to do it," was the simple point to be made exiting the Palmetto State. That it immediately swept all before it is a testament to just how much the anti-Trump fever dominates the minds of Democrats.
Dare we say this marks Dem voters as "easily manipulated" folk who allow their emotions to be exploited by politicians who don't care about them at all? This of course is exactly what smug blue suburbanites and the big-box media bubbles they are tethered to say about Trump supporters.
"Trump's idiocracy did not blossom overnight. The seeds were planted over decades," Salon writer Chauncey DeVega wrote in 2017. "They grew and flourished in the right-wing echo chamber provided by Fox News and other media outlets."
"This points to a broader phenomenon," DeVega went on to add. "In America, today's conservatives (as a group and an ideological movement) hold science, empirical reality, intelligence, education and expertise in disdain." Despising "experts" and "professionals" makes them especially prone to fall for con men, DeVega believes.
Yet since Trump entered office we've seen "educated, " "worldly" Dem voters be emotionally exploited time and again by one Swamp stalwart after another, many donning the guise of "experts" and "professionals." Hack FBI officials who went after Trump were praised for their long and faithful service. Diplomatic lifers such as Alexander Vindman were lionized as American heroes for their attempted insider coup over the Ukraine. Legal experts were trotted out to condemn Kavanaugh's "judicial temperament."
All this expertism pushed Dem voters to the same conclusion: Only the Swamp can save us from a president who will destroy the world. Biden's many shortcomings can thus be swept aside. His decades spent as a political lifer in Washington, D.C. suddenly aren't so problematic anymore, even as Dems claim to be yearning for new blood and real "change." His repeated bizarre public statements, which should lead to serious concerns over his mental acuity, can be dismissed as well. The Trump monster must be slain, and only the Uniparty can do it.
The last two weeks have shown that Dem voters will go along with orchestrated party machine politics to a startling degree. The discipline is frightening.
Ultimately, the real winner here is a corrupt political establishment that will keep its place at the Potomac trough for another 2-4 years if its man Biden takes the nomination, no matter if he gets pasted in the general election or not.
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Read more from Joe Schaeffer.
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