SAY WHAT is the segment of Liberty Nation Radio where we unveil some of the most wacky, astonishing, and damnable things uttered by politicians and the chattering class.
Tim Donner: Yes, Virginia, those 20 people rolled out by the ever more radical Democratic Party in the first debates actually want to become president of the United States. Twenty flavors of socialism on display for all the world to see, in debates on back-to-back nights in Miami. Right about this time, Donald Trump's political advisers are likely begging the president to follow the time-tested truism first uttered by Napoleon, of all people: “Never interfere with an enemy while he's in the process of destroying himself.” Not that Trump will listen to that advice.
Beto O'Rourke
Nevertheless, could this rogues’ gallery of Democratic presidential candidates possibly have been more craven? Have you ever witnessed such gross brown-nosing to an extreme fringe of the American electorate? What lunatic idea will they come up with next? Wait, I’ve got it: to commemorate America’s immersion into the new unofficial language of the Democratic Party unveiled in these debates, how about a bill to make Spanish the national language?
Anyway, unable to let this moment pass, and in honor of this historic plunge into the horrors of what a socialist America would look like, we've decided to bestow some very special awards upon the debate participants, so here goes, in no particular order.
Biggest Flop: This is not a hard choice. Young Beto “don't call me Robert Francis” O'Rourke had millennials and progressives swooning after his near miss against Ted Cruz in the 2018 U.S. Senate race in Texas. But in the first debate, he looked distinctly not-ready-for-prime-time. He lacked any semblance of energy -- appearing drawn, pale, unshaven -- and spouted a string of hackneyed clichés. And he got bullied by the guy at the far end of the stage, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, in a fight about health care.
Moderator: Would you replace private insurance?
Beto O'Rourke: No, I think the choice is fundamental to our ability to get everybody...
Bill de Blasio: Wait, wait, Congressman O'Rourke, private insurance is not working for tens of thousands of millions of Americans when you talk about the co-pays, the deductibles, the premiums, the out-of-pocket expenses, it's not working. How can you defend the system that's not working?
Beto O'Rourke: That's right, so for those whom it's not working, they can choose Medicare, for the...
Bill de Blasio: You got to start by acknowledging the system is not working for people...
Beto O'Rourke: They're able to keep them …
Bill de Blasio: Why are you defending private insurance?
Tim: On the other hand, Beto did display some of the Democrats’ newfound embrace of Spanglish.
Moderator: What would your top individual rate be?
Beto O'Rourke: This economy has got to work for everyone, and right now we know that it isn't, and it's going to take all of us coming together to make sure that it does, necesitamos incluir cada persona en el exito de esta economia.
Tim: Not to be outdone, Spartacus Cory Booker and open-borders radical Julian Castro followed on with their own Spanglish riffs.
Most Inexplicable Statement: This award, that's tough. If we had to reconstruct every inexplicable policy statement made over those two nights, it would take hours on end, so instead, we offer this: When asked what would be his very first priority when he assumes the presidency on Jan. 20, 2021, Joe Biden replied, "To defeat Donald Trump." Um, excuse me, Mr. Vice President, but you would've already accomplished that by then because, oh, never mind. If he didn't get that, then my explanation isn't going to change anything.
Biggest Surprise of the Debates: This is a group award. The second debate kicked off with all three front-runners in the race vowing to raise taxes.
Bernie Sanders: Yes, they will pay more in taxes, but less in health care for what they get.
Joe Biden: I would be going about eliminating Donald Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy.
Kamala Harris: On day one, I will repeal that tax bill that benefits that top 1% and the biggest corporations of America.
Tim: But there were not just calls for raising taxes, but adding new ones. Here's former tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who wants to hand everyone over 18 a thousand dollars a month and pay for it with a new European-style tax, and the whole scheme was pretty much ridiculed by moderator Jose Diaz-Balart.
Moderator: So you're saying a thousand dollars a month for everyone over 18, but a value-added tax so you can spend that thousand dollars on value-added tax?
Andrew Yang: Well, the value-added tax would end up, you'd still be increasing the buying power of the bottom 94% of Americans ...
Tim: Right, there's the Democrats’ logic. We'll double the federal budget to pay for a massive giveaway and create a new tax to pay for it that would, in turn, be paid by the people getting the thousand a month. Did you follow that?
You know, for time immemorial, it was just understood that you should never promise to raise taxes because it would amount to certain defeat. Exhibit A would be Walter Mondale, who made just that kind of promise in 1984 to raise taxes and lost 49 out of 50 states.
Most Socialist Candidate: Now this is the hardest choice of all, given that every one of the 20 candidates on stage has openly voiced support for undiluted socialist policies such as the Green New Deal and Medicare-for-all. So you have to give the award to the candidate who seems most committed in his gut to full on collectivism. Thus, the winner would have to be Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), whose perpetual rage against the machine does ooze authenticity.
Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders: We will have Medicare-for-all when tens of millions of people are prepared to stand up and tell the insurance companies and the drug companies that their day is gone, that health care is a human right, not something to make huge profits off of.
Tim: Oh yeah, now there's a real socialist. After all, how much more committed to socialism could you be than spending your honeymoon in the Soviet Union, as Sanders and his lovely wife Jane did?
Most Moderate Candidate: Boy, there's an extremely low bar for this award. It would be Joe Biden by default, simply on the basis of defending the current, though admittedly troubled, health care system and promising to oppose any candidate trying to replace it, as all the rest of the candidates do in one form or another. So unlike the other front-runners – Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Sanders -- at least Biden won't try to confiscate private health insurance from 180 million Americans.
Most Humorous Line: This is another extremely low bar because there were all of about maybe three humorous lines delivered over four grueling hours by the dour, perpetually pandering field of candidates. None were exactly side-splitters and only one was actually intentional, so the winner is Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who tweaked Trump.
Amy Klobuchar: This president is literally every single day ten minutes away from going to war, one tweet away from going to war, and I don't think we should conduct foreign policy in our bathrobe at five in the morning.
Tim: The runner-up for Most Humorous Line would be Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, IN, saying his foreign policy is kind of hard to predict because "we have no idea which of our most important allies Trump will have pissed off worst between now and then."
Biggest Truth Teller: That would be a three-way tie among Tim Ryan, John Delaney, and John Hickenlooper, one current member of Congress from Ohio, one former member from Maryland, and a former governor of Colorado. These three warned their fellow debaters of what will happen in the next election if they continue on their current path.
Tim Ryan: We could talk about climate, we could talk about guns, we could talk about all of these issues that we all care about, we have a perception problem with the Democratic Party, we are not connecting to the working-class people in the very states that I represent, in Ohio, in the industrial Midwest, we've lost all connection. We have got to change the center of gravity of the Democratic Party from being coastal elitists and Ivy League, which is the perception to somebody from the forgotten communities that have been left behind for the last 30 years.
John Delaney: All the big transformative things we've ever done in this country's history have happened when huge majorities of the American people get behind them, which is why we need real solutions, not impossible promises.
John Hickenlooper: If we turn toward socialism, we run the risk of having to re-elect the worst president in American history.
Tim: Forewarned is forearmed.
We'll continue handing out awards for the two-day socialist love-in or hate-in, whatever, in part 2 of SAY WHAT later today.
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