Fool Me Thrice

Way back in 2008 I was concerned about the direction of our country. We were enmeshed in a so-called War on Terror, bogged down by an insurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and surging against the Iraqi civil war fomented by Iran. At the same time we were suffering from a devastating Great Recession that had tanked the US (and the world’s) economy. Although I liked John McCain as a senator, I feared that as president he would continue the policies of President Bush that had had such disastrous results. Once Barack Obama secured the Democratic nomination to run for president, he tacked toward the center and I thought, maybe it is time for a change.

So I voted for Mr. Obama and he won! But I soon came to regret my decision. He may have tacked toward the center for the general election but he jibed back over to the left when it came to governing. The leftward drift of the Obama administration culminated in a speech he gave in Argentina advising Argentine students, “You don’t have to worry about whether it neatly fits into socialist theory or capitalist theory — you should just decide what works.” His speech went further and praised Raul Castro for the work he was doing in Communist Cuba. Like most leftists, Mr. Obama focuses on outcomes, not making sure the processes work.

In the run up to the 2020 election I wrote a commentary urging Joe Biden to run for president (Run, Joe, Run, published March 20, 2019). Given the plethora of far left candidates running for the Democratic nod (including Bernie Sanders and, yes, Kamala Harris), I considered Joe Biden to be a centrist. He had been in the Senate like forever. He even bragged that he got on well with the Dixiecrats (racist Southern Democrats that voted against the Civil Rights Act). Of course, Ms. Harris called him out on that so he backtracked.

I didn’t vote for Joe. Although a supposed centrist, the center of the Democratic Party has been moving left for the past twenty years. Somehow, Joe Biden, a senatorial non-entity (except for seniority), morphed into the most progressive president since FDR, spending so much money he would make a drunken sailor blush. But it was his age and infirmity that caused Mr. Biden to drop out of the race, not his progressiveness.

His anointed successor to lead the Democratic party in 2024 is his vice-president, Kamala Harris. The same Kamala Harris that criticized him for hobnobbing with Dixiecrats. The same Kamala Harris that had the most progressive voting record of Senate Democrats. The same Kamala Harris that supported Medicare for All and other programs favored by Bernie Sanders.

Ms. Harris recently announced her economic plan  -a cornucopia of tax cuts, subsidies, debt forgiveness, cash giveaways and price controls that the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) estimates would cost between $1.7 and 2.0 trillion. She blames all the economic problems confronting us on corporate greed and exonerates the government from any responsibility for the economic situation we are facing.

This is typical progressive nonsense. What galls me is that her plan assumes that people have no ability solve their own problems. In her speech she extols the middle class values that propelled her mother from a poor immigrant from India into a successful academic researcher. She spoke proudly of the sacrifices she made as a part-time worker at McDonalds to pay for college. She and her mother used middle class values to succeed in America but her speech assumes that Americans no longer have that ability to become a success in America without government. Today’s Americans can’t handle hardship and sacrifice.

Ms. Harris’ economic plan makes it clear that the only hope for regular Americans is government assistance. She speaks with pride about how she and her mother were able to overcome adversity. But how proud will Americans be if they are dependent on handouts, subsidies and tax breaks from the government. Ms. Harris referenced the middle class repeatedly in her economic plan and constantly reiterated that Americans needed government assistance to become middle class. But becoming middle class, achieving the American dream, is not something that can be given to you, it must be earned.

So when Ms. Harris talks about the middle class in America, she is not talking about rejecting extreme progressive ideas that are alien to most people in the country. She is not talking about the middle class sacrificing and deferring gratification to make America great. She is not talking about the settlers that planted their farms far beyond the reach of the cavalry. She is not talking about the greatest Generation that defeated the Nazis and Imperial Japan.

No, she is talking about a middle class that is a creature of the government. A passive, controllable middle class that does the government’s bidding. A middle class made up of people that progressive elites believe are not capable of determining their own fate.

In the run up to the election Ms. Harris may give the impression she is moving toward the center. She is not. Remember the 70s rock band the Who that sang that we should pray, “We don’t get fooled again.”