(2019-07-26) Taibbi The Iowa Circus

Matt Taibbi: The Iowa Circus. only one thought comes to mind: They’re gonna blow this again.

The top Democrats’ best arguments for office are that they are not each other. Kamala Harris is rising in part because she’s not Biden; Elizabeth Warren, because she isn’t Bernie. Bernie Sanders’s best argument is the disfavor of the hated Democratic establishment. The Democratic establishment (DNC) chose Joe Biden because he was the Plan B last time and the party apparently hasn’t come up with anything better since. Nothing says “We’re out of ideas” quite like pulling a pushing-eighty ex-vice president off the bench to lead the most important race in the party’s history. (Presidential Candidates 2020)

The Democrats’ basic pitch reads like a list of five poll topics: kids are in cages; let’s close the gun-show loophole; this administration’s policies are an existential threat; something something Mitch McConnell; and Trump is (insert joke here).

Our walking civil war of a president (Donald Trump) reached office on a promise to burn it all down (BITFD), which, incidentally, he’s doing. A core psychological appeal to destruction needs a profound response. Slogans won’t work. Poll-and-pander won’t work. True inspiration is the only way out.

much of what has passed for the Democratic Party debate to date has involved what campaign commentators call “moments,” like this.

There are real, heavy ideas underlying the Democratic primary — more on those in a bit — but few of them are coming through in these melees. Mostly the Democrats are taking tweet-size bites out of one another’s hind parts in Heathers-style putdowns, or engaging in virtue-signaling contests, like they’re running for president of Woke Twitter.

The presence of human scratching post Biden atop the field has contributed to the not-undeserved impression that the party does not know what the hell it is doing

Next thing you knew, we were right back in 2016, with reporters dutifully conveying Trump’s insults and even kinda-sorta suggesting they were true.

Biden is Jeb. O’Rourke, running in what the Times calls the “younger face” lane, is Marco Rubio. Unseen Steve Bullock is unseen Jim Gilmore. Bill de Blasio is the same “Why is he running?” New Yorker George Pataki was

IN THE 2020 race, a succession of Democrats have already taken star turns as darlings-for-a-news-cycle, only to splat in polls right after. The pattern is incredible

Reporters show up at events with anxious smiles on their faces, like parents looking for a child at a department store. Maybe this one?

Then as now, in their zeal to find someone, anyone, to beat Trump, the press is once again too focused on the candidates themselves, ignoring warning signs that are almost always sitting right there in front of them, in the crowds.

The same kind of circular-cannibalism act in the Republican field four years ago created an opportunity for one Donald J. Trump.

The problem for Warren is “I’ve got a plan for that!” is a dubious strategy in an era in which the campaign promise itself is a declining currency. On paper, she’s done just about everything right. But if she advances, voters will soon be introduced to the fact that plans and promises similar to the ones Warren is making have been made many times before. It’s not a referendum on her but on how much belief is left out there.

Politicians often sound great. They may sound like they understand issues up and down. They may even have passed laws that ostensibly address problems. But for a lot of Americans, speeches never catch up with reality. Legislation designed to prevent pollution, contractor corruption, sexual assault, predatory lending, and countless other abuses may earn approving headlines — but create few results on the ground. This gap between reality and political proclamation is what opened the door for Trump in 2016.

Marianne Williamson, the self-help author made famous by Oprah Winfrey... goes on to say that most Americans are aware that their government is now little more than a handmaiden to sociopathic forces. She describes a two-party system that, at its worst, operates in perfect harmony with the darkest impulses of corporate capitalism, and at best — presumably she refers more to Democrats here — sounds like institutionalized beggary.

Christ, I think. This woman is going to win the nomination

Williamson belongs to a category of candidate you might call the Ignored. They’re candidates blown off by national political wizards who don’t believe, or don’t want to believe, they can win. How anyone can think this way after 2016 is mind-boggling.

It’s unseemly, the degree to which the press is rooting for Sanders to get his socialist tuchis out of the race

Sanders doubled both Harris and Warren in said poll at 18 percent. He also has the highest number of unique donors, and is the leading fundraiser overall in the race.

Sanders is the revolutionary. His election would mean a complete overhaul of the Democratic Party, forcing everyone who ever worked for a Clinton to look toward the private sector. That’s what a vote for “change” would mean in 2020

Four years ago, the rank inadequacy of the Lindsey Grahams and Scott Walkers and Jeb Bushes who tumbled into the pastures of Iowa made great sport for snickering campaign journalists, myself included. We dubbed the field of governors, senators, and congressgoons who couldn’t beat a game-show host the “Clown Car,” and laughed at what many of us thought was the long-overdue collapse of the Republican Party. The joke turned out to be on us.

Nobody will want to hear this, but Democrats are repeating the error.