Political Analysis ala' NPR: Inane

Political Analysis ala’ NPR: Inane

P. Schultz

            Driving home today from a week away, my wife and I were listening to NPR and a panel discussion on US domestic politics and the current primaries. Here are some of the things I learned.

(1) Anyone and especially the young supporting Bernie Sanders don’t understand our political order. They are not “realists,” as are Hillary and her supporters, including apparently George W. Bush, who was mentioned once as a “realist” when compared to the current crop of Republican primary contestants.

(2) Young women who refuse to allow their votes be determined by the “vagina politics” being peddled are lightweights, largely because they have lived sheltered lives, unlike Hillary, Albright, and Steinem – although C. Rice was not mentioned as another of the pioneering women. They are to be treated as the immature citizens they are because, well, they aren’t supporting Hillary.

(3) The only conceivable reason the Republicans won’t support rebuilding our infrastructure, which would also grow the economy, is because they dislike, intensely, Barack Obama.

(4) Politicians are to be judged not by the results of their policies – e.g., the war in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria, the non-closing of Guantanamo, the current economic miasma – but by their sentiments, so Hillary et. al. are the “good guys” and Republicans are the “bad guys.” The one exception to this formula is Bernie Sanders who has decent sentiments but whose policies are little more than fantasies.  But he is quite old and from a small state, so he too is to be forgiven for his naivete’.

(5) Preserving the status quo is the only “realistic” form of political action available to we citizens.

These are things I learned today on NPR and I now understand why some people say that “Reality is for those who cannot or will not do drugs.”