How We Get the Green New Deal

Paul Mirengoff of Power Line draws attention to an E. J. Dionne column he notes, with alarm, that he mostly agrees with. Dionne argues that the Democrats may find themselves running both houses of Congress and in possession of the Presidency after the elections in November:

Cipher to voters, sock-puppet of the left, and shim for a leftist adult female to be named later. (Image by David Lienemann, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.)

Let's start with the presidential race. Come November, the U.S. will likely be in a depression. Deaths from the coronavirus in the U.S. might well be in the 125,000-150,000 range. A new wave of the virus might be adding to the toll.

If President Trump wins reelection under circumstances like these, he will prove himself the unsurpassed political genius he thinks he is.

It's true that Trump won't be facing a high quality opponent. However, Joe Biden isn't disliked or distrusted the way Hillary Clinton is. And the pandemic will give him an excuse to run a campaign that doesn't fully expose his deficiencies.

I have argued that Biden is the Democrats' None-of-the-Above, in Human Form, and I think Mirengoff is correct to note that the pandemic will help him hide his senility-enhanced dimness and obvious frailty. Indeed, I (and others) wonder if Biden will cross the finish line in the election, much less finish his term.

The race will really be between Trump and whatever woman Biden picks as his running mate. Yeah: I can't think of a likely pick who isn't even further to the left than Biden already is, either. And I can't see either of them not signing the raft of horrible legislation that is guaranteed to spew forth from such a Congress.

Mirengoff signs off by noting that he disagrees with Dionne's final paragraph:

If the GOP does lose everything, it will be because the Trumpian circus-plus-horror-show is entirely off-key for an electorate that has so much to be serious about.

The conservative basically blames the pandemic, and what he says on those lines is not wrong. Nevertheless, I think someone who had been more truthful and serious about the epidemic early on, in the vein Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Institute has pointed out, would have come out of this crisis much better than Trump has.

I am not a conservative or a Trump fan, but such an outcome is a guaranteed disaster, as the frightening excesses of numerous Democratic governors have shown over the past few weeks. A second Trump term would be breathing room (at best) for advocates of freedom, but that is better than no breathing room at all.

-- CAV