Saturday, March 11, 2023

Gifted Amateurs

 

Is it possible that the professional Democratic party folks understand what shapes their constituency better than 2020 presidential party also-rans? I'm not going to presume malice or racism, to explain Williamson and Yang here when they are just echoing the common wisdom that both parties in our two-party system are equally responsible for the polarization.

Yang represents the Forward Party (not right or left, but forward, whatever that's supposed to mean). You all know how I feel about third parties (they make no mathematical sense). Williamson was caught on a hot mic saying the following:

"What does it say that Fox News is nicer to me than the lefties are? What does it say that the conservatives are nicer to me?" Williamson said after an interview with Eric Bolling on Sinclair Broadcast Group's America This Week last week. 
"It's such a bizarre world," she added. "I didn't think the left was as mean as the right, they are," the activist and author asserted.
She feels the heat from the left more because she's closer, but she also doesn't seem to understand that the right-wing hopes she does bleed support from Joe Biden, so that Democrats will lose. They aren't being "nice". 

 I'm not saying Yang and Williamson are bad people. They are people who have some good ideas and some not-so-good ideas, but that doesn't really mean they "get" what are polarization is about or what we need to do about it. 

See, I'm not even siding with actual fascists to fill potholes. And there's one party that will fill potholes while not being fascists, and another that is calling for child labor and the elimination of trans people. This is why I greet the opinions of gifted amateurs with annoyance and even some condescension. They don't represent a new direction or an opportunity for healing. They seem naïve and a distraction. 


3 comments:

Charles said...

Either they are actually bad people, or profoundly stupid. Rural Republicans aren't voting for either one of them.

Ten Bears said...

Stooges. Maybe Soviet, maybe not, but someone is jerking their chain ...

Vixen Strangely said...

I think it is possible that they are just dumb--the phrase "useful idiot" exists for a reason. I take a look at "No Labels" and the possibility that they might run a third-party candidate as likely a case of egomaniacal stupidity (Kyrsten Sinema?) and then there's Kennedy prince-turned-frog, JFK Jr., who is entertaining a third party run while spouting his anti-vax views to people who are definitely aligned with Mike Flynn chaos agents.

It's just that, like Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader, or Jill Stein and Gary Johnson, there is simply never the time for "protest votes" or signifying stands. The polarization exists because the two parties fundamentally disagree on what "forward" even is.

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