Under anything resembling normal circumstances, the spectacle of a massive protest by members of the Democrat Party outside the Democrat National Convention would garner at least a few words, but the need to buttress the largely false narrative of joy and unity overwhelms honesty and integrity.
To hear the mainstream media tell it, the Democrat National Convention has been nothing short of a celebration of joy itself, a triumphant political moment with historic implications. Politico’s Jonathan Martin set the stage earlier this week with a glowing preview, claiming “Democrats arrive here, a city that’s played host to so many drama-filled political conventions, as a party lacking in drama. They are disciplined, orderly and united around Vice President Kamala Harris and, more to the point, thwarting former President Donald Trump’s restoration. This new era of good feelings for Democrats is a far cry from last month, when they faced their most existential crisis since Trump’s initial election, their leaders staring one another down in a sort of political version of nuclear brinksmanship. And it differs from so many previous conventions when there was often intra-party tension over policy, politics, personnel, or all three, looming above the proceedings.” In their view, the party has a lot to celebrate between what they claim is the supremely successful Presidency of Joe Biden and the immaculate ascendancy of future President Kamala Harris. Late on Monday evening, President Biden himself insisted that “Because of you – and I’m not exaggerating – because of you, we’ve had one of the most extraordinary four years of progress ever, period. When I say we, I mean Kamala and me.” “I love my job,” he added, “but I love my country more” The media was quick to characterize this moment as among the most profound possible. CNN’s Stephen Collinson actually said exactly that, as in President Biden “movingly performed the most profound act a politician in a democracy can undertake — willingly handing over power — as he ceded the leadership of the party to Kamala Harris Monday at the Democratic National Convention.” In his view, “Biden’s gesture was especially poignant as he became the first sitting president to shelve a reelection race in more than five-and-a-half decades. He wanted deeply to win the second term that all presidents crave, but ultimately, under fierce pressure from colleagues he once considered loyalists, decided that his party and the country would be better off with someone younger.” This might be one way to look at it – if you studiously avoid the reality that President Biden didn’t withdraw voluntarily, believes he can still win, doubts his successor’s capabilities, and was forced out behind the scenes by Democrat powerbrokers in the naked political equivalent of a coup. As Axios recently described it, a friend claimed he was “still stunned and pissed about the way he was pushed out of his re-election race.” Also left unsaid: Democrats, in their joyous munificence, forced a sitting President to wait past 11 PM to deliver the big speech, after prime time, when most have gone to bed, and then immediately sent him packing as far away from the convention as possible, all the way to California for yet another vacation.
Does that sound like any way to treat the 14th best President in United States History? Ironically, President Joe Biden’s figurative fingertips remained almost everywhere you looked whether he was actually in the building or not. Despite claims of being “disciplined” and “orderly,” the Democrat National Committee apparently couldn’t even release their new platform without mentioning “Biden’s second term” no fewer than nineteen times, nor had they ever heard of the Find and Replace function in Microsoft Word. “This election is a choice between two very different economic visions for America: Donald Trump, who sees the world from his country club at Mar-a-Lago; and Joe Biden, who sees it from kitchen tables in Scranton like the one he grew up around,” the sloppy, hastily assembled platform began, and it didn’t get better from there. Thus, it’s not only the “Biden’s second term” mistake. It’s a litany of references about him being the candidate, “The President’s Investing in America Agenda,” “Under President Biden, we’ve also boosted funding,” “President Biden believes,” “President Biden and Vice President Harris are proud,” “Thanks to President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,” “The President believes,” all across just a couple of pages, but given his abrupt exit from the race, one would think voters would be far more interested in what Vice President Kamala Harris believes. After all, it was only last week that Axios reported on “The Harris plan to redefine herself.” As they saw it, “Vice President Kamala Harris, hoping to distance herself from President Biden’s unpopularity on the economy, plans a new focus on middle-class worries and woes.” They continued, “Harris won’t say it this bluntly in public, but her advisers do so privately: She wants to break with Biden on issues on which he’s unpopular. First up: rising prices. This is part of a highly choreographed effort to define herself — in some cases, redefine herself — as a different kind of Democrat,” but even Axios was honest enough to admit, “A big and fair question is: What does Harris really believe?” Earlier in the report, they mentioned that this distancing from her boss was supposed to begin even before the convention with a much anticipated speech on the economy last Friday, “On Friday in Raleigh, she’ll outline plans to lower costs of health care, housing and food for middle-class consumers, and tell how she’ll ‘take on corporate price-gouging.’” Unfortunately, her effort went so poorly that even the mainstream media managed to pause their cheerleading for a few moments to criticize the detestable, expensive mix of recycled ideas, huge subsidies for homeowners that would transfer even more money from the poor to the rich and drive up already high housing prices, plus communist-style price controls. The Washington Post responded by claiming “The times demand serious economic ideas. Harris supplies gimmicks.” USA Today insisted, “Harris; economic plan promises voters affordable groceries and homes. Don’t fall for it.” CNN opined, “Harris’ plan to stop price gouging could create more problems than it solves.” Economists from the Obama Administration also denounced the plan, saying “This is not a sensible policy.”
The phrase “detonating on the launch pad” comes to mind, making it little wonder that mention of these plans at the convention has been scarce to non-existent and will likely remain so, but we shouldn’t be surprised. The Vice President doubled down on her economic illiteracy over the weekend when she was asked how her administration would pay for the $1.7 trillion in new spending proposed. Rather than claiming she’d actually fund it in any way, shape, or form, however suspect as a politician’s plans often are, she insisted that the “return on investment in terms of what that would do and what it would pay for will be tremendous. We’ve seen it when we did it the first year of our administration. We reduced the child poverty rate by over 50%, so that’s a lot of the work and what we’re doing in terms of the tax credits, we know that there’s a great return on that investment. When we increase home ownership in America, what that means in terms of increasing the tax base, not to mention property tax base, what that means to fund schools, again return on investment. I think it’s a mistake for any person who talks about public policy to not critically evaluate how you measure the return on investment. When you are strengthening neighborhoods, strengthening communities, particularly the economy of those communities and investing in a broad based economy, everybody benefits and it pays for itself.” In other words, she has no plan to pay for it and doesn’t care in the least how much it costs, she might not even know herself, nor does she know what return on investment actually means. As the dictionary defines it, “Return on investment (ROI) is a financial metric that compares an investmen’’s gain or loss to its cost to evaluate its profitability. It’s often used to assess the potential returns of investments like stocks or business ventures. ROI is also used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiencies of different investments.” In this case, that would mean that a dollar spent on the program yields a dollar plus something back to the federal treasury, but nobody believes this, not even Vice President Harris. We know this because she accidentally made a pitch for the conservative notion that lower rates applied across a broader base increases revenue when noting “what that means in terms of increasing the tax base.” This is precisely the argument Republicans have been making since at least Ronald Reagan, if not Calvin Coolidge, only to be maligned as pursuing “trickle down economics,” literally sacrificing the poor at the altar of their love affair with rich people. What’s this, trickle up? If anything in the real world worked the way Ms. Harris explained, why not just give massive subsidies to everyone, making us all trillionaires? Finally, someone should have the insight to read between the lines on the child tax credits and ask, since you and your administration let that credit expire and refused a stand alone vote on it, does that mean you consigned those children back to poverty? Some, like the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities are saying exactly that, “Today’s stunning rise in poverty is the direct result of policy choices — including Congress’s decision to allow the successful Child Tax Credit expansion to expire. Policymakers should expand the Child Tax Credit this year and reverse this troubling trend. The number of people with incomes below the poverty line in 2022 rose a sobering 15.3 million, today’s Census data show, reflecting the expiration of pandemic relief programs including the expanded Child Tax Credit. The poverty rate for children more than doubled from a historic low of 5.2 percent in 2021 to 12.4 percent in 2022, erasing all of the record gains made against child poverty over the previous two years. Progress made in 2021 in narrowing the glaring differences between the poverty rates of Black and Latino children compared to white children was largely reversed.” Other metrics, perhaps needless to say, show a relatively flat rate of 15.3% in 2021 and 15% in 2022.
Lastly, I would be remiss to point out that nothing screams unity like thousands – if not tens of thousands – of protestors who are members of your own party gathered right outside the convention gates. The American media has been rather loathe to cover the reality that there is a pro-Palestinian, if not pro-Hamas, insurrection occurring in the supposedly joyful and united Democrat Party right now, but the BBC wasn’t so squeamish. “Thousands of marchers took to the streets for a mostly peaceful protest near the Democratic National Convention (DNC) on its opening day, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to US support for Israel. But several demonstrators were arrested when dozens of them broke through a security fence around the Chicago venue.” They continued to note the obvious, which is apparently more than we can expect from the mainstream media here. “Protests in Chicago have highlighted divisions among Democrats over one of the most contentious issues on the left of American politics, US support for Israel’s war in Gaza.” Incredibly, President Biden chose to insert himself into this contentious issue during his speech, where he claimed the protestors “out on the street have a point.” and a “lot of innocent people are being killed, on both sides.” Given that least some of these protestors, such as a woman who traveled all the way from Colorado to participate, are calling to “globalize the intifada,” meaning no one in the world is safe from the Hamas and Palestinian resistance that slaughtered some 1,200 people last October 7, what point does he think they have? Under anything resembling normal circumstances, the spectacle of a massive protest by members of the Democrat Party outside the Democrat National Convention would garner at least a few words while covering the event, but the need to buttress the largely false narrative of joy and unity overwhelms honesty and integrity. By way of comparison, CNN has spent the last two days promoting Republican defectors from President Trump who have chosen to speak on behalf of the Democrats. Yesterday, their main headline was “Several Republicans will take center stage at the DNC.” “While some of the biggest names among Republicans opposed to Trump have stayed on the sidelines, others will lay out why conservatives should vote for Harris.” Every convention, of course, has defectors. Senator Zell Miller gave perhaps the most famous speech of its kind in support of George W. Bush in 2004. The Republican convention last month featured several prominent Democrats including a former Congresswoman and Presidential candidate who earned more actual votes than Vice President Harris, Tulsi Gabbard. This, however, has never been of interest to the media because the narrative must prevail at all costs – nothing short of protestors actually storming the convention will shake them from their supine stupor.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 