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Wednesday, August 19, 2015

The End of the Nanny State? .... Today's Developing Politics as 'Unusual' Can Be a Very Good Thing for We the People, Our Kids and Grandkids

Recently I believed that Hillary was a near certainty to become president in 2016. Now I'm not so sure about that, and that makes me feel good. Very good, in fact.

We the People are having a good time watching all the political fireworks and antics of Donald Trump on the Republican side. Ben Carson and John Kasich have been impressive as well. On the Democratic side, socialist Bernie Sanders is attracting big crowds while Hillary Clinton is busy proving to one and all that she's an insincere, self interested political amateur. Her husband she's not. Neither is she trustworthy, but that's absolutely no surprise.

So what's really going on and why is all this noise and even political nonsense potentially good news? Well, my view is that We the People are finally realizing that politics as longed played in America has been a game where the Jonathan Grubers call the shots. And that really sucks.

And if more and more of We the People are indeed coming to a consensus and clear understanding that government bureaucrats and office seekers are in it for themselves, can't solve our problems and generally aren't even interested in solving them, then that's a very good thing for us to know. Then we can be guided accordingly.

A return to self reliance and self governance, while at the same time looking after the best interests of our less advantaged fellow Americans, as opposed to looking to government gurus to take care of us, is a really great thought to contemplate. Why not believe that we can make it come true?

Political elites have lost control of the campaign, and they can't stand it has the developing political story:

"Whatever else you want to call this presidential campaign, you can hardly call it politics as usual.

A billionaire real estate mogul and reality TV star who many Americans loath is leading a pack of 17 contenders for the Republican nomination in an ongoing circus that the term “clown car” no longer fully describes.

On the Democratic side, the bubble of entitlement that seemed destined to carry frontrunner Hillary Clinton to an easy nomination is slowly deflating and coming down to earth. . . .

If there was any lingering doubt about Clinton’s ineptitude on the campaign trail, it was definitively laid to rest last weekend in Iowa, when she lamely joked how much she loves Snapchat because “those messages disappear all by themselves.”. . .

Clinton continues to dig deeper into the hole of dissembling she started when she disingenuously claimed in March that she used a private email server for the convenience of having only a single device for emails.

And now two inspectors general, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the collective intelligence community are tracking down just how serious a breach of national security this “convenience” constituted.

This is not a joking matter and it’s not going away. And there is still the simmering controversy of the Clinton Foundation donations that is sure to come to a boil once again.

The talk of Vice President Joe Biden entering the race is not sentimental yearning to fulfill a dying son’s wish or glowing embers of political ambition, but the hard-nosed reality that Democrats may need someone to come to the rescue.

Whether 72-year-old Biden would commit to serving only a single term or not, as some are suggesting, the fact is he would be stepping in as a caretaker president, preserving the legacy of the Obama presidency and preventing a Republican from winning the White House.

And which Republican would that be? Donald Trump, who continues to defy the conventional political wisdom that he will flame out? Or Jeb Bush, whose own particular brand of ineptitude continues to sink him in the polls?

The more primary voters see of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, the less they like him. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio gets good marks from pundits but seems callow alongside Trump’s braggadocio and is trailing in the polls.

The mainstream media and the Beltway pundits basically consider all this a temporary aberration....

But they may be missing the real story here. It is a story that has characterized the last decade and a half of American politics, if not longer.

It is a story of stolen elections, illegal wars, a dysfunctional Congress, a rogue financial sector, a corrupted Supreme Court, and soaring inequality in wealth and income.

We may be nearing the end of the useful life of our political system, at least as it is currently functioning — or rather, not functioning.

The insurgency against the political class evident in the Tea Party movement, the Trump candidacy and the surprise success of Bernie Sanders cannot repeatedly be dismissed as temporary departures from the norm. . . .

Sanders is expressly calling for a “political revolution” to reverse the nation’s drive toward oligarchy, while tea partiers want to “take our country back.”

Politics as a profession is not attracting a high caliber of talent, as is evident in the mediocre accomplishments of virtually all the presidential aspirants. . . . If the 2008 and 2012 campaigns still showed some semblance of traditional politics, these vestiges are now crumbling as one candidate few people trust and another candidate few people like dominate the news, and neither seems likely to be an effective president.

Where will it all end? It is the nature of revolutions and historic transitions in general that those living through them cannot see the outcome.

In the meantime, all we can do is to hang on and stop pretending that everything is going to settle down into predictable patterns anytime soon."

Summing Up

So let's keep the faith, because it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings.

Besides, if we believe in ourselves and do what we can to help each other, we can do that which government can never do.

And that's simply make America a better place to raise our kids and grandkids.

That's the real job before us.

That's my take.

Thanks. Bob.

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