Republicans

The Republicans were making derogatory statements about each other and tried to cut each other down. Some of the candidates bragged how rich they were, others how smart they were, others how successful they were in their fields. None of the three front-runners had ever won or held any public office, not even a seat on a school board.

They called our leaders categorically stupid, all achievements are disasters, and they made it sound like the country is going to hell. They blasted the current administration for ignorance, stupidity, the worst president ever, the worst secretary of state ever.

They kept getting hung up on other people’s sexual orientation, their reproductive choices, and their races, languages and ethnic background.

Democrats

I didn’t see any personal attacks beyond asserting disagreement on issues and opinions. A general focus on the important issues for the country, mostly the woes of the middle class, the security of the people, and issues of financial responsibility.

All of the candidates had extensive and progressively higher public service experience. All of them were shrewd negotiators and compromise builders.

They didn’t ever blast the administration, or the former Bush administration, other than Sanders stating facts of how the Bush presidency ended in financial ruin with wars burning out of control. Nobody was belittled, nobody was attacked.

My Take-Away

How can the Republicans possibly win the general election? How can any of the following classes of people possibly vote for any one of the Republicans against any one of the Democrats:

• Workers
• Students
• Women
• Women during the reproductive years
• Hispanics
• African-Americans
• Immigrants
• Intellectuals
• Academics
• Gays
• Socialists
• Atheists
• Jews
• Muslims
• High tech workers
• Veterans
• Marijuana smokers

The classes left to vote for Republicans:

• Christian fundamentalists
• Millionaires
• Billionaires
• CEOs
• Oil and coal workers
• NRA members

I recognize that these lists represent gross and glaring generalizations. I am sure there are a few billionaires that will vote Democrat, and there’ll be a few atheists and perhaps one gay that will vote Republican.

But in the end, there are just so many more people in the first group than in the second group, just counting heads, that I think Bernie Sanders is right: All he has to do is get the people to go to vote – end of game.

The Republicans are in the middle of a self-destruction rampage. To quote Pink Floyd:

Did they expect us to treat them with any respect?

Here are the entire lyrics of the song The Fletcher Memorial Home:

Take all your overgrown infants away somewhere
And build them a home, a little place of their own.
The Fletcher Memorial
Home for Incurable Tyrants and Kings.

And they can appear to themselves every day
On closed circuit T.V.
To make sure they’re still real.
It’s the only connection they feel.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, Reagan and Haig,
Mr. Begin and friend, Mrs. Thatcher, and Paisly,
“Hello Maggie!”
Mr. Brezhnev and party.
“Scusi dov’è il bar?”
The ghost of McCarthy,
The memories of Nixon.
“Who’s the bald chap?”
“Good-bye!”
And now, adding colour, a group of anonymous latin-
American meat packing glitterati.

Did they expect us to treat them with any respect?
They can polish their medals and sharpen their
Smiles, and amuse themselves playing games for awhile.
Boom boom, bang bang, lie down you’re dead.

Safe in the permanent gaze of a cold glass eye
With their favorite toys
They’ll be good girls and boys
In the Fletcher Memorial Home for colonial
Wasters of life and limb.

Is everyone in?
Are you having a nice time?
Now the final solution can be applied.