There is such a thing as being too smart for your own good. In our last presidential election, the Liberal Democrat news media provided us an example. They provided Donald Trump all kinds of free publicity during the primary elections, and they were quite pleased with themselves when he won the Republican Party’s nomination because they thought he would be a weak candidate. Then Trump surprised everyone by winning. Funny how that worked out.😁
If Republicans scheme to help Bernie Sanders gain the Democratic Party’s nomination, by crossing over and voting for Sanders in South Carolina primary, for example, we also risk being too smart for our own good. Why? That has to do with how people vote. We don’t always understand what motivates our neighbors as well as we think we do.
Consider this excerpt from an article by former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. He gives an example of how a voter votes with his gut.
Let me give you an example. Just before Christmas in 2016, I was shopping at Kohl’s near our home. A young man was hovering near me. I assumed he was either an employee or a fan. Turns out, he was both. He introduced himself, said he was a big fan and asked for a photo. After we took a selfie, he told me what a wild year 2016 had been for him. He started out as a Sanders supporter. After Mr. Sanders lost the primary, he couldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, so he voted for Donald Trump.
At that moment I felt like saying, “Dude, I want to take a picture of you.” Ideologically, it made no sense. So I listened to him explain.
He liked me because I was the guy who stood up to 100,000 protesters and did what I said I would do and fought for guys like him. He said that Mr. Sanders didn’t look the part but said what he believed and was going to take on the machine. And he said Mr. Trump didn’t care about what the media thought. He was going to Washington to drain the swamp and make America great again. He didn’t have a checklist of issues. Instead, his was a gut check as to who was going to fight for him. (from here (washingtontimes.com))
Walker goes on to suggest that we strive to educate voters, that we make the race for the president about ideas.
Think! Why do Democrats fear a Sanders nomination? Why do Republicans think Sanders would be the easiest candidate to beat? Sanders admits to believing what almost all Democrats believe, in Socialism. Therefore, instead of worrying about which candidate the Democrats nominate, we need to explain why any Democrat would be an awful president. We need to present the virtues of a constitutional republic with a capitalist economic system, and we need to display President Donald Trump’s credentials as a Conservative who believes in the virtues of a constitutional republic with a capitalist economic system.
Citizen Tom 
Nobody is fooling anybody. America is not yet ready for communism under any label or in any form, fashion or flavor of the day.
@John
Perhaps you are right. Hope so, but for all practical purposes our education system is designed to produce gullible Socialists. Frankly, I was astonished when Obama won a second term, and I would not be surprised if Sanders could turn out the same voters.
The problem is that there is not a dime’s worth of difference between Biden and Sanders. Biden calls himself a Liberal or Progressive, but for all practical purposes both favor the same stupid policies. Sanders is just honest about how his admiration for Communist dictators, and the rest of the so-called Progressives would rather hide under sheep’s clothing.
Tom,
I have had first line experience with “baseline budgeting” four decades ago in my first position in a Purchasing Dept. The Purchasing Manager told me to buy everything possible to use up the budget allocated for that year for stationary supplies, “or else we won’t be able to get the same amount for supplies ” next year.
In other words, even in private industry, the baseline budget was a factor used by anyone who had to account for their budgets. And most everyone fears losing a source of spending because it is a lot harder to justify an increase in spending over a budget in private industry.
Not too certain what happens in a public agency when a budget is exceeded. All I do know it seems that is I rarely hear in the news anyone ever hyping that they reduced their allocated budget.
Regards and goodwill blogging.
@Scatterwisdom
Politicians gain power by spending, not saving. I suppose some people contribute money to political campaigns for altruistic reasons, but most of the money seems to come from wealthy people who are either either looking for a personal tax advantage or government spending that goes into their pockets. Thus, the crony capitalist news media and conniving politicians just use baseline budget to confuse the public about spending increases. That is, when we hear about a budget cut, we need to make certain the “cut” is relative to last year’s budget, not the baselined budget.
Tom, tsalmon
Sanders has a huge appeal with millennials who in my opinion are being enticed with free college and other freebees being promised by Sanders.
Couple the millennials with Trump haters might just be what could turn out to be a Democrat win in 2020.
What happens after Sanders wins depending on the majorities in the House and Senate is anyone’s guess.
I remember a list of promises given me by millennials in a public place, who in this election have come to age and numbers to be of significant consequence in the outcome. Frankly, when I read the list of promises, if I did not know better and was a millennial, I would have voted for him.
As fpr the FDS factions, there still appears to be a lot of people making statements that anyone who could defeat Trump, is going to be their choice in the next election.
Sad, even gut wrenching to think of the concourses if Sanders also wins the House and Senate majorities.
Regards and goodwill bloggng.
@Scatterwisdom
Bleak picture you paint. Realistic, I fear.
I have been seriously concerned ever since Obama won his second term. I wondered how Americans could be so foolish. So I reassessed the situation.
When we combine the propaganda effects of the crony capitalist news media, the Liberals’ dominance over the popular culture, and a Socialist educational system, to assume Republicans will win the 2020 elections (Conservatives won’t) is not realistic. Because most people don’t understand how their government is suppose to work, we have a real problem getting people to discuss what is broken. In fact, to prevent any possibility of a rational discussion, we just get a constant stream from Liberal Democrats. Look at Tony’s comments, for example.
Not a fan of Sanders, but Trump’s incompetence and lying at that thing they called a press conference means that, in an international health crisis, Trump has lost all credibility to lead. The markets obviously already don’t trust him. I don’t think health care crisis experts trust him. And anyone in the public with half a brain already knows to do the opposite of whatever he says.
It almost seems like Trump is more worried about selling us into a coma of dithering to save him inevitable losses to his resort enterprises than in handling this medical and financial crisis to save lives and speed recovery.
I spent the last 40 years as a risk manager who tries to capture threats before they become a crisis and mitigate emergencies before they become disasters. As a pilot, all my takeoffs and landing equal each other, not because I’m a particularly talented stick and rudder guy, or that I have not seen my share of emergencies, but because I’m a good planner and good decision maker. I only see incompetence and deception here from the Trump administration.
Forget about Sanders and try to figure out how to get rid of this dithering con artist before he screws up the next, maybe worse crisis.
@tsalmon
Typical TDS response. Bunch of assertions of fact without anything to back them up. You have obviously been studying at the feet of Shifty Schiff.
The markets are responding to a real problem. That virus is interfering with production lines in and trade with China. That virus is spreading to other countries.
Will the virus spread here. Maybe, but Trump has done what he could to slow it down.
Do we keep new strains of flu out of the USA? No. Same problem.
Trump hasn’t done anything accept get rid of exactly the people and departments that actually can handle such health care emergencies, and now he is just incoherently dithering, dithering and more dithering, and that is when he isn’t just saying or tweeting outright falsehoods. Listen to what everyone who has ever worked with Trump says – Trump is incapable of being briefed on anything, and just lashes out at anyone or anything who he thinks makes him look bad.
You know that Trump is an incompetent conman. You wouldn’t trust this guy to borrow your lawn mower? Why would you trust him with the country. He’s a showman, and doesn’t have an ounce of the integrity that leadership requires. I think that you know what I am saying is true.
@tsalmon
The CDC’s budget has not been cut.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-cut-cdcs-budget-democrats-claim-analysis/story?id=69233170
When the Democrats first brought the CDC budget cut up, I thought they were talking relative to the baseline budget. That is a scam too. https://www.cagw.org/content/baseline-budgeting Point is that if there has been a cut it is only relative to a phony baseline.
Sure Tom, the novel coronavirus is a Democrat plot, a Chinese hoax, a mainstream media witch hunt just to get poor victimized Trump. In fact, there is no virus and China quarantined 300 million people and imploded their economy and world supply chains just to make your orange clown look stupid. Our stock market and markets around the world just evaporated trillions of dollars because they hate Trump. Airline travel is coming to a standstill, schools are closing, resorts are closing, and businesses around the country can’t get necessary parts and supplies because … uh … don’t know … but let’s just scream “witch hunt” “liberal news media” “hoax” and dither and hide our heads in the sand until this imaginary pandemic just goes away. Right….
Ultimately, this is a math problem. Let’s assume the best facts available from the WHO so far. The exponential infection spread rate is about 2-4 per contagious person over about two weeks of gestation. The mortality rate is about two percent, mostly the old, the young and those with already compromised respiratory or immune systems. Let’s say that, because of aggressive quarantines, only 2/3 of the country gets the virus. Just in our country, that means that between 2 and 3 million Americans will get seriously ill or die. (Look at the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic illustration).
Here’s some other math. We have about one million hospital beds in the whole country right now and those must also be used for patients who are seriously ill for other reasons. The treatment for acute respiratory distress is oxygen and a ventilator. Most hospitals only have a few of these. What happens to those numbers when health care workers get ill (or stay home to avoid getting ill or to avoid infecting others). What happens when key government leaders get ill?
Based upon what we already think we know from other countries in the grip of the virus spread, information and expertise will be crucial, and yet the new Trump administration quickly fired the NSC staff and decimated the government departments that would brief him on plans and options. Why? Because Obama put them in place I guess and anyway, Trump knows more than the generals, the experts and the scientists. Dithering. Now Trump not only doesn’t have plans or information; he’s spreading false information which will undoubted lead to a loss of confidence and panic (like is already going on in the markets) when calm and confidence is most critical. Dithering idiot.
China bought us a window of time, months, that is already closing while Trump dithered. In spite of Trump claiming that we have only 15 cases in the US, we have 64 and climbing. The latest 3 cases were community cases, meaning they can’t connect them to travel or to contact with a recent overseas traveler. If we have 3 or 4 community cases on the west coast, we probably have many more throughout the country that we don’t know about yet partly because the Trump administration has dithered about getting the test kits out.
Have you changed your phone number? I’ve tried to call you a couple of times over the past two weeks and left messages. Give me a call.
@tsalmon
As any good Republican knows Democrats are really Martians, and they are just terrified of human diseases. Remember that H. G. Wells “War of the Worlds” story. As Orson Welles demonstrated, that story worked quite “well” in creating panic as radio show (ironic the last names are so similar).
Seriously. The hoax Trump is talking about is the Democrat’s call for a panic response, not the existence of the virus.
The problem with a virus like this is that the solutions come slowly and the virus spreads quickly. We can only develop the tools to identify and cure such an illness so fast. Getting angry and blaming people won’t change that.
We have Democrats running around screaming Trump is incompetent. What is suppose to do that he has not done? Keep some deadwood on the NSC staff? 🤨😏🤔 That’s the best you can do for a complaint?
Is the test kit issue a better complaint? Not really. Here are a couple of articles.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/united-states-badly-bungled-coronavirus-testing-things-may-soon-improve
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/after-missteps-cdc-says-its-coronavirus-test-kit-ready-primetime-n1145206
China first reported the spread of the coronavirus on December 31, 2019. Don’t know the normal timeline for these things, but two months is probably fairly quick. To the extent the CDC erred we are talking about decisions made by bureaucratic “experts”, not political decisions.
Consider this excerpt from the “Science” article.
Epidemics are fairly rare, and each disease presents different problems. So we cannot easily set rigid standards that work all the time. In this case, we tried. Those rigid standards resulted in overregulation and prevented the locals from doing their own testing. In general, the better response is to let people onsite do their own thing. That is especially true when the folks on the other side of the country don’t what they are doing.
Trump hasn’t done anything accept get rid of exactly the people and departments that actually can handle such health care emergencies
He did the most important thing by closing travel to and from China as promptly as possible (in spite of objections from Democrats). We can make an easy comparison…just juxtapose it with the ROK’s response. They didn’t shut down travel, and even sent a ROK diplomat over to China to stimulate tourism. Now they’re in very bad shape…the worst in the world behind China. And unfortunately, our military members and their families are suffering for it.
The ROK has universal healthcare that has been touted as among the best in the world. Plenty of public funding. Asinine government leadership.
If an asteroid hit the earth tomorrow, the Democrats would be scrambling to blame Trump. “Did he lay off any paper pushers in the astrology department?!?!”
In a world with a finite amount of resources (the real world, not Bernie’s pretend world) the risk to benefit ratio has to be weighed.
risk/reward= cost benefit analysis.
That’s the term. Still working on my first cup of coffee.
@Liz
Well said! Good for a laugh too!😁