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The divisions between the parties, their voters, and their candidates, are enormous
January, 19 2020 Democratic candidates for president march at King Day. From Perry McLeod, via Shutterstock.
The Democrats find themselves in an interesting position. Interesting in many ways. They have complete control over the news media, the administrative state, Hollywood, social media, corporate America, and so on and so forth. And yet the two leaders of their party are Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, both of whom struggle to form a coherent sentence, much less inspire confidence in their followers.
Kamala Harris’ parents were both college professors. Pete Buttigieg’s parents were also both professors. Elizabeth Warren IS a professor. Bernie Sanders says that he was bored by his studies, but his wife has a bachelor’s degree in Social Work from Goddard College, and a doctorate in Leadership Studies from Union Institute & University. She was a community organizer and college president. Bernie’s older brother is a professor and a member of the Green Party who has run for president twice. Academia has a well-deserved reputation as a Democrat indoctrination center.
Cory Booker is somewhat unusual in that both his parents were IBM executives. Gretchen Whitmer is more typical, with parents who were both attorneys who also worked in politics. Gavin Newsom’s father was a judge and an attorney for Getty Oil. Gavin struggled in school due to dyslexia – he was in remedial reading classes – and he still prefers audio books etc., so he did not pursue an academic career.
Democrat leaders tend to come from academia, law, and politics.
Donald Trump’s mother was an Irish immigrant who worked as a domestic servant until she married Fred Trump, who was taking classes in carpentry, etc. at night while working as a builder during the day. He became a very successful real estate developer, but he never attended college. JD Vance’s father left when Vance was a toddler. JD was raised largely by his grandparents due to his mother’s drug addiction. JD worked hard and was a brilliant student, but his family was poor and didn’t typically attend college.
Neither Trump nor Vance had parents who attended college.
Both Donald Trump and JD Vance have earned enormous amounts of money in extremely competitive fields – commercial real estate and venture capital, respectively. The Democrat candidates I list above have no notable achievements in the private sector.
The Democrats are the party of the highly educated elite, working in academia, law, and politics. The Republicans are the party of the hard working middle class, working mostly at building and maintaining things. And their respective candidates support that assertion.
From mikeledray, via Shutterstock
There is a reason that our politics are so incredibly polarized right now. And I think it’s likely to get worse before it gets worse.
Presuming we can’t ban mail-in ballots in the next four months, the Democrat candidate, whoever it is, is likely to win.
If our middle class ever begins to suspect that it is helpless against an untouchable elite, the social unrest could be significant.
I really don’t like our politics right now. This could go very badly…
Published in Election 2024
JD Vance has a law degree from Yale. His wife . . . has a law degree from Yale, and clerked for two current SCOTUS justices (though at the time, one was on the Court of Appeals).
What an outsider!
His background is different from the others.
But you’re right, he’s been successful.
Credentials aside, the Dem party is out to destroy America and the GOP is out to save America.
What matters is not only if someone has credentials, but if he regards such credential as effectively a title of nobility.
Peter Thiel has both BA and JD degrees from Stanford, but he is very opposed to credentials for gatekeeping. He established the Thiel Fund for grants to kids who want to do something entrepreneurial & creative *without* going to college. He also provided the impetus and initial funding for the 1517 Fund, which provides venture funding to nontraditional founders, especially those who aren’t going the college route.
Also, there’s a big difference between someone who gets a Yale degree after pulling himself up by him bootstraps and someone who gets the same degree after being programmed, pre-trained, and pre-funded for it his entire life.
“The Democrats find themselves in an interesting position. Interesting in many ways. They have complete control over the news media, the administrative state, Hollywood, social media, corporate America, and so on and so forth.”
Or is it the other way around…the Democratic Party is the *agent* of ‘news media, the administrative state, Hollywood, social media, corporate America, and so on and so forth’???
I think it is more symbiotic accompanied in both with a great fear of the forces of American heritage ready to expose and tear down the Potemkin national structure Democrats have built.
If anyone is wondering why the Thiel-initiated 1517 Fund has that particular name, the answer is here.
They don’t leave Yale law degrees lying around on the ground in Middleton, Ohio.
Doesn’t Governor DeSantis have a law degree from Yale? I don’t remember him being downgraded solely because of that. There was a big push for him to run for POTUS and I think he is still held in high esteem by many. And Vivek Ramaswamy as well. It’s not disqualifying.
I think the doctor’s point is more related to the parents (and surrounding family). In what environment did the candidate grow up?
I agree. My comments speak to apparent sarcasm in Jerry’s comment. These candidates mentioned are outsiders notwithstanding their law degrees from Yale.
I dare to disagree with the good Doc B over one part of the post title: the voters are not always all that different. Sure, you can find plenty of cut-and-dried examples of difference: a family of homeschooling gun owners is a likely Trump vote. A childless couple of social workers is voting Democrat.
But if there’s one thing that the past ten years teaches me about politics, it’s how little is fixed in stone. Plenty of people, not some scorned “mushy middle” have interests that blur the political parties.
If you were unenthusiastic about Bush’s endless wars, does that make you a leftist? If you dislike your union but regard the bosses as clueless well-off SOBs, are you left or right? When a Wall Street executive’s money goes to his wife’s abortion non-profit, is this capitalism at its unleashed finest?
Old ways of detecting real allegiance don’t work anymore.
Outliers may be a better description for these people.
The Democrats cannot win this election. They have no viable candidate and no enthusiasm. The Republicans have a winning candidate and boundless enthusiasm from their expanding base. The black bloc is disintegrating and many are now supporting Trump as their eyes are opened to how they have been used as pawns in the leftist power grab. Scott Presler is chipping away at Pennsylvania and turning it red.
I have to say that I would be very impressed by any rich white guy who got into an Ivy in the last thirty years. A rich white guy would have to have had twice the IQ of everyone else to even get into the “maybe” pile. :) :)
Democrats couldn’t win the last one, either.
For the same reasons.
Some prefer to substitute their own points even if they well understand the language of the essay.
The internecine warfare embroiling the party bigwigs and its outcome will decide whether the eventual nominee is entitled to benefit from the, as Biden in a Kinsley moment described it, “largest voting fraud organization” ever, or not.
This is the problem. The Democrats know they are going to win the election. If Trump wins they will know for certain that Trump, his MAGA cult and Russian cheating rigged the Democrats. There will be lawsuits and riots. Coups are not coups when the left does it.
This is too dangerous, Babe. The Dems need only to steal a few thousand votes in five or six “battleground” states to take this away. I predict that their gambit will succeed in 2024 just as it did in 2020.
I’m still happy that Biden is out. His humiliation pleases me beyond words.
Hopefully he’s aware of it. But he might not be.
DEI ensures the likes of JD Vance will never sully the halls of Yale or any other elite institution.
And that needs to be the difference between the parties, and it needs to be made clear.
Democrats support DEI right up to their Presidential ticket, and we don’t.
Nothing has been changed in the process. The drop boxes, vote harvesting, and ballots for illegals are all still there.
Yep
I fear that winning presidential elections is no longer about getting informed votes. Or even uninformed votes.
The solution to that problem is for state legislatures to restore the selection and direct certification of Electoral College electors to the legislature. Forget statewide popular vote that has been corrupted by Democrat-controlled cities.
The vote has been corrupted by fraud and other irregularities. Fraud has always been there. It is now far more widespread than before. It was wrong before and it is wrong now.
It is less about who votes than about who counts the votes.
Kamala loves Venn diagrams.
She probably doesn’t understand Venn diagrams that don’t intersect.