Rachel Maddow’s piece had a message for Democrats one wonders if she planned
While watching the above Rachel Maddow segment I actually got chills. I am fairly sure this segment was not a warning to Democrats. I think the sole purpose was to show the Bush/Dole dynamic that culminated today with Senator Dole endorsing Jeb Bush.
Embedded however within the 1980 race was an omen. Today’s political charlatans are Donald Trump and Ben Carson. Back then they had an actor, an incompetent candidate running in a field that included a competent politician, war heroes, and others.
We should all remember that the incompetent candidate won the 1980 election. The competent candidate that disparaged the actor’s economic plan as voodoo economics became the vice president. Of course Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush cleaned the democrats’ clock. And they imposed supply side economics (voodoo economics) on us all. Their policies were the genesis of the demise of the middle-class.
Many will attempt to blame the Iran Hostage Crisis and the economic malaise of the time for Carter losing as an incumbent President to Ronald Reagan. The reality is that income inequality is the malaise today that is robbing every individual American’s economy. The Iran Hostage Crisis is congruous to the ISIS crisis giving that manufactured angst brought to Americans. There are similarities here that can be exploited to effect an outcome we will dread lest folks get to work.
Democrats should not be quick to believe that they are a shoo-in for the 2016 presidency. The chaos in the Republican Party is not predictive of a loss. With all craziness that is occurring in the Republican Party, the 2016 Congressional vote has the GOP leading Democrats by 1 point. With their structural advantages caused by gerrymandering and voter suppression, that one point lead is probably equivalent to a 5 or 6 point effective advantage.
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