A pale imitation of communist revolution

The Democratic National Convention opened yesterday evening at 5:15 p.m. CDT in Chicago, Illinois. It ran about two hours overtime – ending with President Joe Biden’s farewell speech. Until that happened, a parade of speakers, emphasizing grievance and desire for revenge, took the floor. But if this was supposed to be the announcement of a communist revolution, it was only a pale imitation. Half the delegates couldn’t even trouble themselves to stay to the end. If the Convention repeats this pattern, the only danger to Republicans will lie in failure to take them seriously.

Imitation of a vote

The Convention schedule itself betrays the cynical nature of their proceedings. The Podium Schedule for the late-afternoon and evening activities contains this note:

Confirmatory and Ceremonial Vote for the Vice Presidential Nominee

That evidently was a preview speech by Minyon Moore, Chair of the “Convention Committee,” the event organizers. Those votes will take place today, with the “Roll Call of the States” everyone expects. But the outcome is foreordained.

Joe Biden did not, as some predicted, try to crash the party. Either he felt too feeble to try, or the organizers got one thing right: how to make sure that didn’t happen.

This will be an imitation of a vote. In fact not one of those delegates has a mandate from rank-and-file voters to vote for either nominee. Vice-President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) owe their nominations, directly or indirectly, to Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) She, by her own avowal, arranged everything. But somehow, as she sat and watched last night’s proceedings, some small kernel of conscience pricked her. It showed in her face – a guilty face. She knows that what she did was wrong – but insists she “did what [she] had to.”

One user made this pithy observation:

(A reference to A Few Good Men, dir. Rob Reiner, with Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, and Demi Moore; Columbia Pictures, 1992.)

Imitation manifesto

Lay aside the platform that someone dusted off and released without editing to reflect Joe Biden quitting the race.

Of far greater import than this elementary editing error, is the substance of the platform. Kevin (“Shark Tank”) O’Leary, in an interview with Stuart Varney, was incredulous.

I’ve spoken with dozens of investors, and we’re quite shocked just from the 30,000 feet. We thought Harris was going to reboot her whole position to the middle. The idea was to get the swing voters on board with her with a middle strategy. Instead, we’re getting Bidenomics 2.0, which is a shock.

In addition to Bidenomics 2.0, if you look through the rally proposals, it’s basically the same stuff they’ve been touting for the last 36 months. You’ve got this price control, price fixing, patina on top of it, which we know doesn’t work.

If you go back to the ‘70s, when we tried this in the U.S., it was a disaster. Look at Venezuela today or North Korea, or the old USSR [which] tried this. It leads to black markets. It leads to a complete loss of freedom of goods and a breakdown of distribution.

This is a really, really, bad idea, and I’m so shocked that she’s doing it. We’re all shocked. We can’t believe this is the platform.

We’re almost stunned because this leads to a position of just saying, ‘Well, you’re getting the same thing you had, and Bidenomics as a brand is a toxic waste to the swing voter.

It’s associated with inflation. All of these ideas are very inflationary.

O’Leary is correct. President Richard M. Nixon tried a four-phase price-control program, and it was indeed a total failure. The only reason he won against George S. McGovern is that McGovern all but declared himself as a Communist.

No one actually suggests that Kamala Harris has thought this matter through. But if she has, then she intends nationalizing all industries. But of course – as a Senator she once proposed to nationalize all patents. She even said all she needed was “the will to do it,” which she had.

That’s not the entire platform, but only what some considered its most outrageously illogical plank. Other planks translate to:

• Federal minimum wages of $15 per hour, and obvious taxpayer-seeded funding of new factory construction.
• Increased taxes, allegedly promoted so as not to tax anyone more who earns less than $400,000 a year.
• Climate change panic laws.
• Gun control, and legalizing marijuana.
• The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and Freedom to Vote Act.
• Codifying a national “right” to abortion on demand, for any reason or no reason.
• Reviving the phony border-security deal that Trump rightly killed.
• Moving toward a one-world government with the United States ostensibly leading it.

The obligatory riot

Oddly enough, the obligatory homage to the 1968 convention did take place. Pro-HAMAS protesters did break through one of two walls around the United Center. (Those walls created a problem for people trying to get in. One observer described the scene as “chaos.”)

The protesters did jump over the border, did shake a second gate in their path, and did clash with police. Four arrests resulted.

It also caused a delay for people trying to get in before the program began.

Even that was a pale imitation. During the program inside the Center, no one even talked about it. They paid only lip service to the “Palestinian plight,” and gave a confused message about Middle East policy. Nor are the “New Chicago Four” likely to receive the publicity “The Chicago Eight/Seven” got in 1968. Nor did any newshound get knocked down to the floor. Walter Cronkite is dead, of course, but had he lived, he would not have had the chance to repeat:

You’ve got a bunch of thugs down there, Dan!

Regular folks at “marquee moments”?

On another cynical note, the DNC blog mentioned “everyday Americans in marquee moments.” But these did not include the featured speakers. Instead this meant such ceremonial moments as the invocation, presentation of the colors, pledge of allegiance, national anthem, and benediction. Nor were these all “everyday Americans.” The Archbishop of Chicago delivered the invocation, and the Illinois State Police Honor Guard presented the colors. Perhaps “Scouting in America” weren’t available, weren’t willing, or weren’t asked.

The only presentation that pretended to be from an “everyday American” was a commercial by one Rich Logis. He says he is a former Trump voter; whether he actually is, we have only his word on that.

As the program dragged on, the delegates heard from various and sundry House and Senate Democrats, plus Govs. Andy Beshear (D-Ky.) and Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.), Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D-Minn.), and the Mayor of Chicago, among others. All these speakers were the most partisan speakers the organizing committee could have invited. But one provided some comic relief: Randi Weingarten, President of the National Education Association.

Finally came Joe Biden’s turn to speak, after receiving introductions from first his wife, then his daughter. He repeated many falsehoods he and his fellow Democrats have told before about Donald Trump (and the January 6 event).

And half the crowd walked out while he was speaking.

Reaction

The Trump-Vance campaign released their own version of highlights – make that lowlights – from the Convention. Jim Hoft at The Gateway Pundit has the full list, with lots of links. Other commentaries came in from Paul Ingrassia at The Gateway Pundit, Bob Unruh at WorldNetDaily, Chelsea Betonie at Daily News Cycle, and former RedState pundit Erick-Woods Erickson.

All four pointedly observed that the organizers forced Biden to wait until well after prime time to speak. (In fact he didn’t speak until after midnight on the East Coast.) Chelsea Betonie quoted several people as saying Biden was “zoned out like a zombie.” The Trump-Vance campaign and Bob Unruh called the entire program a pack of lies. Erick-Woods Erickson called it a replay of “The Vagina Monologues.” He also pointedly observed that the number-one subject of most of the speeches was abortion. Paul Ingrassia wrote of “a bitter power play between progressives and establishmentarians,” and a desperate imitation of Party unity. Actually the only thing that united Democrats today is their hatred – and fear – of Trump. (That fear pervades the mainstream media, too, as J. Peder Zane said at RealClearPolitics.)

Can it even last?

Ingrassia called the Democratic Party a front for the administrative state – which, today, has less competent leaders than ever. The bureaucracy rules, says Ingrassia, who blames them, not Pelosi, for Joe Biden quitting the race. Yet:

though it can oust a president in a bloodless coup, it is utterly incapable of winning a war overseas, or for that matter, even withdrawing from a lost one, as evident in the Afghanistan troop debacle, with efficiency.

Biden, he said, was a mere figurehead – and Kamala Harris is the next one.

Donald Trump seems to have learned, in his first term, what’s at stake, if he didn’t know before taking office. The real people behind the fear-mongering message do have reason to fear. Donald Trump represents the best hope of ending their power. They, not Trump, want to hang on at all costs. As Saul Alinsky might have advised them, they accuse Trump of their own sins.

Last night’s show presents, again, a pale imitation of revolution – on orders from a pale imitation of a ruling elite. Empires fall when a generation of incompetents rises to the power positions. Lawrence J. Peter was right: leaders rise to the level of their own incompetence. Night One of the Democratic National Convention put the Peter Principle on full display.

They are definitely vulnerable. The Georgia election board, and a Pennsylvania judge, have tightened the rules they bent or broke in 2020. Furthermore the Deep State resorted to the violence that (according to Ingrassia) they employed in 1963. This last time, they failed. But that they would even try it, shows how dangerous they will remain, until the people defeat them.