This year’s Democratic presidential campaign is essentially a three-man race. The leading candidates are Michael Bloomberg, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg. This is the result of this month’s debacle in Iowa.
Democrats used new rules imposed by socialist Sen. Sanders following his failed 2016 presidential campaign, which Sanders used at the 2016 Democratic National Convention to leverage power over this year’s Iowa caucus. The new rules required that the popular vote, which is meaningless in terms of earning delegates at the convention, be counted, tallied and reported. For whatever reason, the Iowa Democratic Party claims to have experienced technical difficulties that unexpectedly delayed the recording and reporting of votes. On election night, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg declared victory.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, it’s clear that Buttigieg by all accounts narrowly won the most delegates to this summer’s Democratic National Convention. Socialist Sanders, who narrowly won the popular vote, came in second place. In fact, despite recently claiming victory, Sanders lost the caucus, according to the Iowa Democratic Party. The electoral advantage and momentum goes to Buttigieg.
This week’s primary election in New Hampshire, followed by elections in South Carolina, Nevada and California, are unlikely to change the dynamic as far as I can tell. I also know that almost anything can happen. But the only other viable candidate among Democrats is former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the overbearing media businessman who lusts for power.
Bloomberg is a billionaire who, like Buttigieg and Sanders, seeks to impose radical new government control over Americans’ lives. Though he’s not really contesting early elections, he’s gaining traction in a way that the campaign’s other pro-statism businessmen, such as Yang, Steyer and former candidate Howard Schultz, have not. Besides spending unprecedented amounts on advertising, including bankrolling hours of media appearances by his spokesmen, Bloomberg’s strategy is to ignore the early elections and flood the airwaves with ads. His entire value proposition to the voter is that he “gets it done”.
These three words, leaving aside his attempt to come off as folksy by adopting the name “Mike”, offer the unthinking emotionalist Democratic Party voter the promise of what he or she wants: beat Trump at any cost. Replacing one old, autocratic New York City power player with another aims to beat Trump at his own media savvy game. Ex-independent and ex-Republican Bloomberg, with his Big Government mayoral record and gun control pledge, aligns with today’s Democrats. And Bloomberg, who can afford to go the distance, can win merely by not being either a democratic socialist or gay and lacking experience, which are supposedly the main negatives against Sanders and Buttigieg.
Bernie Sanders could win for his socialism. Americans want socialism, at least many do. We’ve lived under partial socialism for a century. We’ve been indoctrinated with its moral premise, altruism, since the New Left took over education. Doctors want Medicare “for all”. Americans are entangled in ObamaCare and Social Security. Many profit from the welfare state and most subsist on it. That capitalism offers a better life and that Sanders will do to America’s partial capitalism what he’s done to the Iowa caucus — total destruction — is lost on many, perhaps most, Americans. Sanders can beat Trump. Sanders can win. Sanders, like the anti-American who made him possible, Barack Obama, can be elected president and destroy America.
I first wrote about Mayor Buttigieg last fall, when I forecast him as the candidate most equipped to defeat Donald Trump. Like Obama, to whom I compared the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor, he’s primarily built his campaign on an appealing only-in-America story predicated on a factor beyond his immediate control; Pete Buttigieg is gay. Like community organizer Obama, a U.S. senator in his first term when he was elected president in 2008, Buttigieg has mostly local, small scale political and/or government experience. And, like Obama, he speaks in platitudes.
Fundamentally, Buttigieg will be harder for Trump to defeat because it will be harder for Trump to differentiate his candidacy on policy grounds. Buttigieg does not campaign as a radical leftist. He comes off as reasonable. He’s not a gay activist. He’s intelligent. He’s better at extemporaneous oral communication than Trump, whose oral communication is both abrasive and cavalier. Where there are other key contrasts, such as tact and military service, Buttigieg has an advantage. And, with his youth, Harvard graduate Buttigieg is both younger and less emotional than any of his competitors, from Trump, Bloomberg and Sanders to Klobuchar, Yang and others.
But, pardon the cliche, make no mistake; Buttigieg seeks radical reform. He proposes radical change to the origins of the Supreme Court and the electoral college. He supports reparations for slavery. He supports ObamaCare and seeks to impose stricter, total government control of medicine and health care. Buttigieg, like Trump, is religious, which merits a review of his vague proposals with regard to mixing religion and state.
Buttigieg completes or advances the Democratic Party’s march toward religionism in government, from the party’s support for slavery and Prohibition to Jesuit-trained fundamentalist Catholic Jerry Brown, fundamentalist Baptist Jimmy Carter and Methodist Hillary Clinton, who once proposed banning divorce for couples with children. Buttigieg unequivocally represents the rise of religion in the Democrats’ American government. Buttigieg, like Yang, who never stops touting that his wife does not make money and “stays at home”, is likely to impose the New Left’s “woke” brand of egalitarianism, Puritanism and religionism in government.
Other candidates lack momentum. Yang, like Al Gore and Sarah Palin, uses his family, specifically, his wife, who went on a press tour to discuss her allegation of being molested by her doctor, in one of the more disgraceful campaign tactics, and still lost Iowa by a huge margin. Steyer’s proselytizing for his religion, environmentalism, is shrill. Desperate feminist Warren failed to win a single county in Iowa, as CNN’s John King pointed out. Klobuchar’s campaign as a compromiser who’s “electable” because she’s a woman that appeals to Trump voters could help her become running mate. Biden, whose best moment came when he addressed his stuttering, not a substantial point for advancement, stalled and is unlikely to recover.
But the 2020 Democrats’ nominee for president will most likely be a socialist or former mayor who wants the individual to be subordinated to the state. He will probably be a candidate that seeks to ruin the Constitution and violate individual rights more than the current president. And he will try to win by fraudulently branding himself by his folksy first name — “Bernie” the socialist, “Pete” the Christian, “Mike” the autocrat — as against Trump, in whom what you see is what you get.
With five major candidates remaining in the Republican and Democratic political parties, the 2016 presidential campaign is, like the nation, coming to a climax.
This Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary may prove to be a turning point for the GOP, whose frontrunner is a lifelong anti-Republican who is running as a Republican, because the challenger is expected to win by a wide margin. Later this month, the New York primary may similarly prove to be a Democratic Party pivot point because that party’s challenger, a socialist running as a Democrat, may defeat the frontrunner. By May, with over two more months to go before the summer party conventions, the 2016 race could be totally undecided.
As in 2012’s election, the nation’s future hangs in the balance. The essential nature of America’s republican form of government—a constitutional republic based upon individual rights—is at stake in this election.
Especially this time, I think it is important to remember that, as loaded with volatility as the races are, and as divided as the nation is, anything can happen to change the whole campaign—economic catastrophe, acts of war, assassination, riots, smears, blackmail, indictment, illness, a third or fourth major candidacy, secret deal-making and maneuvering—and throw the American political process into a tailspin.
Already, for instance, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, whom I interviewed when he ran for president as the Libertarian Party’s candidate in 2012 (read the interview here) embraced a recent poll that puts him at 11 percent in a contest against frontrunners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Johnson would certainly be a better president than either Clinton or Trump, who both seek government control of people’s lives, though his election as a third party candidate is currently unlikely.
A more likely scenario is that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, a status quo Republican who said he would never run to be speaker of the House, will try to become the GOP’s nominee for president. The Speaker, who was chosen as Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012, clearly has higher aspirations and, contradicting himself on every other issue such as the budget, being speaker and his endorsement and subsequent disavowal of Ayn Rand, Congressman Ryan is the typical politician. Also in the typical/status quo camp is Ohio Governor John Kasich (pronounced KAY-SICK), an altruist for the welfare state who seeks religion in government. Kasich is running as a spoiler to frontrunner Trump’s main challenger, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, jockeying for deal-making position, probably all the way to the GOP’s Cleveland, Ohio convention, despite having only won his home state.
To his credit, 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, the candidate against President Obama last time who failed to identify Obama’s death premise and fully differentiate himself as the candidate of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, has denounced Trump, whom he said he will not vote for. This is more than most conservatives, libertarians and Republicans have done. Indeed, it’s more than Cruz has done. Romney announced that he would vote for Cruz, though he stopped short of an explicit endorsement. Romney himself may want to become the party’s nominee, though it may be more magnanimous and patriotic if he makes a deal with Cruz to abandon Cruz’s worst positions, such as pledging to support Trump if he’s the nominee, building a wall, banning abortion and opposing marriage for gays, in exchange for Romney’s endorsement.
Trump is running to be America’s strongman whether as a Republican or as an independent candidate. He opposes free trade, free choice in medicine, immigration, free speech, property rights, capitalism and individual rights. He’s expressed admiration for states with socialized medicine. He talks about having journalists murdered and seeks to be “neutral” with Israel’s enemies. He agrees with Barack Obama in opposing Apple’s individual rights and he says he would build a wall around America. Kasich wants American government to be ruled by religion and so does Cruz, though he at least says he wants to unite the nation around two key secular proposals: unyielding national defense against the Islamic jihad and restoring America’s government to a Constitutional republic.
The challenger in both parties may yet emerge as the nominee. Self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders recently swept caucuses in the West, where pockets of socialism fester, especially among indoctrinated youths, and he could win the nomination (as he explains here). An election between Sanders and Cruz could be a contest of conflicting principles. A race between Trump and Clinton will be an impossible choice between toxic policies that will destroy America and there is a degree to which all the remaining five candidates pledge to end America. But there is time and there are degrees. The American for individual rights must choose (and those who refuse to choose are choosing, be default, to check and blank out). Because, this year, anything bad can happen—including economic collapse, foreign attack and anarchism (i.e., by the Anonymous anarchists)—the good American must start by choosing to be aware, staying on alert for rational activism.
The year 2016 promises to be another sharp turn in American government. Whichever direction the United States takes—toward dictatorship or liberty—becomes known in November. The choice intensifies next week.
The nation’s disunity was on display in America’s Hawkeye state tonight. Iowa’s caucuses, which resulted in thin margins in both major parties, indicate that this year’s presidential nominations may be close and contentious. Iowa’s election signals a crucial contest among five major candidates for president of the United States (read my thoughts on the GOP’s first debate here, my complete fall 2015 roundup of candidates here and my analysis of the GOP’s Reagan library debate here). In terms of supporting individual rights and the unity and defense of the nation, one candidate comes out ahead, if not on top.
Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont, locked in a close Democratic Party race with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gave one of the most vitriolic political speeches in recent memory. He denounced the wealthy and those who work on Wall Street, targeting them for persecution with wild-eyed raging abandon, and, as I wrote last fall citing the elections of Barack Obama, he can be nominated and he can be elected president. As of this writing, Mrs. Clinton is running ahead by a narrow margin, and I think that once the reality that raging socialist Sanders, similarly to raging statist Donald Trump in the GOP, could get the nomination sets in among Democrats, the race could shift in her favor. Despite the fact that she has no real accomplishments of her own, and, like Jeb Bush, she is a reminder of the repudiated and disastrous policies of the Clinton-Bush past, former Sen. Clinton is not as morally repugnant as Sen. Sanders, who explicitly seeks to bring the nation’s republican government to an end.
As bad as she is, and her record of censorship alone disqualifies her, Sanders is horrifying to any freedom-loving American, however softly he peddles his version of government control. Democrats may figure this out as early as next week in New Hampshire and go with the candidate who does not express open hostility for—and the intent to destroy—people who make money. Or the rowdy Sanders supporters who adopt the Orwellian motto that means pain is gain—warning voters that they will feel the Bern while sadistically demanding that they take it—could win the New Left argument and prevail in nominating the New England socialist as their candidate for president of the United States. Clinton’s basic value proposition remains her sex as her sole identity, a flimsy basis made flimsier by the lousy results of the last identity politics president, President Obama. This works in Sanders’ favor because he argues based on ideas, not his sex. No one mistakes Hillary Clinton as a candidate of consistent ideas and it is unlikely, if not too late, for her to become one.
The Republican victor last night was Ted Cruz, the first-term senator from Texas, who won last night’s Iowa caucuses by a few decisive points over Trump, who had predicted a “tremendous” victory hours before he became the loser. The three-way results included Florida’s first-term Sen. Marco Rubio snapping at Trump’s heels because Rubio consolidated panicked status quo voters that reject both Trump and Cruz as “extremists”. Rubio, who is smooth talking and inconsistent in his political philosophy, was first elected to the U.S. Senate as the Tea Party insurgent not long ago. Now, he’s almost the last man standing in for Bush, Christie, Kasich and other welfare state Republicans that appease and accommodate leftists and Democrats. That doesn’t mean Rubio can’t win, not in the Grand Old Party that constantly delivers milquetoast candidates and Rubio’s pro-surveillance state position ought to be enough to motivate Washington’s military-industrial complex’s support. But at some point Rubio has to make a case and win a primary and it’s still hard for me to see that happening from such a shallow candidate. Rubio could win by default.
Donald Trump, who opposes capitalism, property rights and free choice in medicine—he told ABC News that he thinks that health care is a right—remains a factor for now and his appeal continues to be fed by status quo Republicans and conservatives and leftists in the media feeding off his sensationalist tactics. Americans, as I wrote last fall, increasingly seek a strongman—a dictator—and this is a real threat to the country. Trump, who resembles crony businessman Orren Boyle more than productive businessman Hank Rearden in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, suits this spreading American zest for fascism. This leaves Cruz, in all his religious zealotry and huckster charms, as the candidate potentially most serious about averting the nation from the destruction brought on by Obama’s devastating presidency.
This, too, is how Cruz’s flaws, which I named in 2013, may be his best argument among a field of rotten candidates (and 2016 certainly offers that). The case against Cruz is often that he will say anything to get elected. Almost all of them appear to do that. On the most urgent problems facing the United States of America, however, Ted Cruz offers some of the best solutions. He pledges to kill the Islamic terrorists, repeal ObamaCare and begin to repair the damage done to America’s once-partly capitalist economy. Unfortunately, he also vows to inject religion into the government, too, and this is not an endorsement. But he is the only candidate of the five major contenders to emerge from the first election of 2016’s presidential campaign to take these problems seriously and with respect to the founding ideals of the republic. This is reason to take Ted Cruz seriously, especially as the alternative to Trump, the GOP candidate of government control, which makes the 2016 Iowa caucuses a sign of the nation’s bleak political statesmanship and leaves me with the knowledge that it could have been worse.
Author’s Note
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With 100 percent of precincts reporting, it’s clear that Buttigieg by all accounts narrowly won the most delegates to this summer’s Democratic National Convention. Socialist Sanders, who narrowly won the popular vote, came in second place. In fact, despite recently claiming victory, Sanders lost the caucus, according to the Iowa Democratic Party. The electoral advantage and momentum goes to Buttigieg.
As in 2012’s election, the nation’s future hangs in the balance. The essential nature of America’s republican form of government—a constitutional republic based upon individual rights—is at stake in this election.
A more likely scenario is that Speaker of the House 
Trump is running to be America’s strongman whether as a Republican or as an independent candidate. He opposes free trade, free choice in medicine, immigration, free speech, property rights, capitalism and individual rights. He’s expressed admiration for states with socialized medicine. He talks about having journalists murdered and seeks to be “neutral” with Israel’s enemies. He agrees with 