RUTHFULLY YOURS

After the 2016 presidential race, Scott Adams said that reality isn’t fixed but is, instead, situational. Democrats and Republicans, he argued, were watching two different movies. One movie had Trump as an eccentric, America-loving man who would fix systemic problems; the other movie had Trump as Hitler and his concentration camps. Time would tell which movie was fiction and which was a documentary. (Hint: There are no concentration camps.)

At the Democrat debate in New Hampshire, it was clear that the Democrat candidates are watching a very different movie from the rest of America – and, more significantly, a movie different from the data. Andrew Yang, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, and Tom Steyer are not enjoying “morning in America.” Instead, they’re trapped in a nightmarish American landscape filled with poverty, hate, and despair.

The candidates live in an America with both endemic and epidemic poverty, all made worse under Trump. Except that employers created 225,000 new jobs in January alone — and real wages keep rising.

For Democrats, systemic racism is omnipresent. Reality, though, has Americans saying that race relations and minority status are better under Trump than under Obama.

Laughably, Elizabeth Warren, whose campaign witnessed a mass minority walkout in Nevada owing to racist working conditions, earnestly lectured the audience in New Hampshire about the problem of systemic racism. And Bernie, the old Marxist, insisted, “We have a racist society from top to bottom.”

The candidates were united in stating that Trump is an utterly evil, bizarre, dishonest, corrupt, racist blight on America, as proven in part by his saying mean things about Democrats. None were troubled by the irony of their making over-the-top attacks on Trump, while simultaneously claiming that Trump is mean and divisive.

The assembled Democrats want some version of socialized medicine. They seem to have missed the fact that European socialized medicine worked because, in the post-WWII era, America absorbed Europe’s defense costs. Europe didn’t have socialized medicine; it had America-subsidized medicine.

All seven candidates blame corrupt profiteers for everything: drug prices, drug abuse, crime, poverty, alarms that go off too early in the morning. You name it and it’s the evil corporations. They all boast that they will milk corporations dry, never mind that corporations are what fund America through taxes, whether their own or the ones their employees pay.

With the exception of Yang, the candidates are all on board with continuing to prosecute Trump after he’s left office. The fact that Yang warns correctly that this is a banana republic approach to governance that deters good candidates is irrelevant. They want their pound of flesh – except, of course, that it’s utterly reprehensible for Trump to investigate Hunter and Joe Biden for corruption. That’s different because….

Every candidate strongly supports an abortion-based Supreme Court litmus test. Biden tries to avoid stating that outright, saying instead that he refuses to support any candidate who will not recognize “unenumerated [i.e., made-up] rights under the Constitution.” Biden is still proud of borking Judge Robert Bork.

The herd of presidential candidates, from 38-year-old Baby Boy Petey to the antique Biden and Bernie (both of whom look every year of their age and then some), are certain that they’d be better commanders-in-chief than Trump because they’d pay attention to their advisors (Petey’s sure Trump doesn’t read reports), and be thoughtful, and defer to the UN.

All seven wannabe Commanders-in-Chief think that Alexander Vindmann was a true “hero” for releasing classified information for no reason other than his disagreement with the policy choices of his commanding officer (i.e., Trump). In the real world, that’s grounds for court-martial; in Democrat world, you get a standing ovation.

Ultimately, Tom Steyer said the most sensible and, simultaneously, the most stupid thing of all. He pointed out that, from a Democrat point of view, all of the candidates had the same ideas, all of which were preferable to Trump’s policies. However, he said, “it’s the economy, stupid” is still the guiding election principle, and the Democrats must pull together on the economy to win. Steyer’s problem – all of the candidates’ problem – is that Trump’s economy is superb and every one of their ideas will destroy it.

Aside from those overarching points, a few other things to note: Buttigieg came out with the arrogance of an Iowa winner, but stumbled badly on race relations in South Bend. Klobuchar was irritating by being both boastful and self-deprecating. Bernie lies (but he’s a Marxist, so it goes with the territory). Elizabeth Warren always says, “Look” and then lies. Yang is not as intelligent as he likes to think he is. Biden kept saying, “I’ve already been trying to do what all of you are promising to do,” but he was excitable and semi-coherent, so everyone ignored him. Steyer is pointless.