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It’s like that horribly clichéd scene in the movies or on TV where the bad guy is going to pull the trigger or the innocent person is unwittingly going to drink the cyanide-laced ginger ale. The hero(ine) leaps to the rescue, but does so in slow-motion while yelling, in a voice that sounds like the noise that a hippo’s intestines makes while adjusting to a bad meal:

“N-O-O-O-O-O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!!!”

I’ve been hearing that sound in my head a lot lately as I watch my fellow Democrats try to figure out a way to hand the presidential election to an oozing racist putrescence who wouldn’t be able to win a majority of votes if he ran against a dented can of lentil soup. And yet people in my party keep throwing him lifelines.

Hey, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s give free health care to all the people who come across the border illegally, even though there are tens of millions of people who were born in this country who don’t have access to health care.

N-O-O-O-O-O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!!!!!

Let’s have free college and pay off everybody’s student debt.

N-O-O-O-O-O-o-o-o-o-o-o!!

Wait! Let’s get every person in the country who’s even part African-American and give them the financial equivalent of 40 acres and a mule, with interest compounded over the past 170 years.

Oh, hell N-O-O-O-O-O-o-o-o-o-o!

In case that last one wasn’t dumb-ass enough, how about decriminalizing illegal entry into our country?

No. (That idea is so stupid, I don’t even want to waste all those extra o’s.)

This stuff has to stop and it has to stop now. It’s so ridiculously counterproductive and self-destructive. I don’t know which is worse. Do the people who are spewing this nonsense not know how it makes the Democratic Party look like a coalition of nutbirds, or do they know but just don’t care?

I’m reminded of the story of baseball legend Dizzy Dean. Back in the 1930s, Dean, Babe Ruth and others would barnstorm across the South during the offseason. The Southerner Dean developed a friendship with Negro League legend Satchel Paige and actually tried to get the St. Louis Cardinals to sign Paige, saying, “If me and Satchel were on the same team, we’d clinch the pennant by the Fourth of July and go fishing until World Series time.”

If we could just get the fringe people to shut up for the next 453 days, Donald Trump would go down to a crushing defeat. His base is there and is willing to march through the gates of hell with him. But their numbers aren’t increasing. They’re stuck in the low 40s and their numbers actually shrank between 2016 and 2018 as suburban women opened their eyes, scrubbed off the stench, and then peeled away.

There is very little for Trump supporters to cheer about. His kids-in-cages policy was (is) offensive to people across the political spectrum. His signature tax cut for the rich and the corporations really hasn’t trickled down to the middle class in any significant way. His “roaring” economy is back down to around 2 percent growth, mirroring the economy under Barack Obama (who didn’t need a massive tax cut to act like a boost of nitrous oxide). And while he continues to take a bulldozer to the Environmental Protection Agency, the fact remains that the vast majority of Americans really do want clean air and clean water. Those members of his base who are left behind are basically just in clean-up mode, contorting themselves to try to explain away his racist tweets and to shrug off his vile personal behavior.

The other day, the guy on the local morning right-wing talk radio show referred to Robert Mueller as a racist. Obviously, the talker didn’t understand the message that came to his secret decoder watch from Alt-Right headquarters. The upper echelon of majestic white folks couldn’t come up with a way to defend Donald Trump’s blatant racism, so they decided that the best strategy was that of a second grader—No, I’m not one! YOU’RE one!

However, seeing as how Robert Mueller has never called anybody a racist—or said anything EVEN REMOTELY INTERESTING!!!—in his entire gray-washed life, one wonders why a Trump minion would throw that word at Mueller.

The fact remains that Trump is not going to gain any more supporters, especially not from among suburban independents. The only way that those people would vote for Trump, after witnessing his vulgar antics these past few years, is that they would get pushed into the Trump camp by crazy-ass Democrats saying crazy-ass things.

Having once been a wild youth, bent on changing the world, I understand the passion of these firebrands with their wild ideas. But, as one of my football coaches once explained, “You’re young, and therefore stupid.” To this day, when I’m coaching, I’ll have a kid ask, “Can we try this, this and this?” To which the answer is, invariably, “No, I’d rather win.”

It’s hard to tell fired-up people to temper their enthusiasm; you risk losing them. But America’s soul is on the line here. We have to win and if that means backing a middle-of-the-road guy who will be in his 80s as he completes his first (and, we hope, only) term, then so be it. All that other stuff can be debated (and mostly discarded) later. ■

This article appears in Aug 8-14, 2019.

16 replies on “Danehy”

  2. You are partly right but open borders, socialism, increasing taxes and decreasing take home pay are even worse than Hillary. Democrats will force me to stay home again.

  3. You are correct about the Democrats, but your puerile name calling does not impress anyone with half a brain.

    I didn’t vote for President Trump, and don’t care for him. He is boorish and uncouth, and does not understand the art of the deal as well as he thinks. The rest of that crap that came out of your mouth is nothing but TDS.

  4. “There is very little for Trump supporters to cheer about” – other than

    the best economy in decades
    record low unemployment, especially minorities
    we are at peace
    the first decent pay increases for the working class in 30 years
    Crazy Koch-brothers-financed mass-immigration policies finally getting the attention they deserve
    Opiate crisis being addressed
    Landmark criminal justice reform passed (stuff Dems have rightly supported for years)
    Unfair China trade policies finally being looked at
    Stock market at record highs

    Other than that, not much good, I agree. My party has left me. Questioning how I can vote for any Democrat nominee after voting Democrat my entire life.

  5. If I was a Dem. and one of my possible candidates said that it’s too late to beat climate change and we need to ” take to higher ground” I might be concerned. However, I’m going to wait until Nov. 2020. Until then, I have nothing to say.

  6. Watching the City Council meeting last night where our fellow citizens support ignoring federal immigration laws, (and also local crimes committed by illegals), I have to say “enough of this liberal madness!” What happened to common sense democratic solutions? I will not support this new radical agenda violence. Biden is trying to appease back the far left which is really sad.

    Speak up America!

  7. Yes, Tom advises, just shut up and hand off the ball to Biden for the buzzer-beater. Biden is, after all, the most electable of the candidates with a rich history of keen judgment and invaluable experience.

    What could possibly go wrong with a mid-septuagenarian who voted in favor of invading Iraq (while 150 of his fellow party members said no), badgered Anita Hill, takes credit for authoring a crime bill establishing a school-to-private prison pipeline, served as the eager handmaiden to Wall Street and the corporations licensed in his home state, referred to Obama as “clean and articulate” and has spent the last couple of years earning millions for his insights in speeches to anyone with the money to burn on his becoming president?

    So shut up you young whippersnappers with all this talk about social and economic equality and taking boots off the necks off younger generations hobbled by debt and struggling in the gig economy. Uncle Joe has the plans – he borrowed them from Hillary.

  13. Anyone stupid to believe that crap doesn’t deserve a reply. But. it looks like it’s all going to come out.

  14. Democrats need votes from progressives, liberals and moderates. In fact, Democrats need most of the moderate votes in red and purple states if they are going to have any chance of winning even a simple majority in the Senatethere are far too few progressives and liberals in too many Western, Plain, and Southern states. Going too far to the left on too many controversial issues will hurt our Presidential candidate and our Senatorial candidates.

  15. Gretchen, Your presidential and your senate candidates need votes from folks like me, an independent. Progressive on social issues and conservative on fiscal policy, I will vote for virtually any Democrat in every race on the ballot I receive. This will be a first for me, I have never voted a straight ticket in over 50 years. Trump is, in my eyes, toxic and a clear and present danger to this country.

    But please, enough of this we have to steer a non-controversial course considering universal healthcare, relief to students while they are in college and for the rest of their lives and who will never be able to shed the debt incurred by attending over-priced and under-performing colleges and universities, and a battle to save the planet from pollution and climate change, far-left positions.

    Putting an end to endless wars that benefit none of us and offering sound and forceful legislation to end the carnage in our streets, schools, theaters, and malls, are not extreme positions. Protecting the lives of and careers of women and the right to seek sanctuary as asylum seekers are not leftist positions. If your party wants the votes of millennials (and younger), minorities, progressives, and women, think hard about who will be your party’s standard-bearer. There is no dearth of candidates.

    We are in a political war, Gretchen (and Tom), your weak and rudderless political party needs all the help it can get. But really, your party needs to stand for something other than elections every two or four years. If your party nominates Joe Biden or another centrist with no spine, your party will lose again. And another loss to Donald Trump effectively ends any claim your party has to be a viable political organization.

  16. Dan, I am not a huge fan of yours, but I find your comments spot on. Voters know when promises are unrealistic or will have unintended consequences and are not crazy. If the democrats don’t wake up to solid middle class issues we will have another four years.

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