Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Fauxcahontas & What Might Have Been

by JASmius



Tell me where you've read and heard this months and years before now:

Beyond the party’s small, weak presidential field lurks another spirit animal-in-waiting who has consciously declined the opportunity to blossom into a full-blown icon: Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. Warren is every bit as female as Hillary Clinton, yet lacks the lingering odor of cronyism and corruption. Yes, she carries some baggage that could hurt her in a general election, but concocting one’s own exotic origin story for cynical personal gain doesn’t match the gravity of compromising national security in furtherance of one’s political career. Or presiding over an ocean of undisclosed cash, much of it foreign, from wealthy influence-seekers while running America’s foreign policy. Yes, Warren’s hardcore Stalinist ideology strains the Overton Window of modern American politics, even in the age of Obama, but so does Sanders’. Unlike the Vermonter, her rhetorical style, grating as it may be, doesn’t immediately call to mind that slightly batty great uncle the family politely humors each Thanksgiving. She is Hillary Clinton without the sordid history and entrenched image deficiencies. She is Bernie Sanders without the rumpled, shabby packaging. Hillary’s command of foreign policy details would surpass hers, but muttering about “smart power” and denouncing Bush seems to satisfy most Democrat base voters these days. Bernie’s true-believer zeal would outshine hers, but Democrats are manifestly quite comfortable electing hardened ideologues who market themselves as center-Left ‘pragmatic’ [communists], out of necessity. Her populism is much more believable than [Mrs.] Clinton’s; her plausibility as a primetime performer outpaces Sanders’ by a long shot. If Warren had entered this race early in the cycle — raising big money from fawning small donors while seeding her message — there’s a strong chance she’d have marginalized Sanders long ago, boxed out Joe Biden, and overtaken [Mrs.] Clinton by now, as the latter’s relentless drumbeat of scandal thumps on. Her philosophy and tone reflect the essence of today’s Democrat Party.

Thus does JASmius Echo Syndrome approach the threshold of legend itself.

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