Breaking News: People Like Socialism!

Hey, kids. Have you heard about the latest thing? It's called "socialism," and there has never been a time before now when it has been so popular. According to the tongue cluckers and tsk-tskers of conservative media.

Apparently, for the first time in American history, people are starting to maybe have a sort of favorable view of socialism!

Never before have people embraced socialist policies in America!

So by now, I expect everyone has seen this ridiculous failed attempt at scare-mongering:

I’M A CONSERVATIVE, AND I WENT TO AN ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ RALLY

1:22 PM 07/23/2018

Virginia Kruta | Associate Editor

But then Ocasio-Cortez spoke, followed by Bush, and I saw something truly terrifying. I saw just how easy it would be, were I less involved and less certain of our nation’s founding and its history, to fall for the populist lines they were shouting from that stage.

• I saw how easy it would be, as a parent, to accept the idea that my children deserve healthcare and education.
• I saw how easy it would be, as someone who has struggled to make ends meet, to accept the idea that a “living wage” was a human right.
• Above all, I saw how easy it would be to accept the notion that it was the government’s job to make sure that those things were provided.

And this:

Get a life Soledad - I’m passionate and don’t want my grandkids growing up in a socialist nation. https://t.co/qnYyREZUct

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) July 25, 2018

But those people just don't get to the real root of the problem.

If you want to really get down to the problem with young people and socialism, you must **MUST** watch this video.

This video is from some weird dude called Josh Bernstein who has a show of some sort, maybe it's just online, or maybe it's a radio show, I don't know, but One thing's for sure: he is a very intelligent, well-spoken person with a real gift for broadcasting and a full head of hair!

He's here to explain to us why this younger generation ids the first ever to embrace socialism as a positive force.

Here's the description of this video posted to YouTube:

Why does this generation embrace Socialism more than any other generation before them? Answer is because they don't have a clue what Socialism is. When they find out what it is they hate it like everyone else. In this video I explain this and teach you all how to explain Socialism with one child's toy..

So You can imagine the kind of flawless logic you're about o hear!

It's worth watching just for the intro, honestly. The voiceover, done of course in the "shouting about auto racing" voice so you know you're about to hear a real man, says he's been called "a political savant."
(He has not.)
(Unless someone was confused about what the word "savant" mean, having only heard it in the context of "idiot-savant," and maybe thought it means "idiot." Then maybe)

The voiceover guy also claims that Josh has been called "the voice of his generation."
(also no.)

Anyway, start watching and let me know how far you get before your brain climbs out your earhole and crawls to the liquor cabinet in a stumbling daze.





Oh, and he's also referred to as "the mainstream media's worst nightmare," which might be partly true, in that their worst nightmare is abysmally low ratings.

Anyway, then Josh (who. . .talks. . .like. . .this) begins with the usual baffled incredulity that young people somehow seem to think that they would like some socialism, please. Which he expresses as if he were reporting about some strange group of people who enjoy drinking poison, or shaving their heads with cheese graters, or watching The Big Bang Theory.

Why is this? How could this be? how could young people possibly like some thing that is obviously, inherently bad? Don't worry. Josh has it figured out because he, unlike the young people, is a smart!



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According to wise old man Josh, the main reason is that the young "have no idea what socialism truly is," He then proceeds to prove that he actually does know what socialism is, except he does not and is stupid.

The conservative capitalist position, by the way, is described by Josh as wanting to remove all the obstacles in your life that are keeping you from achieving your dreams. You know, like access to doctors and medicine/ Or a living wage. Or the ability to control your reproductive system (ladies only).

Also, he pretends that this position is too confusing for young people to understand.

Then it starts to get freakin' real! Josh lets all the young people know that all the "free stuff" that you think you're getting for free? Guess what, youngs? Nothing is truly free! You're gonna end up paying for it! And before you can say "yes. We know. We will pay for it with our tax dollars, we get how it works," Josh drops the bombshell: You're gonna pay for it, all right. Pay for it with . . . your freedom!!!

And shockingly, Josh points to venezuela and Cuba as the examples of the results of socialism. Inexplicably, he forgets to cite the socialist horrors of Denmark. Or Sweden. Or the Netherlands. Or Canada.

Very very smart Josh professes that (as we older folks know) socialism doesn't work, has never worked, and mathematically can not work! Unlike the mathematically and logically sound trickle-sown economics, presumably.

And why even bother to present any evidence that socialism has "failed in every single place it's been tried?" I mean, all you have to do is look at the hellscapes of . . . most of Europe, really.

They're shouting "Save us, free-market capitalism!"

Then he scoffs at Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez because she was a bartender six or seven months ago. Can you imagine? A common bartender? Not a "political outsider" like the noble Donald Trump or Arnold Schwartzenneger, or Dr Ben Carson! No, a bartender! The nerve of this woman!

And, it hardly needs to be pointed out that socialism is, by definition, "government ownership of the means of production," but Josh helpfully mentions this totally true, not at all mixed up with Soviet Communism fact. And when asked what socialism means, only sixteen percent of milennials gave this obviously true definition, which goes to show that it is the young people, not Josh Bernstein, who lack the most basic grasp of what socialism is.

Josh has a very sensible plan, though. Since people under thirty seem to like socialism, and older folks tend to see things the same way as Josh, just raise the voting age to 30! Problem solved!
You see, young Americans have never had to stand in bread lines. Only the oldest Americans remeber the last time there were bread lines here.

Totally cause by socialism. If only Herbert Hoover could have injected some good old fashioned laissez faire capitalism into the US!

Finally, he gets around to the wagon analogy and it is every bit as astute and insightful as you have by now surely come to expect from Josh. 

It takes him about three hours to tell this story, partly because he is so busy waxing rhapsodic over the awesomeness of the Radio Flyer wagon and having a completely accurate idea about how exciting wagons are for kids. (extremely!)

But the moral of the story is: if you put too many people in the wagoin, it gets really hard to pull. What does that have to do with socialism, you ask? Um, everything. If you were as smart as Josh, you would understand this. The point is: socialism is bad! Duh!

How does this guy have a column?

Why Are So Many Political Parties Blowing Up? 

By Thomas L. Friedman

Um, are they? Are there a lot of political parties "blowing up?" Seems like I would've heard about that, but okay. I'll bite. +

If you haven’t already noticed, let me be the first on your block to point it out: The big mainstream political parties across the industrialized world are all blowing up at once. It’s quite extraordinary.

Really? So there are like major political parties going out of business? That can't be right. That can't be what you mean.
Can it?

The U.S. Republican Party has blown up in all but name, going overnight from an internationalist, free-trade, deficit-hawk party to a protectionist, anti-immigrant, deficit-dove party — all to accommodate the instincts of Donald Trump and his base.

Oh, ye. The Republican Party. The Republican Party has completely blown up. They are barely able to even control the White House, Senate and House and the governorship of a mere 33 out of 50 states.


And the Republicans have always, in my lifetime anyway, been a party that vacillates between pretend deficit hawks and economic libertines depending on who is in the Oval Office. Was the GOP a party of "deficit hawks" when Ronald Reagan was tripling the national debt? Were they being hawkish on deficits when George W doubled it again? 

And are you saying that there was a time when the Republican party wasn't anti-immigrant?
Must be before my time, but I'm only 50.

As the former House Speaker John Boehner noted: “There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party. The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.” Actually, it’s dead, but it’s not alone in the cemetery.

Yes, he did say that. And it was bullshit when he said it and it's bullshit now when you're quoting it. Trump didn't launch a hostile takeover of the Republican Party.He is the apotheosis of 40+ years of conservative anti-intellectualism, eliminationist rhetoric and disdain for reality. Do you not see that a clear line can be drawn backwards from Trump through Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchannan, back at least to Richard Nixon?  The Republican party isn't dead. It has just emerged from it's chrysalis fully formed as the gleefully nihilistic party of destrruction, the end stage of the transformation begun when Strom Thurmond led racist southerners out of the Democratic party into the welcoming arms of the GOP.

And yet, they have control over all three branches of the federal government and a majority of the states'.  If that's what you call "blowing up," where do I sign up to be blown up?

Italy’s last election ended with its mainstream center-left getting crushed, bringing to power instead a coalition of far-left, far-right populists, whose focus ranges from guaranteeing minimum income for Italy’s 11 percent unemployed to rebuffing immigrants and the European Union.

Okay, so. . . Italy's center-left lost AN election. By that measure, you should be declaring the Democratic Party "blown up" not the Republicans. Losing one election is not the end of the world. Hell, even Tom Brady has lost a couple Super Bowls and no one is putting him out to pasture.

Britain’s Labour Party has gone from center-left to quasi-Marxist. 

Seriously?
Britain's Labour Party has rediscovered its roots. There is more excitement around Labour since the rise of Jeremy Corbin then there has been since. . . actually I don't really know UK political history that well, but Labour is poised to retake Parliament just as soon as Teresa May's government collapses. Any day now. . . tick tock. . .

I know that mainstream American political conventional wisdom states that a party moving to the left is somehow assumed to be a party committing electoral suicide, but the facts on the ground state otherwise. Moving back to the left has revitalized the Labour Party. Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in America (although he is in danger of being eclipsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). Medicare for All is going to be a plank in the Democrats' platform and that is generating buzz for them they haven't seen since a young Barack Obama strode on to the scene and fooled us into thinking he was a pro-labor progressive.


Anyway, this column goes on and on and on, mentioning other European parties that lost their most recent elections after having won the previous one (!) as if that is something new. No country has ever gotten disillusioned with the party in power and voted in their rivals before! The parties are imploding!!!

All of which raises the question: How does this guy have a column?

Who's Stupider?

Here's a game we haven't played in a while:




Who's Stupider?!?!?!?!?

With your host, Art Clip!



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Thank you, thank you. Let's meet our first contestant!

Our first contestant is someone I stumbled onto on Twitter. He's known as "one of the religious Right’s most influential young voices," according to his own blog Please welcome Matt Walsh!



Okay, Matt - question number one: Name something that could make you stop loving your wife.

I am in love with my wife. If she turned into a lizard, I would no longer be in love with her. If she turned into a man, I would also stop loving her the way that I do now. That's because, as a lizard or a man, she wouldn't be my wife anymore. I cant love her if she doesn't exist https://t.co/6XQKopxUHp

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) July 16, 2018

Um. . .
I mean. . . is that something that could plausibly happen?
And if it could, would your wife's mind and spirit be inside the lizard? Would she be able to communicate with you? Would she still be the same person, just in lizard form? Because if she was, then you should still love her. I mean, I get you wouldn't be attracted to her anymore, but. . . why is this even something you've thought about?
I mean, turning into a man, that's at least possible. With a lot of surgery and hormone therapy. But in that scenario she would definitely still be the same person, so presumably you would still love that person even if you're not sexually attracted to her anymore. Or can you only love someone who gives you a boner? Honestly, I'll have to check with the judges, but I don't hink we can give you any points for this answer.

Judges, what do you say?

Oh, right! I forgot that this is a contest to see who is the most stupid. Points to you, Mr. Walsh!


Okay. Our next contestant comes to us from the Fox and Friends minor-league team. She's a failed candidate for office and every right-wing racist's one black friend: Star Parker!





Ms Parker - your question: Name an event that is similar to Pride Month.

Gay Pride Month has become a time for LGBTQ storm troopers to pursue political enemies. Not much different from the infamous Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany, when Nazi brown shirts took to the streets to smash windows of shops owned by Jews.

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Oh no.
No no no no no .
There's a limit.
We're not even going to the judges for this one.
Just no.
Get the fuck off my game show.

Okay, Matt, the game is yours to lose. Name something that is insane.

The average kid at a lemonade stand would have to sell 80,000 cups of lemonade to make what the average cashier at McDonald's makes in one year. That is insane. https://t.co/AUGb6Us4kv

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) July 16, 2018

God DAMN, you're good at this game Matt! That was truly stupid!


I mean, comparing a kid with a lemonade stand to an adult trying to earn a living, support himself and maybe a family, I mean wow! That is just astoundingly stupid!



But then, THEN, to do the math?



I mean, figuring out that, in order to make what a McDonald's employee makes in a year, a kid would have to -- well, let's see. Assuming the kid is working full-time, that's 40 hours a week, let's say 50 weeks a year, that's probably comparable to the McDonald's employee's schedule, 8 hours a day, the kid would have to sell. . . 40 cups of lemonade per hour? And then to act like that wouldn't be do-able if the kid had a good location? And to pretend that the kid selling lemonade is somehow in any way relvant to the ammount of money a fast-food worker earns to pay for his rent, his car note, his utilities, his food. . . all the things the kid does not have to pay for at all? That is some weapons-grade stupid right there. See you in the tournament of champions!

How is this not a cult?

Remember back in the early days of President Cartman's administration (like what, 10,15 years ago?) when he put out that video of the cabinet meeting where they all went around the table taking turns telling President McCheese how honored they were to be working for him?

And I figured "well, they know he's a fragile narcissist and that flattering him is a sure path to job security and if they don't kiss his ass they'll probably get fired, so I assume none of this is actually sincere." Oh, sweet, naive younger me!

Well, it turns out I was wrong, because the letter we are about to explore comes from Scott Pruitt, a man who is resigning and therefore has no professional need to stay in Cheeto Mussolini's good graces. I mean, he can't go around telling the truth about Il Douche because that would cut into his wingnut welfare opportunities, but he's got no need to suck up to Orange Julius Caesar.

And yet. . .

(via WaPo)

Here is Pruitt’s resignation letter to Trump:

Mr. President, it has been an honor to serve you in the Cabinet as Administrator of the EPA. 

Okay, first of all - you weren't serving Donald tRump. I mean, you weren't really serving anyone except the extraction industries and big corporate polluters, but you were SUPPOSED to be serving the American people.


Truly, your confidence in me has blessed me personally 


Okay, that's the first use of the word "blessed." (we'll be counting how many times some form of the verb "to bless" is used.) In most religious traditions, blessings come from God. Not from a bloated orange narcissist. So if you're telling someone that they have "blessed" you, that's getting into cult territory.


Truly, your confidence in me has blessed me personally and enabled me to advance your agenda beyond what anyone anticipated at the beginning of your Administration. Your courage, steadfastness and resolute commitment to get results for the American people, both with regard to improved environmental outcomes as well as historical regulatory reform, is in fact occurring at an unprecedented pace and I thank you for the opportunity to serve you and the American people in helping achieve those ends.




Again you were not serving him. You were supposed to be serving us. But thanks for adding us on as an afterthought there at the end.



That is why it is hard for me to advise you I am stepping down as Administrator of the EPA effective as of July 6. It is extremely difficult for me to cease serving you in this role first because I count it a blessing to be serving you in any capacity,



Jeezus! He counts it as a "blessing" (2nd use) to serve this man "in any capacity?" Waylon Smithers doesn't kiss Mr Burns ass this grotesquely.


but also, because of the transformative work that is occurring. However, the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizable toll on all of us.


And there's the obligatory conservative crybaby victim-card-playing.


My desire in service to you has always been to bless you as you make important decisions for the American people. 


There's that word again.

I believe you are serving as President today because of God’s providence. 

Hmm, you're saying the one in charge is God's chosen one? Yeah, that's not culty at all.


 I believe that same providence brought me into your service. I pray as I have served you that I have blessed you and enabled you to effectively lead the American people. 


Stop blessing each other! You're not God and neither is he! And neither of you are blessing anything, you're both a scourge on humanity. If God's providence (and by the way, the word providence means: a: divine guidance or care / b: God conceived as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny so it's redundant to say "God's providence) but if God's providence put you and the turd reich in charge, that means God is pissed and he's punishing us.

And that's 4 "blessings" in a three paragraph resignation letter.

 Thank you again Mr. President for the honor of serving you and I wish you Godspeed in all that you put your hand to.

Your Faithful Friend,

Scott Pruitt

So that's a cult, right? People believe that their leader is sent by God to bless them and they are honored just to be allowed to serve the leader? How is that not a cult?