It looks like the Democratic nomination race for 2020 (not in 2020, it’s already started) will be a crowded one. Like the Republican race in 2016, a large field makes for an unpredictable result. Last week we looked at Elizabeth Warren, that resentful Scots-Irish (and just about the last one in her party.) This week I’ll take a quick look at Beto O’Rourke, the non-Hispanic who came too close for comfort to unseating Ted Cruz as Texas’ junior Senator.
He’s currently the darling to many in and out of his party. But why? Without having to rewrite everything, let me go back to a 2016 post:
Having grown up at the upper reaches of this society and not the lower ones, I can say with confidence that our elites, under all the gaudy rhetoric, have two basic priorities in life: getting laid and getting high or drunk, which facilitates Priority #1. Look at what’s been at the top of the agenda: contraception, abortion, the LGBT movement, the transgenders, all of it. It’s all about sex. That’s why real economic equality (and the economic development that makes it possible) has taken a back seat. And it doesn’t hurt that a society where wealth generation is held back tends to concentrate what’s left at the top.
O’Malley and his ilk in the pro-life movement have always spoken of a “culture of death.” But that’s not what this is really all about. It’s about a thrill-obsessed culture that’s ready to sacrifice anything, everything, anyone and everyone to kill the pain of its own worthlessness. The Democrats’ lame attempt to frame the issue on the timing of children was just that, as O’Malley justly points out.
That priority set–one that’s been a long time out there–makes O’Rourke a strong contender. His street cred with the progressives leaves much to be desired, but hey, isn’t being in a rock band with the drunk driving to go with it more important?
I don’t think–and there’s nothing that you can say to convince me otherwise–that a country whose leading people are so sybaritic that their lives and political convictions revolve around pleasure is going to stay great very long. Sooner or later someone with their eye on the ball (as opposed to those who, impaired, struggle to focus) is going to get ahead of us, and there are suitable candidates out there who fit the bill. I’m not talking about never having a good time: I’m talking about making it a religion, right above global warming.
And it’s hurt them when they’re in power. I still think that Barack Obama, had he approached his task with more vigour, could have delivered the death blow to the Republicans as a viable national party if he had concentrated on that and not spent so much time playing golf, hanging with Reggie Love, etc..
But I guess that such efficient energy defeats the whole purpose.
Positive Infinity 