Common sense tells us politicians will say and do whatever they can to get more voters. The goal of running a political campaign is to win, after all, so on the surface it makes sense for them to want to promote policies that help them achieve that goal. But there’s a huge problem with this concept. In some cases, the policies that are designed specifically to generate more votes (or voters) is not in the best interests of the nation. In fact, one could argue this is the case most of the time.

Let’s look at some of the proposals being thrown out there by Democrats, why they’re designed specifically to sway (or create) voters, and why they’re not in the best interests of the people or the nation.

“Free” college

What student who agreed to borrow money to pay for college wouldn’t want their debt erased? I’ll give most of them enough credit to believe they understand it isn’t fair for them to accept a loan in exchange for something of value, but to then have that debt forcibly paid by someone else – taxpayers – while keeping the valuable education they received. But, I’ll also assume most would say, “Hey, it’s not right but if you’re offering, I’ll take it.”

This is the second most obvious pay-for-votes scheme the Democrats are rolling out. It doesn’t take a college graduate to realize the extreme hypocrisy in making hard-working, tax-paying Americans take over the bill for those who whine about a debt they willfully assumed. Nobody was forced to go to college. Nobody who went to college was forced to pick one they couldn’t afford. Nobody who decided to go to a college they couldn’t afford was forced to take on a huge amount of debt. They did this of their own accord with the understanding that they’d be able to use the education they acquired to make enough money to pay back their debt in the future.

What does this policy proposal say to those who thought college was too expensive or who chose to go to a more affordable college? They were fiscally responsible, but now Democrats want to make them pay for those who chose to be fiscally irresponsible. And in the end, the kid who got the “free” college degree from a prestigious school is going to move up faster in the world than the people who took the responsible road but ended up paying for everyone else’s education.

Felon voting rights

It’s been a common joke regarding the political makeup of this country that the vast majority of convicted felons are Democrats. Now, that joke is turning into a threat by many Democratic candidates as they push to give felons access to the ballot box.

This is ludicrous. People who break the law should not help decide who makes the laws. That’s a right they gave up when they decided on a life of crime. But it’s more than just ludicrous. It weaponizes the criminal justice system for political gain. Imagine a future election in which a Democratic candidate proposes blanket reductions of non-violent criminal jail time. This may sound like a far-fetched notion today if you haven’t been paying attention, but the strain on our nation’s jails has gotten to the point that there aren’t always enough beds for lawbreakers.

What convicted felon wouldn’t vote solely for the sake of their own freedom? What family member of a convicted felon wouldn’t do the same? Democrats are looking at jails as an untapped voter base and they’re ready to pop the cork on it.

Medicare-for-All

This is the most complex pay-for-votes scheme employed by the Democrats to address because it’s the one that requires the greatest degree of education given to a populace that is generally non-receptive to matters of finance or governance. It’s one that gets the blanket treatment of “the rich will pay for it” all the way up to the point that reality strikes after it’s passed.

Medicare-for-All is a truly existential threat to America. Single-payer healthcare has two dramatic effects on the people forced under its provisions. First, it increases the tax-based healthcare costs to a large portion of Americans, not just the rich. Essentially anyone who makes enough money to pay federal taxes today will pay more through single-payer. Yes, the wealthy will see a greater increase, but even working-class Americans will see dramatic rises in their tax bills. The math isn’t difficult; $32 trillion over a decade to implement it will crush every taxpayer.

Second, it reduces the quality and availability of healthcare. As evil as the insurance, pharmaceutical, and healthcare providing companies are painted in America, their sins will be minuscule compared to the evils found in a government-run system. Obamacare demonstrated the sheer inefficiency of the government by spending $2 billion on a website. To believe the government is capable of handling a system as complex and expensive as single-payer healthcare without turning it into a debacle is lunacy.

It’s not like we haven’t seen it before. If you ask politicians in nations with single-payer, they’ll gleefully say everything is great and there’s nothing bad to see here. If you ask the people, invariably they’ll acknowledge excessive wait times, rejection of procedures they need but that the government doesn’t deem worthy, and a quality of healthcare that diminishes instead of improves.

One of the great ironies is that there’s rapidly emerging market in many countries that have single-payer. Private health insurance is not only making a comeback but is becoming the avenue of choice for those who can afford it even after paying for the awful single-payer taxes. Unfortunately, the drain of single-payer means many who need better healthcare cannot afford to receive it.

But that’s not the Democrats’ pitch. They say everyone should get healthcare and it should be free. They will never mention what they know with a certainty: That the quality of healthcare for all will be diminished and there’s not such thing as free.

Reparations

If “free” college is the second most obvious pay-for-votes scheme, this is the most obvious. The party that claims to embrace diversity and fairness wants to pay people money because of the color of their skin over sins committed against their ancestors. It’s insane.

The Civil War, Civil Rights Movement, and everything in between were designed to create equality. Democratic candidates want to remove that equality by paying people for their heritage. It’s an absolute lie. This is literally, “vote for me and I’ll pay you.” Period.

Hose the rich

I’m not rich. Not even close. But I am very cognizant of the realities of capitalism and the things that have made the United States of America the most powerful and prosperous nation in the world. While Democrats like to paint rich people as sitting in their mansions with servants acting as their footstools while they burn hundred dollar bills to cook their Kobe burgers on the grill, the truth of the matter is that producers of wealth are the people and corporations who employ the rest of us. They give us our paychecks, pay the lion’s share of taxes already, and carry certain burdens that the middle class does not.

I’m not saying they’re innocent. I’m not saying they’re better than us. I’m not even saying they’re doing the nation a service for the sake of the nation. But whether you think rich people are good, evil, or (as I like to see them) just people, they’re a necessary cog in the machinery of America.

I’ve always thought if rich people didn’t have to pay so much in taxes, they’d be more giving to charities. That’s obviously not true for everyone, but it would certainly be true for many who are currently hosed by the tax system already. “Philanthropy” comes in two forms in the minds of the rich – giving to those who need and having it taken by the government to give to those who need things. While neither system is perfectly efficient, the former has proven to be much more likely to achieve its desired goals.

The bottom line is this: America pushed the boundaries of exceptionalism in this world because its citizens were allowed to push the boundaries of success in their lives. I don’t like Jeff Bezos, his politics, his lifestyle, or any of his companies. But Amazon gives out a bunch of paychecks while offering products and services at reasonable costs. I may not like Bezos or even Amazon, but I wouldn’t want them financially harmed simply because they’ve built something amazing.

But again, this is a surface-level sales pitch the Democrats use knowing their voter base won’t take a second to think about the consequences to themselves and the rest of the nation if we start attacking the very things that have driven our nation for over a century: capitalism, exceptionalism, and success of the individuals.

Final Thoughts

The trend is very clear. Most of what Democrats are promising seem good on the surface to at least a portion of the population. Invariably, they would not only be bad for the rest of America but bad for their intended targets. It’s a con job.

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Nearly all of the complaints from the right about the Green New Deal have been focused on the economic catastrophe the proposal would bring to America if it were ever implemented. That’s the right approach because trying to tackle it from a scientific or even an emotional angle is challenging; most Americans have bought into the notion that man-made climate change is real and will destroy the planet at some point in the future.

But there’s a reality that is rarely explored. Is it even the right approach? Are green energy sources as green as they’re made out to be by leftist politicians and their political scientists in the environmental movement? Some are starting to speak out against the science behind the science and point to an inconvenient truth: green energy isn’t as green as it’s made out to be. What’s worse is that the viability of going green is challenging even if we don’t take the financial repercussions into account.

If the goal is to reduce carbon emissions, nuclear power seems like the better alternative to coal and natural gas than wind or solar. It is more efficient, much easier to control, and yields a much higher bang for the buck. Moreover, one of the main reasons for opposing nuclear energy – safety – is blown out of proportions. Chernobyl was based on a faulty concept and architecture that made meltdown an inevitability. Fukushima was a real disaster that seemingly could not have been avoided. But in the scope of nuclear safety challenges, these two seem to be the only ones anyone ever mentions.

That’s because nuclear power is much safer than environmental scientists are willing to acknowledge because doing so would go against their agenda.

In this video by John Stossel, he explores the realities of the Green New Deal as well as the benefits of going nuclear over going for expensive renewable energy sources

As the left rushes to beat some arbitrary deadline (the latest in a series of alleged doomsday clocks proclaimed every decade), perhaps we should take a measured, diverse approach. Green, nuclear, and weening off fossil fuels over time makes the most sense.

As a conservative, I can break down the left vs. right paradigm by using two edited axioms. For the left, it’s “If at first you don’t succeed, double down and make it even worse.” For the right, it’s, “If it ain’t broke, do everything to keep the left from trying to fix it.”

I’m sure my friends on the left (few, but present) would disagree. I do what I can to keep and never completely alienate my progressive friends because I need them to help me understand why they react certain ways to different people, ideas, and circumstances. For example, a cordial conversation I had with a former Bernie supporter the other day revealed to me she still likes him, but she’s much more excited about Beto O’Rourke and Elizabeth Warren. I asked her opinion of Pete Buttigieg. She knew nothing about him.

Yesterday, she told me she was all in for Buttigieg. I asked why. She said he seemed more genuine than Beto and a better campaign strategist than Pocahontas (her choice of nicknames).

That’s the state of affairs in the Democratic Party. Every candidate has their share of faithful followers, but outside of Sanders’ and possibly O’Rourke’ most faithful, the game is wide open for most Democratic voters. They move their preferences up and down, left and right just as Republicans did during the early days of the 2016 primary season. In that regard, the left and right aren’t very different. At this stage, a lot of the popularity of the candidates will be based solely on personality. People like who they like and as long as they check the right ideological boxes, the early days are nothing more than a personality contest.

This is why every candidate is picking and choosing their policies to promote as well as the policies to avoid. You can tell when a candidate believes in a more moderate approach to handle any issue when they’re not willing to say much about it. When they’re radical on an issue, they blast it out there. This is the part that scares me.

Those who were paying attention in the late months of 2014 and the early months of 2015 know something that would probably shock most voters today. There was a topic the GOP wanted to avoid altogether. Strategists said not to bring it up. Analysts said it was a losing issue. Then, Donald Trump announced his intention to run and suddenly the taboo topic was front-and-center. That’s right, before Trump entered the race and gave his famous speech about deporting Mexicans, the GOP consensus stated that immigration was a topic to be avoided through the primaries and possibly onto the general election.

It’s important to understand this because it demonstrates very clearly how election season, especially primary season, sets the stage for not only the topics that will be discussed but also the way the country will be governed based on which side wins. It concerns me greatly that the topics being discussed by the Democrats today are Medicare-for-All, Green New Deal, reparations, higher minimum wages, eliminating student debt, and socialism in general. The presence of these radical ideas in the early days of the primary season tells us these are the topics that will be driven home by the eventual winner of the Democratic nominee.

If the Democrat then wins, they’ll be expected to start implementing these ideas just as President Trump was expected to repeal Obamacare and build the wall. He ran on those ideas, so he’s expected to deliver.

Republicans might think, “Bring it on.” I hear about it when talking to GOP strategists. I see it in the bluster of keyboard pundits on Twitter. I even see it in the posts and statements by the GOP itself. Most are licking their chops at the opportunity to take on these radical progressive ideas. Unfortunately, they’re not doing it right, and by “they” I mean I’ve seen a tiny handful who are even taking it seriously.

What we’re seeing instead is the complacency that goes with underestimating the ignorance and gullibility of the left as well as the malleability of the center. That friend who now supports Buttigieg happens to be a nurse and happens to adore the ideas of both the Green New Deal and especially Medicare-for-All. When one of my other friends (who happens to be a more moderate leftist) asked her the standard question of how they’re going to pay for it, the new Buttigieg fan said, “The rich will pay for it.”

I started to rain on her parade with actual numbers, but stopped immediately. This wasn’t the time to debate anything, let alone the idiocy of believing only the rich would be dramatically affected by such insane increases in the budget. After all, I need to keep some progressive friends around and this particular one would never have spoken about politics with me again if I shared the truth with her. I let it go.

It’s anecdotal, but I have a very strong feeling this thinking is common and growing more prevalent every day. This wasn’t a random reasoning. This is what they’re saying among the hyper-leftists in the Democratic Party. It seems every candidate has a variation of the “hose the rich” plan. They know very clearly that the numbers are far too large for the average American to stop and think about. There are sheep on both sides of the political aisle, but the numbers are going up dramatically on the left thanks to the sudden total disregard for fiscal responsibility that is now Kosher to the new Democrats.

And the people will follow. They won’t challenge them. They won’t question them. They won’t do the math. They’ll nod their heads in unison as these candidates promise exponentially more than Bill Clinton or Barack Obama ever had the gall to promise.

The fact that these socialistic ideas absolutely, positively cannot work will be ignored by the candidates as they fly over the heads of the leftist voters. I’m not saying they’re stupid. Many are quite bright. But anyone who believes socialism has any chance of success is willfully ignorant to the facts and gullible to the progressive sales pitch.

It is incumbent on conservatives to do everything we can to educate the population. If you’re as cynical as me, you’ll probably think it’s a nearly impossible task. If you’re as worried as me, you’ll know there’s nothing else we can do but try.

What we MUST NOT do is take jabs at the ideologies and policy proposals with an assumption the voters will get the jokes. Here’s Tweet tonight from the GOP:

Buttigieg supports “Medicare-for-all”— a.k.a a government takeover of our health care system— and has even admitted that the implementation of a single-payer healthcare system would replace private health insurance.

— GOP (@GOP) April 23, 2019

As Tweets go, this one is horrible. Imagine a leftist or even a centrist leaning towards Medicare-for-All reading this. Government takeover of the healthcare system, single-payer, and elimination of private health insurance – to someone who doesn’t understand the numbers, this might seem like the GOP is endorsing Buttigieg because none of the negatives they pointed out are negatives in the minds of most leftists.

But it’s worse than that. This Tweet nor anything I’ve seen from the GOP so far on Twitter or elsewhere does anything to teach Republican voters how to counter arguments in favor of Medicare-for-All. Zero. The next election is going to be won or lost based on whether the GOP can demonstrate these “new” ideas are bad. And it won’t just be the candidates and pundits who need to do this. The voters themselves need to be able to make a solid case for why any one of these ideas are horrible.

The GOP needs to step up its game and attack the horrible leftist policy proposals with facts. Right now, it seems like they assume most Americans believe socialism is bad. Come election day, that may not be the case if the GOP doesn’t fix their messaging.