Team Harris Policy: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Policy
Conservative politicians and pundits and even some mainstream media news reports have noted that while the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz ticket has its candidates, communication specialists, organizers, volunteers, funding, and media support, it is missing the most important feature in a Constitutional Republic’s presidential contest: a policy statement.
The Democrat Policy Statement, however, may not be all that important. The Democrat domestic policy framework, which dictates policy, can be summed up succinctly, accurately, and clearly in the absence of a policy statement, since with few exceptions it has not changed in thirty years. The policy details change as circumstances and opportunities change but the framework does not vary. The policies do not need to work and negative, unintended consequences are either irrelevant or an unplanned feature so revision is never required. This policy framework divides the US into four groups:
Democrats: The Democrat Party
Givers: Working, Striving, and Largely Successful Americans and Businesses
Receivers: Young People, Minorities, Immigrants, the Poor and Preferred Businesses
The Noble Ones: Wealthy Democrat Non-Politicians
The Framework enables Democrats to create “policies” that increase their power through vote-buying. The details change but the approach does not.
The Democrat Domestic Policy Framework
The goal of the framework is to buy votes in order to retain and gain power. Democrats do this by taxing and intimidating the groups that can provide the resources that Democrats use to reward other groups in exchange for their votes.
Democrats lead and grow Big Government. Big Government is benevolent and has an accurate view of the future to which it will faithfully lead us. Its members are devoid of all common human negative traits, such as self-interest. It is a monopoly and that is a feature, not a bug, despite the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness that tend to plague it as well as most other monopolies. Even worse, Big Government is a monopoly that is legally permitted to use coercion and force.
Givers include middle-class and wealthy individuals and families, as well as small and medium-sized businesses and large corporations. Democrats malign Givers as “Millionaires and Billionaires.” The individuals support their families through hard work and they pay taxes and support charities. The businesses compete for market share as they develop innovative products that improve quality of life while creating jobs, lowering prices, and improving quality while paying taxes and supporting charitable foundations. If they fail to solve problems and provide products that consumers want, they exit the marketplace.
Democrats frequently cite two sub-groups for special disparagement: Big Pharma and Big Oil, the former for selling their products at inflated prices, thereby depriving the poor and elderly of much-needed drugs, and the latter for forcing Americans and others to burn fossil fuels, thereby altering the earth’s climate from its optimal, pristine state to something else.
Interestingly, Democrats neglect to mention that Big Pharma doesn’t just sell these life-saving and life-enhancing medicines; they must first risk millions of dollars to develop them, often while battling government agencies that add layers of regulation that may not always be necessary. (To be fair, Republicans sometimes join in these attacks.)
Democrats also never praise Big Oil for delivering abundant, inexpensive energy that has enabled billions of earthlings to escape the poverty that has plagued mankind for millennia and for enabling the creation of products that have led nations such as India to transition from a food-importing to a food-exporting nation, all while substantially reducing the impact of drilling and mining on the environment. (In India’s case, transitioning from socialism to capitalism has also helped.)
One would expect that the Givers would be praised for their contributions to American society since they create life-saving drugs, enable individuals to carry computers in their pockets, and drive cars with multiple safety devices that use less fuel than cars produced just a few years ago and keep shelves stocked with food and other necessities as well as luxury goods. Democrats “ask” Givers to pay more in taxes while concurrently demonizing them for not willingly paying more.
Receivers are unionized government workers, working and non-working poor, illegal immigrants, and favored large businesses. They are the “beneficiaries” of the grift and are encouraged to think that it is the benevolent, selfless Democrats that pay for the goodies and not the actual taxpayers. Receivers are America’s heroic victims and deserve to be rewarded with other people’s money as long as they vote for Democrats (otherwise they are apostates). The Democrat goal is to create a permanent and growing dependent class—yes, one that includes large businesses that benefit from subsidies and regulations that they write themselves in order to restrict competition.
The sub-group that the Democrats most favor is “Big Teachers,” aka Teachers Unions. This class of government workers is consistently portrayed as caring only for the well-being and education of students. Big Teacher always needs better benefits, higher pay, and more paid leave in order to improve educational outcomes. Based on test scores, Big Teacher-run public schools are failing. Union leadership encourages the use of ineffective teaching methods such as Whole Language, discourages honest teaching of American history, and enables gender confusion in minors. No matter how much class sizes shrink and school budgets grow, Democrats are always calling for more spending on “education.”
Noble Ones are financially secure Americans that are eager to “pay their fair share.” They don’t need government handouts. They value the praise Democrats heap on them for their generosity. Having this, they enjoy their wealth (including their use of private jets and yachts in this time of climate change hysteria) without guilt, as did their Noblemen forebears, who received indulgences from the Church in the Middle Ages for their self-indulgent behavior. They also get to appear with Democrat leadership at high-profile events, including White House visits. Actors and pop musicians are especially so honored.
While it is obvious how this works, I will summarize here.
Democrats take wealth from Givers in order to bribe Receivers for their votes. While taking others’ wealth, they claim to be benevolent individuals (in contrast to the evil, selfish Republicans) and they “invest” that wealth in “programs.” The specific programs in which they invest change over time (e.g., health care, climate change, student loan debt, college costs, housing costs, living wage, etc.). The constant is that Democrat programs are always benevolent, progressive, and forward-looking and if they don’t work, at least the purveyors’ “hearts are in the right place.” The Givers are always selfish, unkind, backward, and deserving of scorn, despite the fact that without them there would be substantially less to give to others. The Receivers are innocent victims and deserve the unearned gifts. They are encouraged to despise the selfish Givers. The programs often damage Receivers by creating dependency, raising prices, and reducing the availability of necessities such as housing. The Noble Ones remain unscathed as they continue to fly and sail and engage in legal tax avoidance.
The policy details are not very important because the policies are not intended to work (success would reduce their raison d’être) and they don’t need to be paid for through cost-cutting and efficiency. The policies must, however, have uplifting names such as The Affordable Care Act and The Inflation Reduction Act in order to create a need and an image. At least as far back as FDR and certainly LBJ, the Democrat Party has aimed to use government to eliminate poverty. The goal, however, is not to eliminate poverty; it is to create dependence on Big Government to capture votes. The policies do not need to be cost-effective because, unlike businesses in a competitive marketplace that need to keep costs down in order to compete, the Democrats, when in the majority, can tax “the rich” or increase government debt. When market prices rise, Democrats “reduce costs” for Receivers by shifting costs to Givers. No economic theory is required and there is no incentive to hold down costs. Inefficient policies benefit Receivers in the short term and Democrats in the long term as they expand the Democrat voting base.
Do the policy specifics matter? Don’t we know what they plan to give us?
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