Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Agreed to have a battle;

For Tweedledum said Tweedledee

Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,

As black as a tar-barrel;

Which frightened both the heroes so,

They quite forgot their quarrel.

—Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

At Pajamas Media, Stephen Green rightly titled his live blog on the debate, "Grumpy Old White Men: Drunkblogging the Democratic Diversity Debate. But these two old codgers are beyond grumpy; they are both tethered to the already done or distant past.

The first half-hour of this match was dedicated to the current crisis of the coronavirus. They both puffed themselves up to tell us all what they would do; each and every suggestion from both of them was things President Trump has already done, already put in place. It was as though neither of them has paid a bit of attention to how on top of this pandemic Trump has been while they were thoroughly absorbed by his attempted impeachment. Biden bragged about the Obama administration's action on H1N1 in 2008–09 but didn't mention that it was disastrous. Nothing was implemented in that case until a thousand Americans had died and 300,000 were hospitalized. Neither Biden nor Sanders prescribed a single thing that has not already been achieved. Both of them repeatedly mixed up past epidemics. It was a thoroughly wasted first half-hour of the debate. Not a word uttered by either candidate would comfort or likely win over a single new voter.

Biden, when asked if bureaucratic red tape impeded testing at the outset, said no, but as Clarice Feldman explained, it absolutely did. (Read the whole thing.) Diagnostic testing is (was) so overregulated that the CDC had devolved into something resembling the DMV. Trump has taken all this on with the alacrity of a man with long experience in business. He brought together the CEOs of our biggest retail and medical organizations to help. Neither Biden nor Sanders would have sought help from the big corporations they so loathe. Both of them would have relied on our bloated, dysfunctional bureaucracy. Trump, on the other hand, has brought these skilled businessmen on board, all of whom are problem-solvers, not bureaucrats or politicians.

Biden stupidly touts Obamacare, which has been a dismal failure. Bernie rages on and on about the lack of doctors! Why might that be? Obama socialized our medical care enough to frighten older doctors from their chosen field and keep talented young people from embarking on a medical career. Both Biden and Sanders want to double down on this rash stupidity! Why has this virus been so much more catastrophic in Italy, the U.K., Germany and the rest of Europe? Because socialized medicine is a disaster, thoroughly ill equipped to deal with a health crisis when health care is already rationed. This pandemic proves that beyond a reasonable doubt. The left's Medicare for All would be the final nail in the coffin of American medicine. Both Democrat candidates keep repeating that everything should be and will be free! Neither seems to grasp where the money that funds government programs and is doled out to those deemed "in need" comes from. Biden bragged that "Everything I call for, I pay for"! Uh, no, Joe, taxpayers would have to foot the bill. Both men seem to believe there is an unending supply of money despite our $23 trillion in debt. Sanders, as usual, thinks he can take all the money he wants from America's wealthiest citizens, as if that would be enough for his ridiculous promise to fund health care not just for all Americans, but for all illegal migrants as well. How about that to encourage even more breaching of our borders? That Sanders has risen to be one of two Democrat candidates for the presidency is a testament to our failed education system. Sanders's supporters are pathetically ignorant of basic economics, the tragic failures of socialism wherever it has been implemented, and the impossibility of enforced equality. Sanders, even more than Biden, strives to infect his supporters with soul-destroying rage and envy. On that score he has succeeded.

Then the two men, thanks to the vacuous leftist moderators, wasted more time debating the financial crisis of 2008 — TARP, the bank bailout that did work and was paid back. Old news — no one cares which one of them voted for or against it. Both leftists promise to spend more on public education even though every single study has proven that no matter how much money is spent to that end, there is little or no improvement in achievement! It is not the lack of money that has destroyed American education; it is academia's ruinous embrace of identity politics that dictates race, class, and sex must supersede actual education. Our once fine universities have been gravely diminished by their capitulation to the nonsense of "no more Shakespeare." Their coursework has been scrubbed of all dead white men — and not just men of literature, but those of art, music, and science as well.

Despite their weak protestations to the contrary, both men want open borders, unlimited immigration, legal and illegal. They both vow "no more deportations, even for felons." Stephen Green commented "Americans can't get staples at the grocery store and these guys want to streamline inprocessing for illegals." They both want an unending flood of new dependents on their largesse with taxpayer dollars. Sanders vows not to deport illegal criminals but to arrest energy company executives! He promises to end fracking which accounts for 1.7 million jobs. Bernie supports the grievously ill-conceived green new deal which of course would bring the American economy to a dead stop; it would do far more damage than any pandemic.

Bernie cannot ever bring himself to criticize, let alone vilify, regimes like those in China, Cuba, Venezuela, Russia (he voted against sanctions on Russia), et. al. He claims to oppose authoritarianism, but supports it wherever it exists and is destroying the lives of its subject citizens with a socialist brand name. He could not even condemn China, a nation with concentration camps and that is criminally responsible for the current coronavirus crisis! Bernie is the very definition of an authoritarian, a true blue communist at heart. And Biden, who should be distancing himself from Sanders's radical revolutionary rhetoric, keeps moving closer and closer to Bernie's anti-American, anti-capitalist policy positions in a vain attempt to court Sanders's supporters. Like Lewis Carroll's Tweedledum and Tweedledee, these two curmudgeons are barely distinguishable from one another but for their sheer idiocy. No American who watched their Sunday night debate will be inclined to vote for either of them. President Trump has been right about the danger of China rising for years and years, long before he ran for president. He was right then, and is right now. He has handled this spreading disease with calm and the mastery of a problem-solver. We are in good hands. Voters will not likely want to change leadership in the midst of a crisis, especially for one or the other of two aging leftists who haven't a clue about much of anything.

"Why is it that people with the most narrow of minds seem to have the widest of mouths?" —Lewis Carroll

Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of image by Richard Hoare, CC BY-SA 2.0, and details from two photos by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0.