Photo Credits. SANDERS Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune. TRUMP Zbibniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune

A little narcissism is not a bad thing if one is a politician, and if narcissism comes in degrees. Getting up each morning and looking into the mirror, a politician has to say, “hey, it’s all about me,” to make it through the day. It’s a defense mechanism against those who spend their day trying to tear you from limb-from-limb, degrade you personally and attack you any way they can attack you.

That’s what passes for political debate these days.

The two guys in the photo above are starting to take it to extremes. In fact, they’re starting to remind me of conjoined twins and unfortunately they’re conjoined by hate.

That hate flows down to their supporters who start behaving in the same boorish manner as their objects of worship, the two candidates.

I don’t use that term worship in a cavalier manner. It is worship with these two. In fact, their followers remind me of cult followers more than they do thinking human beings.

The Trump gangs are well-documented thugs. Their antics at rallies have been the talk of the political season. In fact, The Wall Street Journal, not exactly the voice of Liberalism published an article just yesterday about how White Supremacists are advancing their agenda through Trump.

There is an endorsement that should make a politician queasy but not Trump who seems to welcome them.

The Bernie gangs are no less offensive. When I announced that as a Republican who had never voted for any Democrat for any office I was not going to vote for Donald Trump, and probably would vote for Hillary Clinton, the Bernie crew sent me lots of nice messages on Twitter asking me to feel the Bern.

If I feel a Burn, I consult a doctor because I need a course of antibiotics. There is nothing on God’s Earth that could get me, a capitalist, to vote for Bernie Sanders for any office, of any kind, let alone President of the USA.

When I told them no thank you, those smiles turned to smears as ugly as any the Trump mob could muster.

The threats against the DNC Chair in Nevada are a classic example of a narcissist reaction to bad behavior. Bernie refuses to apologize. What should Bernie say? Bernie should say that he repudiates any hateful behavior by any supporter whatsoever and he is profoundly sorry for any threats she has received. But oh no, not Bernie, narcissists never apologize even if it is an insincere apology.

The Bernie movement, like the Trump movement, is built on hate. His is a message of hate cloaked as “fairness”. There is nothing fair about taking what someone has worked hard for and giving it to someone who has not worked hard for it. That is called greed, yet the person who has worked hard or taken risk is portrayed as the greedy person. That’s the Bernie movement and I want no part of it, or him.

His hate was on full display in his rambling, incoherent speech after his loss in the Kentucky Primary. Narcissists are always sore losers.

Bernie was railing against the system and the Democratic Party. You know, to this day Bernie is not a member of the Democratic Party. I don’t understand why he is on the ballot as a Democrat. It is a fraud to have his name on the ballot as a Democrat. Bernie, if you want to legitimately criticize the party, grab your cell phone call up the Minority Leader in the Senate and join. It just takes a phone call, but see, you are not a Democrat never have been and have no intention of being a Democrat.

Bernie’s rant was fueled because, in a closed Primary where only Democrats are allowed to vote for their party’s nominee, Bernie can’t hijack the election by having non-Democrats steal the election. Somehow Bernie thinks theft is moral as long as he wins. That is in keeping with narcissism too.

Bernie and Trump are both engaged in populism. At its base, populism is the belief that the people have the right to control their government rather than a small group of political insiders. Ironic, isn’t it, that someone who is part of a small group of the elite, the US Senate, can fleece so many people into thinking he is not an insider? Bernie is an insider and part of the political elite, just an incompetent elitist with a record of failure as a public servant.

Mathematically Bernie can’t win the Democratic Nomination, and he knows he can’t win, so what is his end-game? Politico published an article last week stating after Kentucky and Oregon, Bernie would end the race and focus on defeating Trump. That sounds like a third party bid to me. I think he still will go the third party route and play the spoiler, after all, he is not a Democrat so why should he just walk away? His ego will not allow him to walk away from all this attention.

Where are all the men and women of principle this election? They seem to be missing. I used to hear a lot about “Principled Conservatives”. The last I checked, Principled means someone who is high-minded, honest in all things, abides by a code or a set of rules, upstanding and incorruptible.

I seem to have found one. Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard is taking an awful hit right now. He actually does have principles and is not knuckling under to Der Fuhrer Donald. He seems to recall the GOP is about entrepreneurship, free trade, efficient government, and not about protectionism, misogyny, white supremacy, and disdain for the handicapped and hate for the poor.

He published an interesting study by Data Targeting showing that 65% of voters are willing to support an independent candidate and 91% of young voters want an independent candidate on the ballot. Those are significant numbers. If the two major parties are to survive and flourish as they have in the past they need to bend an ear outside the beltway and listen to the rest of America.

Whether you like it or not, Washington, this election the voters are sending you a message. I hope you are receiving it. So far, the only person inside the Beltway who seems to not have lost his hearing is Bill Kristol.

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