When Democrats Speak, X-Files Music Plays

American Spectator: When certain presidential candidates speak, voters hear The X-Files theme song in the background. Their truth is out there.

Senator Bernie Sanders wants to make private health insurance illegal, sponsoring a Medicare for All bill to make it “unlawful” for “a private health insurer to sell health insurance coverage that duplicates the benefits provided under this Act” or for “an employer to provide benefits for an employee, former employee, or the dependents of an employee or former employee that duplicate the benefits provided under this Act.” Senator Kamala Harris endorses decriminalizing prostitution. Senator Elizabeth Warren, apart from her proposed tax on the wealthy, calls for a congressional commission on reparations to “start the national full-blown conversation about reparations in this country” to “as a nation do what’s right and begin to heal.”

When does picking at a scab ever facilitate healing?

Andrew Yang, whose support qualifies him for the first round of Democratic presidential debates, wants the federal government to pay every adult American a guaranteed income of $1,000 a month. Similarly, Senator Cory Booker pushes the idea of a Baby Bond, a treasury certificate of $1,000 that every child receives as a birthright; depending upon parental income, the account expands with additional means-tested payments from the federal government. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand advocates the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement “deportation force.”

Several candidates support transforming America into Swiss Family Robinson through a Green New Deal. Others entertain stacking the U.S. Supreme Court, which cost the Democrats 79 seats in Congress when last they advocated this, and abolishing the Electoral College.

No candidate yet advocates permitting spectral evidence in court, seeks to revive the single tax, or waxes on the virtues of bimetallism, but this campaign remains young.

This looks less like a race to beat Donald Trump and more like a race to out-left the other candidates to become president of the American left. Given the exodus of white, working-class voters, particularly in the Midwest, during the last campaign, one would think winning back these traditional Democrats might serve as an urgent priority. Instead, candidates fixate on issues that ensure a landslide in the United States of New England. Their rhetoric strikes many Americans as a non sequitur removed from the reality of their lives.  more here

h/t forcibly deranged.