What is it that Schultz likes about the piece? Does the "lifelong Democrat" enjoy the Democrat-bashing, including the racist swipe at Elizabeth Warren? (Thoughtful!)
Elections are often a reaction to the previous one. America will be searching for a calm, level-headed voice. That, we know, is not Trump, nor is it the hard-left candidate that could well, in fact likely will, win the Democratic nomination. Current frontrunner Kamala Harris is far from reassuring. She's a shrill (see the Kavanaugh hearings) quasi-socialist promising pie in the sky -- Medicare-for-all, debt-free college, guaranteed pre-K, minimum basic income, confiscatory taxes -- and she's just getting started. Bernie and others will soon be following suit. Fauxcahontas already has, competing in a game of socialist one-upmanship. Even supposedly centrist Biden is playing along. Who will win the approval of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Too bad she's too young to run.Simon, by the way, may be correct when he says that "America will be searching for a calm, level-headed voice" after four years of Donald Trump -- but why would that "calm, level-headed voice" be Schultz's? Now that he's spent a few days on the hot seat, I have to conclude that it's Schultz who's the shrill, emotional, volatile candidate in the race to succeed Trump. I can't think of a Democrat who's as flustered and defensive and snappish under pressure as Schultz is. This basically sums it up:
The cost of all this, the actual numbers, if they ever even publish any, will be stratospheric. The national debt will reach the moon and beyond. Maybe Alpha Centauri. If this nonsense were all enacted, the stock market would plunge, unemployment would soar, incomes would plummet, and we'd be headed for a global Depression. It's that stupid.
And Howard Schultz knows it.
I just think @HowardSchultz is too emotional to lead. I have no problem with a man running for president, I just happen to not want this man to run. Is he likable enough to be elected? Not so sure. He needs to calm down and smile more.
— Charlotte Clymer🏳️🌈 (@cmclymer) January 30, 2019
Maybe this is the bit in Simon's piece that Schultz really likes:
Schultz's policies would end up being much closer to Trump's than to the Democratic opposition. He would want to increase taxes, but only a smidge, so as not to disrupt the economy. He opposes Medicare for all as far too expensive. He would be for a strong defense, at least relatively. He would be middle-of-the-road on immigration, where many Americans are. He would be Trump-lite, a palatable Donald that many of the media could swallow because he wouldn't insult them for being liars (even though they are) or say outrageous (though often accurate) things for them to deliberately misinterpret.Is that what Schultz is endorsing? Simon's claim that he'd be "Trump-lite"? Schultz wants us to be assured that his policies would be more Republican than Democratic?
I'm not so sure about the "lite" part. Schultz is already in the habit of attacking everyone who disagrees with him -- his favorite insult seems to be "un-American" -- and he's slagging one critic, Elizabeth Warren, by saying she once asked him for a campaign contribution, which is pure Trump. (Trump in an August 2015 debate: "Most of the people on stage, I've given to, a lot of money.")
Most likely what grabbed Schultz's attention was Simon's insistence that Schultz can win. Schultz calls it "a thoughtful analysis," but "analysis" is giving it way too much credit:
And, of course, [Schultz] has plenty of money to run -- in every county, as he says.Wait -- what? Americans like the "sophisticated life"? I thought real Americans had dirt under their fingernails and got their joe at rural Pennsylvania diners, never doffing their Carhartt jackets and MAGA hats.
Could this, of all things, spell victory? It never did for John Anderson, Ralph Nader, or Russ [sic] Perot, not even close. But Schultz has more going for him. He is, if anything, a more successful businessman than Trump with plenty of economic acumen. And his business, unlike Perot's, is known to all Americans. Moreover, it is a symbol of the "cool" sophisticated life to which much of modern America aspires, like it or not. Schultz took the Greenwich Village coffee shop and put it into every suburban mall in the country, making it less scary and more bourgeois in the process. What soccer mom doesn't love her latte?
This still doesn't explain why Schultz has the potential to earn a greater number of electoral votes than Russ -- er, Ross Perot, who won exactly zero. But good to know that Schultz is linking pieces calling him a would-be Trump. As the saying more or less goes, when people retweet explanations of who they are, believe them.
****
UPDATE: Schultz has deleted the tweet.
No comments:
Post a Comment