Congressman Joseph Kennedy III, grandnephew of John F. Kennedy, comes down four-square for having one’s cake and eating it too. From Simon Black at sovereignman.com:
I’ve long held a working theory that US voters are completely predictable in Presidential elections.
The idea is that Americans almost invariably tend to swing wildly every few election cycles, voting for the candidate who is as close to the opposite of the current guy as possible.
Let’s go back a few decades to, say, Jimmy Carter.
In 1976, the country was sick and tired of the corruption, scandal, and disgrace of Richard Nixon’s administration (which at that point had been inherited by Gerald Ford).
Jimmy Carter was pretty much the opposite of Richard Nixon– a youthful outsider versus an aging crony.
After four years of economic disaster, Americans swung in the opposite direction from Carter, choosing an older, polished conservative in Ronald Reagan who represented strength and stability.
That trend lasted for twelve years– two terms with Reagan, and one term with his successor George HW Bush, after which the country swung in the other direction again– to Bill Clinton.
Clinton was another young, energetic liberal, pretty much the opposite of the elderly, curmudgeonly Bush.
After eight year of Clinton and his personal scandals, the country swung again to George W. Bush, a God-fearing, fundamental conservative who wouldn’t cheat on his wife. He represented Clinton’s opposite.
And after eight years of war and economic turmoil, the country swung once again to Bush’s opposite– a youthful, charismatic, black outsider.
Eight years later, the 2016 election was won by a man who is as far from Barack Obama as it gets.
Now, however you feel about the current guy, it’s safe to say that the country is probably going to wildly swing in the opposite direction in either 2020 or 2024.
Last night the world got a sneak peak at what that might look like– Congressman Joe Kennedy III, the 37-year old grandnephew of John F. Kennedy.
The young Congressman clearly represents Trump’s opposite and seems to embody so many of the gargantuan social movements that are coming to a head– the Dreamers, #metoo, BlackLivesMatter, etc.
To continue reading: “We choose debt. . .”
At best poor analysis. Anyone but Bush would have realized the country wanted Reagan’s policies but from the start Bush renounced Reagan. His end was predictable, but its worth noting as bad a Bush was, no Democrat wanted to run against him, hence the unknown Clinton.
Now who can suppose after the four glorious years of Carter that the country would seek someone as far removed from this gift of god? Confirms your wild swings prediction.
And how could anyone have doubted Obama’s promises or his character in 2008? It wasn’t a wild swing it was the cumulative effects of drugs on the gene pool that elected this Kenyan. Doubtful the country will ever completely recover from Obama the Hun. Again so unpredictable that people would reject 8 years of failure, lies, and disaster.
What we do have is a badly polarized nation dominated by a wishy washy party and a bunch of dedicated Marxists.