Illegitimate Candidate

Last week a delusional woman (layman’s observation, not professional diagnosis) ranted to Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden at an event in Nashua. Uncle Gaffe responded, and somewhere in Russia, Vladimir Putin smiled.
British historian Arnold Toynbee wrote, “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.” The exchange I heard in Nashua was a civilizational suicide pact between a citizen and a candidate. The citizen described herself as suffering from “a very severe case of what’s called Trump Derangement Syndrome” and then proceeded to prove her self-assessment by saying deranged things. The candidate – a man who was once just a heartbeat away from the Oval Office – not only played along with her delusions, he asked her “Would you be my vice-presidential candidate?”
This is how republics die.
After admitting her madness (TDS), she said:
“(Trump) won the election by 70,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. He won it because he had help by the Russians. He refuses to do anything to stop that. He’s failing in carrying out the most basic function to uphold the Constitution. He is not defending our national security…I don’t want to live in a country run by Vladimir Putin. I don’t think anybody in the country should want that, I don’t understand why millions of people don’t get that message…”
Millions of people “don’t get that message” because she is wrong. Nothing she stated is supported by any evidence, and much of it is contradicted by the plain facts.
President Trump won the election because he understood better than his opponent how we elect presidents. He worked to win over voters across the Electoral College map. While the extent of Russian interference in our politics this time (as opposed to every other time they’ve tried to manipulate American politics, e.g., funding the anti-nuclear movement in the 1980s and radical environmental movements to this day), no greater authority than former president Obama assured us that “No serious person out there would suggest somehow that you could even rig America’s elections.”
Obama did assure us before the 2016 election that he had “ordered a number of actions in response to the Russian government’s aggressive harassment of U.S. officials and cyber operations aimed at the U.S. election.” So, if there was, as the Nashua Nitwit claimed, a failure “in carrying out the most basic function to uphold the Constitution,” that failure was Obama’s during the campaign, not Trump’s after-the-fact.
She wasn’t done, and there wasn’t a soul in the audience with the grace and presence to gently but firmly get her to stop embarrassing herself.
“He is an illegitimate president — in my mind. That’s it! I think all the talk about impeachment and what the Democrats should do, that’s fine…He’s illegitimate. And my biggest fear is that he’s going to do it again with the help of Vlad, his best pal, and we’re going to be stuck for six more years of this guy. And that is terrifying. It’s terrifying.”
I have no doubt that the world is a terrifying place for the mentally disturbed. But who is a better “pal” of Putin, the man whose policies are helping America become a net exporter of oil and gas (undercutting Russia’s primary foreign-currency generator) and rebuilding our military, or the woman who promised to “reset” our relations with Russia and helped it control 20% of our strategic uranium reserves while her husband and family foundation prospered from Russian money?
Calling the lawfully elected president of the United States “illegitimate” it to enter dangerous territory. It undermines the peaceful transition of power that made America exceptional at its founding. Attempting to taint the next election with her irrational misconceptions makes it even worse.
We used to put delusion people in places where they could be cared for and couldn’t harm themselves or others. Now, the leading candidate of a major political party invites one to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Yes, in jest. But this is no laughing matter. This is the future of our republic. This episode shows Joe Biden to be an illegitimate candidate.
Of course, Biden isn’t the only Democrat candidate to jump off a cliff hand-in-hand with an irrational voter. Whenever they are asked, the klown-kar of Democrat hopefuls sing in unison praising the idea of a national $15 per hour minimum wage. This, despite all evidence – in economic textbooks and in economic reality – clearly demonstrating such a move hurts rather than helps low-skill workers by eliminating jobs and reducing hours worked/take-home pay. Yet, they persist.
Aristotle wrote, “Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.” With so many Americans pushing to elevate a national popular vote over the Constitution’s Electoral College and candidates embracing and encouraging voters whose beliefs don’t intersect with reality, we are well on our way to despotism.