Kamala's 'Money for Nothing'

'that's the way you do it'

The title of Dire Straits’ song of almost 40 years ago (1985) – Money for Nothing – couldn’t apply more to the Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, and not just because they started with $1 billion and ended $20 million in debt, begging their hapless contributors to cover for them.

Or that the supposedly “climate-concerned” campaign spent $2.6 million on private jets the last few weeks of the campaign alone.

It's actually worse. From the Daily Mail:

“Kamala Harris's campaign paid more than double what was previously thought to Oprah Winfrey as Democrats continue to fundraise past the election after going into debt to run a presidential bid.

“Reports emerged that Harris's campaign paid Winfrey's Harpo Productions $1 million as part of a very pricey and short run for the White House.

“But now, the New York Times reports that two people familiar with the matter reveal the full price of the event with Winfrey cost closer to $2.5 million”.

Do I hear $4 million?

No matter what you think of Oprah, who would be surprised at this point?  It’s also easy to guess the huge sums paid for the other tedious celebrities to tell us just how great Kamala was, assuring us too they weren’t being paid, just their “companies.”

Our country certainly dodged a bullet not putting our economy in Ms. Harris’ hands. 

But why did the campaign invest so much in these entertainers, thinking someone like Cardi B was going to affect the vote?

Names of so-called “strategists” responsible for this boondoggle like David Plouffe are being bandied about, but I think they had no choice.

They had to spend ridiculous amounts of money on celebrities because they had nothing else.

This is not just true because Kamala is, to be kind, no threat to Margaret Thatcher or Golda Meir as a public speaker, or because her running mate was genuinely so “weird”  they must have known they made a mistake on day two.

It’s likely no Democrat could have won because Trump is Trump but also because there is no Democratic Party anymore. 

Yes, they have voters who do so out of habit or inheritance and they do have their “woke” wing that is actually quite small  and shrinking, but they have no core party that stands for anything.

Bill Maher, of all people, gets this (partly). As the Gateway Pundit’sCassandra MacDonald put it: ‘

“Comedian Bill Maher trashed ‘stupid’ and ‘privileged” liberals who make voters ‘want to punch them in the face’ during the latest episode of his show, Real Time With Bill Maher.

“Maher, who is a liberal himself, was attacking the Democrat Party for refusing to stop doing the things that are turning off average Americans.

“’When you’re in a hole, stop digging, not keep digging,’ Maher said. ‘Talk about doubling down on what got you f-cked in the first place.’

“Maher mocked liberals who wear ‘Queers for Palestine’ shirts and those who are ‘still wearing masks, two years after the pandemic ended.’

“He also blasted liberals for refusing to define a ‘woman.’”

All true but he misses two points, one large and one small.  The small one is that for the most part few of us actually want to punch these people in the nose. That’s the way Maher thinks. We just don’t want to have to listen to them ever again.  They are the people who, when you run into them at a cocktail party, you’re trying to figure out a way to get out of the conversation inside of thirty seconds.

The large point that Maher skirts is that the party doesn’t stand for anything other than maintaining power.  They’re not even good Marxists because you sense they don’t even believe that.  Most of their effort is placed in making money—for themselves.   

As even liberal Politico wrote a week ago: “Democrats are having a full-blown identity crisis.”

Normally the way back would be simple.  Spend more money on more government programs, maybe even the brass ring of nationalized health.

But this flies in the face of the public mood, not to mention the grim reality of the stratospheric national debt that threatens to destroy our society. 

Trump World is bursting with new ideas, but the most far reaching and ultimately perhaps the most important is the Department of Government Efficiency(DOGE) helmed by businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.  This is the opposite of the old Democrat Party way.

Nov 17 Ramaswamy described the program on Maria Bartiromo’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” including how cost cutting will begin with easily performed  executive actions and then move to Congress.  He added:

"This is about restoring self-governance and accountability in America as well. Elected leaders, if they make the wrong decisions, voters have a great choice. You can vote them out and remove them. Most of the people making these decisions from health care to the Department of Defense are failing on effectiveness because they have no accountability. Historically, it's been the view of many scholars to say that those people could not even be fired. Now we take a different view with the environment the Supreme Court has given us in recent years, and we're going to use that in a pretty extensive way to move quickly," 

This Deep State was generated and fostered by both the Democratic and Republican parties.  The MAGA Republicans, at least, are starting to take it apart.  Could a renewed Democratic Party end up helping?  It seems unlikely now but political parties do reinvent themselves, especially when they listen to the people.