Punch and Judy Politics

American politics has devolved into a meaningless Red and Blue Punch and Judy show. You know, the puppet show where all Punch and Judy do is argue and beat each other with sticks. Look at it as a metaphor for contemporary politics. 

Politicians at the state and federal level can’t get beyond their need to hold on to power, so they pander to us, telling us what they think we want to hear. Deep down you know it’s not what you really want to hear.

Where are the leaders who trade in the ideas that made America great? Maybe some will emerge, but I don’t see much on the horizon. Reasonable potential candidates see politics as walking into a meat grinder and they understandably shy away from public office. Instead we vote for bad candidates who either don’t solve problems or they create more problems. We have brought this on ourselves.

I bring this up because I watched Bill Maher the other night. I love the guy because he calls out the hypocrisy of anyone he thinks is a hypocrite, which is just about any politician or “thought leader” who appears on his show. He’s smart and doesn’t let much get past him. 

He had Republican Congress Member Marjorie Taylor Greene on the show. Yes, Marjorie the loose cannon who says outrageous things like “Yes, they can control the weather” in reference to Hurricane Helene. Or that the Camp Fire in California was caused by “space lasers” controlled by the Rothschilds and Governor Newsom. But here’s the thing: on the show she sounded semi-rational and the audience cheered when she said innocuous things like Congress needs to work together instead of fighting when millions of Americans are facing hardships. [Cheers] Or, Trump should release the Epstein documents. [Cheers] But she also said there are demons here on earth – “fallen angels” who maybe are the aliens we all hear about. [Silence] She also said she didn’t know that the Rothschilds were Jewish. [Silence]

My point is that ignorant people like Representative Greene are elected to Congress. She can make herself appear as a rational person when she wants to by saying the obvious. She reminds me of Chance, the gardener in the movie Being There (if you haven’t seen it, it’s a great movie and a very satirical commentary on politics). Maybe she’ll run for president. 

There are loose cannons on the Blue side as well (Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). It’s not an act for the socialist wing – they actually believe it. But they make stuff up to keep their base riled up against the evils of capitalism. 

I don’t want to give lefty thought leader Bill Maher a pass either. He tells Marjorie that billionaires don’t need their billions. Note to Bill: you make a reported $20+ million a year and obviously you don’t need that much either. Why don’t you give all your money to charity? He misses the point about billionaires: we made them billionaires because they made our lives better through innovation and investment. Take away the incentives to get rich and then you get stagnation (NB: See the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics).

None of these folks (except Maher) add anything to the national well-being. They say stuff that appeals to their base but which the rest of us ignore. I think politicians underestimate us voters because one important talent our species of apes has is that we know B.S. when we hear it.

The best example of B.S. right now, other than our president or Senator Schumer, is Zohran Mamdani, the “democratic” socialist who will be the new mayor of New York City. You would have to be gullible and/or ignorant of the long history of the failures and tragedies of socialism to support the guy but, like I said, this is the stuff such people want to hear.

There is no way NYC can afford Zoran’s free public transportation, low priced goods from government-run grocery stores, or plentiful cheap rent-controlled housing. The money is not going to come from billionaires because rich people, as you might have guessed, are not stupid and wealth taxes will drive them out of the city. So public transportation services will decline because of neglected maintenance and strikes. Government grocery stores will lose money and go broke. And more rent controls will make existing rentals more expensive and, since people don’t move out of rent-controlled apartments, it will reduce the supply. History is replete with examples of these outcomes.

We can change. Argentina’s President Milei is proving it by turning the moribund state-controlled economy around by reducing poverty and promoting growth. It’s his free-market reforms that are doing it. Argentinos were tired of being poor and they wanted change that works. And they got it. Can’t we do that?