2016 Feb 12^th

What would I do without Mona Charen? She is a gift I could not invent because no one would believe an apparently well educated person could make the comments she does…but she does! Today she blasts away at both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. When you are shaky on the issues, resort to name calling; thus Sanders is an “inane socialist demagogue.” Apparently not satisfied with “socialist,” she subsequently calls him “Bolshie Bernie;” the alliteration just too compelling for her to ignore it.

Charen is a bit more accurate with her characterization of Donald Trump as a “foul mouthed nationalist demagogue.” I would have chosen xenophobic over nationalist, but perhaps Charen figured that many of her readers would be too lazy to look up Xenophobic. Demagogue is a better choice for Trump’s followers than for Bernie’s. Bernie’s strongest appeal is to the young, particularly college students. College students are hardly the common people demagogues are supposed to go after. Trump appeals to an older, less well educated cohort and those folks more closely align with the common people whom Charen believes will succumb to demagoguery.

Not satisfied with Bernie bashing, Charen takes a shot at Hilary Clinton when she claims that “Madame Defarge enjoyed a good shakeup herself.” My goodness, if Charen is comparing Madame Defarge to Hillary Clinton she should re-read The Tale of Two Cities and re-check Mrs. Clinton’s net worth! Charen also claims that Sanders is “channeling the late Hugo Chavez in advocating a 15 dollar an hour minimum wage.” Charen may not know it but that is already the minimum wage for City employees in Portland, Oregon.

One of the curiosities of our culture is that the American taxpayer actually subsidizes the massive income of the richest family in America. I’m sure that Charen prefers not to discuss the fact that Walmart, the gigantic cash cow that the Walton family regularly milks, pays some of its employees a wage so low that the wage earner is eligible for a tax payer paid subsidy. Indeed the new employee in several corporations receive instructions in how to apply for a taxpayer funded subsidy when they are hired; nothing much about that in Charen’s column.

Charen then goes on to defend the major banks, those poor folks who must deal with massive regulations. Now it seems that they have not really been regulated enough. Mona Charen fails to mention that these banks have been fined about a quarter of a trillion dollars for their part in the near collapse of our monetary system. Of course according to Charen these banks were just trying to make a profit. Perhaps they tried a little too hard.