Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Why The Democrats Are Destined To Lose This Election.

There can be no doubt that this election cycle is one unlike anyone has seen in living memory.

The Republican field was all set to be a staged pseudo contest designed to anoint Jeb Bush. Same thing for the Democrats who were all set to coronate Hillary Clinton.

Ben Carson, Martin O'Malley and Carly Fiorina were supposed to be window dressing outsiders intended to do little more than make it appear interesting but not to be taken terribly seriously. Such is how it has panned out for them.

On the Democrat side Joe Biden was put forth as a possible alternative to Hillary but chickened out after contemplating the Clintons ability to be the dirt slingers they have always been. Weighing that against the pile of graft he has accumulated he decided that the cash and retirement looked a whole lot better.

But then entered Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. No one in either the political class or the corporate 4th estate took them seriously. The airwaves and newspapers were filled with little but predictions of their immanent demise. According to the pundits and self anointed "experts" neither needed to be taken seriously and were to be regarded as having little more than "entertainment value".

But if there has been a single common thread this election season its been that the talking heads have completely misread the public's contempt for the political establishment and their corporate media mouthpieces, both left and right.

The more Trump talked, dismissed the establishment, the news media, political correctness and directly addressed those issues people were seriously concerned with, the more they listened and the higher his poll numbers went. It was like someone threw open the windows to a breath of cold fresh air that cleared the room of the stagnant, fettid stench of politics as usual. The rank and file raised a proud and defiant middle finger to the Republican establishment and the media. Almost as if saying in unison "Yeah Trump might be an egotistical jerk, but he's not one of you!"

Over on the Democrat side the Revolution of '16 is being driven by superficially similar factors but completely different ones as well. There is an underlying dissatisfaction with the party establishment but it seems more focused on the Clintons in particular and Hillary's fundamental untrustworthiness and personal unlikability.

Add to this the legions of poorly educated youth who have never learned to either define communism or recognise a communist parasite when the see one. With Sanders the only other available candidate his seemingly endless Marxist tirades have an hypnotic appeal to the dull witted. Throw in the anybody but Hillary crowd and you get the virtual tie in Iowa and the 22% "schlonging" Hillary got in New Hampshire.

So what happens from here? On the Republican side the also rans continue to bash each other for second or third place finishes while Trump continues to carry 30-40% in the polls and vote tally. Trump won't make the mistake of not having a ground game going forward like he did in Iowa. He learns from his mistakes and quickly.

On the Democrat side a lot is riding, for both Hillary and Sanders, on the outcome in South Carolina. So far the "conventional wisdom" is that the Clintons have the minority vote all but locked up and that a resounding double digit victory there will signal the end of Sanders moving forward. I'm not so sure. If Sanders is adept at anything, it is promising the gimmedats more stuff that they haven't earned. If there is anything that has broad appeal to the welfare class it is promises of more free stuff. If Hillary finishes in South Carolina with only a narrow margin she could be in for a serious uphill battle going forward.

So how does any of this guarantee a Republican victory in November? Nothing is as simple as it may seem. If Hillary's campaign stumbles badly and she staggers into the convention bloodied and wounded but victorious via "Super Delegates" it could get complicated.

The Sanders voters could well feel that "we was robbed" and stay home or worse flock to a Bloomberg candidacy. Doom for the Democrats. Biden could again be put forward at the convention as a "unifying" candidate. The party would then go into November in total disarray and division. Votes for Bloomberg, doom for the Democrats.

If Sanders does somehow secure the Democrat's nomination his full blown Marxist rhetoric, both past and present, will be exposed. His relations with numerous failed communist experiments in South and Central America will be exposed. The picture of the empty supermarket shelves in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba will fill the TV screens with the words that "This is what a vote for Sanders will get you." And "He can promise you anything, but there will be nothing to deliver." Doom for the Democrats.

Hillary could indeed get the needed wide margin victory in South Carolina and come out of the convention nominated by acclimation. But even that does not discount the increasing heavy baggage of both "Servergate" and the débâcle in Libya. Trump or any other Republican for that matter will paint her problems as Nixonian in proportion and rightfully say that the legal entanglement will interfere with needed concentration of energy on foreign relations and the continuing deterioration of the economy and we could end up with another Clinton impeachment scandal. The Photoshop artists no doubt have their comparitive storyboards in the works. Doom for the Democrats.

All these possibilities are out there and could come true and in any one of numerous scenarios. Looming large over all of this is the aforementioned economic deterioration. So far Trump is the only candidate who has dared say "I hope it isn't true but the markets are looking like they are in a huge bubble." Truth is that they are. This time it's not just mortgage derivatives that are imploding but global sovereign debt derivatives that have all but wiped out market and bank liquidity.

The European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan have both entered into negative interest rate programs. Openly punishing those who dare try to save for their futures or their children's future. Deutche Bank is so illiquid that not only are they calling for even deeper negative interest rates and punishing fees to be levied against cash withdrawals but banning cash all together! How dare you conduct private commerce in a way that the banks and government can't take a piece of the action!

With this kind of insanity on full display and global equity markets and international trade in contraction we will be lucky to get to the conventions never mind the general election before we fall into a massive deflation. Doom for the Democrats because eight years of the "It's George Bush's fault" mantra won't fly anymore.

Mark my words carefully. Chinese markets are closed all this week for New Year's Celebrations. If, when they reopen next Monday and continue their sharp decline, and I don't see how they can avoid it but momentarily, another blackest of "Black Mondays" is on the cards and all the negative interest rates and quantitative easing in the world will not stop it.

Enjoy the cheap gas while you can because all the storage facilities are 98% full and there is no place to put any more and the price will soon hit a point where its not worth pumping out of the ground. When panic comes it's not because of broken markets or risk factors, it comes because there sets in a loss of confidence in governments and regulations. In such situations voters always, always, always vote out the incumbent party resident in the White House. Doom for the Democrats.

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