Thursday, August 13, 2015

In What Alternate Universe ...

... are Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders "outsider candidates?"

Trump, by his own public admission, has built his entire career on buying politicians to subsidize and bestow special privileges upon his business enterprises. The surprise isn't that he's racked up billions doing that (after having inherited $250 million "earned" from government contracts), but that he's been so bad at doing it that he's gone through no fewer than four business bankruptcies even with the amount of bribery and influence-buying he's engaged in. And now he's running for president as a political outsider? He seems to just be trying to one-up Michael Bloomberg, the "outsider" who bought himself the New York City mayor's office. Well, no one's ever accused Trump of lacking for chutzpah.

And Sanders is the consummate political careerist: Eight years as a mayor, 16 years as a US Representative, 8.5 years in the US Senate. He's spent more time in political office than Hillary Clinton. Hell, he's spent more time in political office than Bill Clinton.

Whatever else they may be, Trump and Sanders are hardly political "outsiders."

No comments: