Many people are confused about the seemingly incomprehensible behavior of the Democratic Party in recent years. Not me. That’s because I’m a regular viewer of old episodes of the sitcom “Senfield.” And if you understand what that sitcom was all about, you’ll understand today’s Democratic Party.
“Seinfeld,” as was often stated during this series itself, was about nothing. It merely followed a group of dysfunctional, amoral New Yorkers doing silly things that wrecked havoc among those around them and was invariably destructive for these characters as well.
The Democratic Party today is also about nothing. No principles that won’t be compromised. No beliefs so strongly grounded that an accusation of being “a liberal” or “a socialist” doesn’t instantly cause retreat or retraction. The Democratic Party is also obviously dysfunctional, silly, causes havoc among those foolish enough to still place faith in it, and ultimately self-destructive in consequence.
Pure “Seinfeld.” Every time.
The latest doings of this party in the throes of comic politics involves actions virtually indistinguishable from those on one of my favorite “Seinfeld” episodes. In that one George, the perpetual loser, has someone managed to date an attractive woman who actually finds him worthy of mating. They’re sitting in his car after a date and she coyly asks if he’d like to come up to her place for coffee. He declines, saying he never drinks coffee before bedtime. She looks at him like he’s a total ninny and exits the car. It isn’t until later, much too late, that George realizes that if he did go up to her place “for coffee,” he might have gotten something rather more stimulating.
The Democratic Party’s version of this “Seinfeld” inanity involves voting on extending lower Bush-era income tax rates. Had Democrats voted to extend them only for the 98 percent non-rich earners and forced the Republicans to veto this measure to protect the top 2 percent earners, Democrats would have had a winning issue in the recent election campaign. But being Democrats, like being George, they are just now doing what they should have done a few months back, something now meaningless in terms of winning an election.
Everyone, including myself, has to stop criticizing Democrats as if they were, in fact, a relevant political organization. They’re really only a collection of bit players, itty-bitty bit players, in a national sitcom in which they’re only there for the laughs they provide.
Democrats are the party of George in Seinfeld. Take them that way for a daily chuckle. Take them seriously and they’ll only end up crying.
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