The Donald goes off script and holds forth like Castro, delivering two hours of rambling, crowd loving, rambunctious showmanship; and the Bern, ever more to the point, tells his lovers of his intent to turn the American enterprise system — our realpolitik mix of public functions and private incentives x specific U.S. geopolitical area — upside-down.

What compassionate, moderate, and reasoning American constituency wants to have to choose between the demagogue on the Far (Out) Left and the reactionary on the Far (Mostly White) Right?

While it may be too soon to fix the 2020 contest as “Sanders v Trump”, it’s not too soon to question the off-the-wall egotism and narcissistic motivation of leaders to whom applause from their respective mobs — the “narcissistic supply”; the love that heals all wrongs; the love that affirms their manhood or sense of personal and political efficacy and messianic self-concept and value; the love that is for each politician like no other drug on earth — may be more important than the practical adjusting of policies to create or obtain nationwide improvements in bottom-to-top American qualities of living.

After writing off the several preceding elected Administrations as “an old ruling class”, making the claims that “America is winning again; America is respected again”; moseying around the “Great Tariff Debate of 1938”; making fun of the Democrat’s “New Green Deal”; mocking the press, “Please Russia get the e-mail” he whines sarcastically while the crowd chants “Lock her up! Lock her up!”; viciously firing at “Shifty Schiff” and “The Collusion Delusion”, reliably turning his targets into cartoon caricatures and episodes; and slinging a few more arrows along the lines of, “You leave people in certain positions, and suddenly they’re all trying to take you out with bullshit” (big applause for that nasty note), Trump gets around to what it’s really all about:

We’re in the swamp of Washington, D.C., but you know what? We’re winning and they’re not . . . .

You know what I like about this?

Number one, I’m in love, and you’re in love, we’re all in love together.

We’ve done something nobody has ever done, right? It’s easy . . . .

There’s so much love in this room, it’s easy to talk. You can talk your heart out. You really can. There’s love in this room.

27:20 -> 19:48 “President Trump takes the state at CPAC”. Breitbart YouTube video displayed below.

---

Here’s Bernie:

. . . thank you all for being part of a political revolution that is going to transform America

(Chanting: “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!) –

No, no, no — it is not Bernie, it you. It’s us together.

We are going to transform this country and finally create an economy and a government which works for all of us, not just the one percent.

3:30 –> 4:47 – “Bernie Sanders’ FULL Brooklyn speech”, Rebel HQ YouTube video as displayed.

Bernie’s crowd loves the way he panders to them, and it’s not too bad, for who would not be for economic, social, racial, and environmental justice?

Bernie and his followers have perhaps been seeing America’s regulated capitalist system become unbridled: “We will no longer tolerate the greed of corporate America and the billionaire class . . . greed which has resulted in this country having more income and wealth inequality than any other major country on earth” (6:35 -> 6:55).

However, who is going to pay for that guaranteed health care?

What anti-social steps may Big Pharma take to reduce the cost of prescription drugs (hint: offer less tested — and cheap — generics?); how will that heightened minimum wage avoid becoming simply inflationary? The eternal “crumbling infrastructure” issue (that’s been on BC’s plate since Lester Brown’s heyday) — Trump offered it too: any progress?

Tuition free public college and university educations: whose pockets, how, and how soon?

Of the two Big Dreamers, BC believes one far more social and concerned with the general American experience, but wonders as well whether applause has been more the motivation for heightened American messianism on the campaign trail than perception of the much needed nuts-and-bolts adjustments that would treat the nation’s land base and people with the care and respect required for better-than-functional politically coherent national survival.

---

---

---

Related: “Castro Speech Database”, Latin American Network Information Center. One page on that site features the Department of State Foreign Service dispatch for “Speeches Made at October 26, 1959 Mass Demenstration” and carries the following remark: “Castro spoke for over three hours. When he made his appearance on the speakers platform, he received an eight minute ovation. As is no [STET] frequently the case, the speech was rambling, disjointed, and repetitive, with Castro getting quite frantic and incoherent towards the end.”

---

Generally related to this post: https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/02/politics/fact-checking-cpac/index.html ; https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/12/you-all-just-got-a-lot-richer-trump-tells-friends-at-mar-a-lago-after-signing-tax-overhaul\ ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Act ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_in_United_States_history – a brief glance online turns up nothing special about American tariff police in 1938, so the President’s mention of the “Great Tariff Debate of 1938” rhymes nicely but with questionable substance).

–33–