OPINION: Democrat chaos

An accountant friend would tell a story of the 1980 Savings and Loan collapse. He attended a meeting where the board members watched a presentation recommending that they upgrade their corporate jet to the latest model for several million dollars. After the presentation ended the chairman stood up and announced their S&L was insolvent and would be closing its doors and terminating all employees that afternoon.

This story is illustrative of how disconnected and chaotic collapsing systems can become. At the moment of extinction, some elements were still operating as if they were completely oblivious to their reality. Like the tick on a freshly harvested elk, it may be some time before the tick’s future becomes evident.

People tend to cluster with others with similar viewpoints, beliefs or needs. The “American Dream” is actually the result of a feature set that attracts individuals with certain characteristics. People who were willing to risk all and take a perilous journey for a fresh start are the same people unafraid to innovate and work hard to create the greatest country on earth.

These similarities are not absolutes. If you were to treat them as absolutes it would put you in a group that some would call bigots, or racists or some other undesirable title. In general, the prevalence of a particular characteristic in a group will follow a distribution pattern called a Bell Curve, due to its shape resembling a bell. While the distribution will have an average, very few members will be average. For example, half the people you meet will be, to some degree, above average.

While it is usually inaccurate and unfair to say that every member of some group displays a particular characteristic, it is possible to make general statements based on observations about the average. For example, in business people who are not afraid of taking risks, bending the rules or attempting the “impossible” tend to be good entrepreneurs. People with those same qualities tend to make bad accountants. There is a name for accountants who are creative and don’t follow the rules: “inmate.”

In politics you have people who prefer or accept to be governed, and counter to that there are people who prefer self-governance and resist authoritarians. During the pandemic, you had those who happily followed mask and injection mandates and those who resisted.

People who prefer to be governed may prefer a top-down approach with political power emanating from above such that the rights of the village take precedence over the rights of the individual. Self-governance types believe that political power rests with the individual who transfers some of that power to the government as a means of protection. For them, the rights of the individual are above the rights of the village.

A study of the political parties would reveal that Democrats tend to be people who want to be governed and look to the government to take care of their needs; that big government is good, and that it is proper to take from those with resources to provide for those that do not. Naturally, a group of people who wish to be governed would look attractive to people who desire to govern others. This natural symbiosis causes the Democrat party to stratify into two classes, the governing and the governed.

This two-class structure requires the top of the party to regulate the lower administrative strata to prevent them from working at cross purposes. What we are witnessing almost daily is the failure of that system.

Joe Biden was elected president while exhibiting clear signs of age-related cognitive decline. This decline has progressed at an alarming rate to the point that he clearly is incapable of higher command functions. His inept response to the tragic fires in Lahaina is the latest in a series of incidents presenting evidence of this fact.

So if Biden isn’t running the executive branch, who is? Apparently the next tier and they are not coordinating with each other. The Trump indictments illustrate this perfectly.

The indictments of Trump are political but they are not effectuating the desired outcome. Each indictment has increased not decreased Trump’s popularity. You would think that after the second or third attempt, some higher authority in the party would order them to stop. Yet a fourth indictment was issued. One sign of insanity is to do the same thing over and over, each time expecting a different result. You have to believe that a fully functioning Joe Biden would have never allowed low-level party officials to turn Trump into a living martyr with soaring ratings in the polls.

Like the new jet proposal for the collapsing Savings and Loan, various elements of the Democrat party are executing their own agendas with little consideration for the overall objective of electing a Democrat president. This is one of the major problems with centralized authority and control. When the top level fails, chaos ensues and the entire country, perhaps the world, is put in existential peril.

It’s just common sense.

Brent Regan is chairman of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee.