The Democrats’ much-awaited primaries began like their Trump-Russia-collusion claims and the impeachment effort ended for them: in disaster. Not only did an app created by Hillary Clinton campaign veterans fail to perform and thus delay Iowa caucus results, but Democrat establishment pick Joe Biden appears to have under-performed and currently has zero delegates.
With 71 percent of precincts reporting as of this writing, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-Ind.) is first, in a surprising result, with 26.8 percent of the vote; Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is a close second at 25.2 percent; and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is third at 18.4 percent.
Also shockingly, ex-vice president Biden is fourth at 15.4 percent, not too far ahead of the 12.6 percent of Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). (Source: Associated Press.)
So as with President Trump’s surprise 2016 presidential victory, the polls weren’t exactly prophetic. Prior to the February 3 vote, the CBS News Battleground Tracker/YouGov poll showed Sanders and Biden tied at 25 percent, Buttigieg at 21, Warren at 16, and Klobuchar at five (video below; poll presented at 2:40).
Interestingly, with Klobuchar gaining almost as many points relative to the poll as Biden lost and with both billed as “moderates,” one could wonder if many of his voters moved toward her last minute (assuming the poll’s accuracy).
And some voters were switching allegiances at the 11th hour, if the video below is any indication. Amusingly, it shows a Klobuchar voter who later decided to support Buttigieg, but had no idea he was a homosexual who claimed to have a “husband.” Upon learning this, she was none too pleased and wanted to withdraw her vote.
Speaking of incompetence brings us to the dilatory tech issues, which Sanders unhappily called “negligent.” The problem has been attributed to the “Shadow” app, “which is affiliated with ACRONYM, a company started by veterans of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign,” reported Fox Business. Shadow was supposed to facilitate vote-counting, and it cost the Iowa Democratic Party $63,000. Yet the pricey program’s “coding errors” caused “inconsistencies” in voter reporting that has delayed the results’ tabulation and release.
This sounds familiar. First, there was the program version of the Titanic, with the ObamaCare website crashing on its maiden voyage. Then, remember the original “The Russians hacked the election!” allegation in late 2016? This deceitfully phrased charge was leftists’ explanation for how damning Democrat e-mails, damaging to Hillary Clinton, were revealed to the public. Russian hackers broke into the Democratic National Committee’s servers, obtained the documents, and then released them to Wikileaks, liberals asserted.
Yet as I wrote at the time, here’s “the Democrat complaint, translated: ‘We were too incompetent to secure our systems — or react promptly to a perceived threat by a hostile foreign actor — and as a result damning truths about us were revealed.’” My, if famed journalist Jimmy Breslin were still around, he could write the book, The Gang That Couldn’t Code Straight.
Meanwhile, there reportedly was a hacking attempt by Russia on the Republicans that didn’t work because they actually safeguarded their systems.
Conservatives also aren’t the ones who run cities littered with human feces, hypodermic needles, and trash but then ban plastic straws; propose having nine-year-olds vet cabinet picks; claim that men can get pregnant; think sex roles are artificial but homosexuality is inborn; state that non-binary people founded the anti-gun movement centuries ago; or fancy that changing your mind changes your sex. Amazing, too, since leftists are always telling us how dumb conservatives are and how smart they are. Dunning-Kruger effect, anyone?
Or maybe it’s just the “I Never Grew Up” effect, as commentator Tucker Carlson essentially said last night on his Fox News show while commenting on Iowa. “Did you ever suspect in your heart that liberals were basically disorganized and incompetent, the kind of people who hate their dads and leave dirty dishes in the sink and have crumbs in their beds?” he asked rhetorically. “Turns out you had no idea — it’s so much worse than that. They’re a disaster.”
“The people who want to control your healthcare couldn’t organize nap time for a six-year-old, they can’t find the airport, they’re baffled by the instructions on a washing machine,” Carlson continued. “What happens when you put them in charge of an entire caucus in Iowa? Well, the first thing they do is pay former Hillary staffers $63,000 to develop a vote-counting app that doesn’t work.” (Video below.)
No, Tucker, I didn’t suspect that — I knew it. I’m a big profiler, and one rule I’ve established is that if you need a service, never, ever hire leftists because incompetence characterizes them. Sound like prejudice? Well, there’s no prejudging here.
A prerequisite for competence is virtue. For example, the virtues of love and kindness ensure that you’ll care enough about others to want to serve them well, diligence ensures you’ll persevere in doing a good job even when it’s difficult, and all three increase the chances you’ll try to become proficient at your craft in the first place. In a nutshell, they yield conscientiousness.
And contrary to the misconception that ideology defines leftists, most characterizing them is enslavement to vice with chains forged by a relativism that deems virtue (objectively good moral habits) an illusion. Moreover, without virtue to help guide and control behavior, emotion holds sway and becomes its yardstick. Hence the old leftist credo, “If it feels good, do it” — and working diligently doesn’t always feel good.
This said, there is something that could rescue the Iowa liberals from a judgment of incompetence: a judgment of corruption.
The Monday debacle has, unsurprisingly, given rise to conspiracy theories. After all, the Shadow app is Clinton crew handiwork, and Clinton dislikes Sanders and the establishment she represents wants him gone. Then there’s the allegation that Buttigieg paid Shadow tens of thousands of dollars in recent months. And sure enough, say the suspicious, the mayor has thus far outperformed his polling numbers.
It doesn’t help that Shadow is shadowy, with the “MEET THE SHADOW TEAM” page listing no names at all. This doesn’t mean I embrace the conspiracy theory. Other candidates also donated to the company, after all. Then there’s Hanlon’s razor’s wise counsel, “Never attribute to malice what is better explained by stupidity.”
Either way, corruption or stupidity, it isn’t exactly a platform to run on. I mean, what’s the slogan? “Vote Democrat in 2020. We’re not crooked — just incompetent!”?
Photo: AP Images
Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) has written for The New American for more than a decade. He has also written for The Hill, Observer, The American Conservative, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, and many other print and online publications. In addition, he has contributed to college textbooks published by Gale-Cengage Learning, has appeared on television, and is a frequent guest on radio.
