Free Pizza Politics

The rise of Bernie Sanders should come as no surprise to most. The post great recession youth is coming of age and will be voting in masses soon. This generation (my generation) has been inundated with anti-capitalist propaganda that is in part fueled by the reckless actions of our very own government in its’ nasty habit of putting banks before the people time and time again.

The young of our day see an increasingly inadequate political class failing to address the real issues effectively, and this problem has exacerbated itself into the electrifying campaign Bernie Sanders currently enjoy. The growth of his campaign can be linked directly to what I like to call “The Nordic Utopia Theory”, that is based on the flawed idea that America sucks and the Nordic countries are better, because of their social welfare programs.

The millennial voters are unlikely to ask (assuming they care) how the free stuff will be accomplished given the very tight legislative restraints of the U.S constitution, and the inability of any president to craft legislation from the oval office. In other words, even if the massive expansion of government Sen. Sanders is proposing was fiscally feasible (which it is not) , it is not clear how he would get the votes to back such an expansion of government. The current two house system and constitution, will likely present insurmountable challenges that are destined to arise with any sort of massive expansion of government into the lives and wallets of the citizens.

The new voters of my day are not likely to ask how he would address our current deficit spending, along with servicing our long term debt obligations. They only care about their slice of the “free pizza” as promised to them. Now, the “free stuff” approach to politics is hardly new and can be essentially reduced to free pizza slices before a local student government election (in some cases pizza can be replaced with baked goods), the lure of free stuff is a sure fire way to get anyone fired up.

Where you would find “free pizza” in your local SGA race, you will find free college and healthcare in your socialist campaign toolbox. The promise of more stuff for less work has proven to be very alluring, as Bernie Sanders pack arenas with high flying rhetoric and little policy subsistence. The “free pizza” tactic as employed by Sanders is just another populist message void of policy research and often done irrespective of economic analysis.

The far left has manufactured a resurgence of American socialism with a fire unseen since the days of Huey Long himself. The only thing more displeasing than the feckless masses that are so willingly complacent in the to robbery of their fellow country men for personal gain, is the silence of all those too feeble to concern themselves with the future of our country. The validity of the American experiment is on trial. The very concepts and values that propelled us to being the world’s number one superpower are in danger of being discarded for the snake oil of a career politician.

The Senator himself indicted the nation as being founded on “racist principles,” as if he had never made it around to reading the very constitution he is seemingly denouncing. Well, it’s high time men and women enter this debate with the genuine purpose of preserving the prosperity and wealth of the nation by challenging such blatant abuses of the social contract. It is time, that we as Americans reject the European vision sold to us void of the troubling realities the Nordic nations face.

Sen. Sanders seek to redesign America to mimic countries that are different in culture, size, industry and government structures. Countries that are uniquely different in terms of defense policy and macroeconomic policy. Countries that are fiscally different in terms of debt obligations and entitlement programs. This is argued in complete disregard of the multitude of factors that can easily bust the sustainability of these programs in any nation. Bernie Sanders is promising an awful lot, but even with free pizza someone has to pay, but unlike your SGA candidates of yesterday, the ultimate cost will fall on the voters themselves. The fire from the left must be extinguished for liberty to thrive.