“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard” — H. L. Mencken
President Donald Trump, who made himself available during
the off-presidential elections in various states, maintained his distance from
Connecticut. Some political commentators regard the state as an east coast extension of Gavin Newsome’s
California, increasingly left wing and impervious to right reason. One
homegrown poll published shortly before final votes were tallied showed Trump
with a disapproval rating of 70%, not at all surprising. A count of citations
unfavorable to Trump in Connecticut’s media likely may be closer to 90%.
Like Governor Ned Lamont, no fan of the president, Trump is
a lame duck chief executive. In the most recent polls, Lamont is shown beating
Republican challenger Ryan Fazio by 20 percentage points. The governor, as previously mentioned, enjoyed
insuperable advantages. Lamont is embarking on his third term in office,
exceeding a record set by Governor John Rowland, whose last term in office was
interrupted by a prison sentence.
All lame ducks executives experience power shortages. Lame ducks have no coattails, and politics,
even at its best, is a chancy business. As Tammany Hall boss George Plunkitt
used to say in defense of what he called “honest graft” -- “I saw my chances
and took’em.” The lame duck politician may properly be defined as a man or
woman whose chances have run out. This predicament makes the lame duck both
helpless and dangerous.
Taking such chances, it should be noticed in passing, is
more likely in a one party system. Just
as the super-wealthy may survive punishing taxes by taking refuge in various
tax credit schemes, so the long-lived courtly politician – the sort of political
hack that makes the members of the “No Kings” movement spit up bile whenever
they think of riches beyond their reach – assured of their continuing place
under a single party sun, need not worry over much that they will be tossed out
of politics. Mayor of Bridgeport Joe Ganim, who spent more time than Rowland in
the cooler on corruption charges, has been politically exonerated.
Lamont has often been described in various media stories as
“a fiscal conservative and a social liberal.” Connecticut’s political universe
used to be crowded with such creatures. All the Republican members of
Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional Delegation marched under this flag. They were
fiscal conservatives and social liberals, and all of them have been displaced
by Democrats who, it now appears, are social and economic progressives. The
Democrat’s political “big tent” is roomy enough to house all progressives who
regard socialism as a political enhancement, a consummation devoutly to be
wished at some point in the very near future. Patience is not a virtue among
aspiring socialists.
Lamont’s lameduckery may permit the governor to defend
fellow millionaires with a bit more passion than he has exhibited in recent
days. Both Lamont and his entrepreneurial wife Annie, a much celebrated and amply
rewarded venture capitalist, are members in good standing in Greenwich
Connecticut’s informal multi-millionaires club. Lameduckery brings with it a certain
freedom from party restraints. Annie has a nodding acquaintance with business
practices and knows that government spending always produces an unquenchable
hunger for more taxes and more spending. Democrats have been quick to point out
during the Trump presidency that the tariffs he prefers as a tool of foreign
policy are, in fact, hidden consumption taxes paid by nutmeggers in the form of
increased prices. They have been less insistent in pointing to the causal
relationship between any and all forms of taxation taxes and defect spending,
which increases the unaffordability crisis in Connecticut that leading
Democrats hope to assuage through ever-increasing taxation and spending.
These firemen sincerely believe that you can put out flames
by pouring wet gas on them. If you live in a one party state, you may expect
more corruption, more spending and consequently higher taxes.
The Brits have a saying: “To be the king, play the king.” Connecticut’s
lame duck governor need no longer play the king. Freed from being the titular
head of his party, Lamont can well afford to throw off all political pretense
and, as the moralists sometimes say, “do the right thing” by the people of
Connecticut, many of whom already have left the state for greener pastures elsewhere. California is leeching
billionaires to less predatory states, and New York City, under the enlightened
despotism of Democratic Socialists of America Mayor Zohran Mamdani, will follow
suit. Fortune magazine tells us that “In
recent years, the top 1% of California households have accounted for about 40%
to 50% of all personal income tax revenue, according to the conservative Hoover
Institution,” but you cannot impose a billionaire’s tax on the billionaire who
has pulled up roots and sought sanctuary in a state that values the property
rights of billionaires.
Antiquated socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, author of a national wealth tax, took to the air recently to fulminating
against a recent poll showing that voters in
California (emphasis mine) would reject Proposition 40, a soak the billionaire’s
bill backed by Sanders.
In an era in which lovers of liberty seem to lack conviction,
they will be preyed upon by politicians, some dumber than stones, whose political
preferences are opposed to voters they falsely claim to represent. “The price
of liberty,” the old adage has it, “is eternal vigilance.” And Ben Franklin’s advice
to Mrs. Powell at the conclusion of the Continental Congress that disgorged the
U.S. Constitution is always in season. Powell asked Franklin, “Sir, what have you
given us?” Franklin replied, “A republic, madam – if you can keep it.”
Be vigilant, and vote for the republic this election.
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