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“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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