ANOTHER NEW, PRETTY FACE SEDUCES US WITH THE SAME OLD SIREN SONG

With some regularity, voters get tired of old politicians. When Nixon resigned, the nation felt bludgeoned and exhausted by the Watergate scandal. Two years later in 1976, Jimmy Carter, a relatively unknown one term Governor of Georgia was a fresh face with a warm smile and a pleasant persona. Untested, unaccomplished and relatively unknown, the voters fell in love.

Prior to John F. Kennedy’s election in 1960, we the people of the United States lived in a quieter world. Radio brought the world into our living rooms, but the images and voices of our politicians did not assault us moment to moment, as they do today. Nixon won the single debate against Kennedy, but his five o’clock shadow could not compete with Kennedy’s youthful good looks.

Today’s ongoing media assault has shortened our attention spans. Competence and experience do not impress us as much as attractiveness and charisma. We succumb quickly to boredom. In 1992 were charmed by the young, fresh face of Bill Clinton: bright, appealing, lip biting, and empathetic, he stole our hearts and our votes. Clinton’s defamation of the Presidency by engaging in oral sex in the Oval office with a 21-year-old intern, did not end the love affair with our cheating lover.

The problem owith fresh faces is that they often have limited experience in government. Barack Obama served about half of one term in the Senate before his election to the Presidency. His lack of experience did not detract from his new-face appeal. America was seduced by the good-looking young Lochinvar riding in from nowheresville. Then along came Donald, a familiar and not so young face, but new type of politician to sweep us off our feet.

Twenty-twenty-five brings us another pretty face with an empty resume’: thirty-three-year-old Zohran Mandani, winner of the Democratic manorial primary in New York City. Charismatic, inexperienced, untested, and unproven he courts an uninformed public who once again is falling for the new kid in town promising diamonds but delivering rust. He’s not Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, not Nancy Pelosi, and not Chuck Shumer. A combined age of 322.

He's Zohran Mandani, a socialist lunatic.

“We’ve seen a campaign that is powered by the hunger of New Yorkers for a new generation of leadership,” Mandani told CNN.

What he really means is:

· A new generation of communist lunacy.

· A new generation of utopian demagoguery.

· A new generation of antisemitism.

· A new generation of old, failed ideas.

· A new generation of show trials.

· A new generation to play Robin Hood.

· A new generation to turn America into Venezuela.

A new generation to denigrate capitalism.

· A new generation to fundamentally change the United States.

· A new generation with old ideas in a new package.

· A new pretty face with a body infested with serpents. (Definition: a sly or treacherous person, especially one who exploits a position of trust in order to betray it.)

Where is it written that new is better? We have been conditioned to believe that old is flawed, new is improved. I prefer the Old Testament’s version: there is nothing new under the sun. Although “a new broom sweeps clean,” in this case the broom has bristles of claws, worn to the nub with the deaths of those believing they were on the road to the greatest good for the greatest number.

On this Fourth of July, we should remember Ronald Reagan’s admonition

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”