SEPTEMBER 2024 SULLYGRAM:  ‘Tis September, the start of the dying to make way for the new. Shall I play you a swansong? It’s your choice. Allow me some honest thoughts on the matter.

The bellwether nation on the face of the Earth, the shining city on the hill, the incentive-based meritocracy that two-and-a-half centuries ago rejected rule by an inherited aristocracy and embraced the notion of individual merit unleashed by freedom to go as far as its hard-working, imaginative, persevering and risk-taking masses would take it, is facing a sea change. America, the land of equal opportunity (not equal outcomes), in contrast to socialist models with all their uninspired guaranteed mediocrity, is about to seal the deal one way or the other with an election. The socialist/Marxist havens for secure, lock-step Orwellian central control have long been our nemesis; but now, as Pogo once famously said, “we have met the enemy, and they are us.”

So, maybe we have it all wrong for the new age. Take healthcare for a start (or a finish). Maybe you bought into the solemn promise: pay part of every dollar you earn (mandatory FICA tax), and healthcare will be there for you. Maybe you take care of yourself, forego smoking, alcohol, recreational drugs, and generally check sedentary habits and obesity so that you live as healthy and as long as possible. Maybe you even jog! Thus, your longevity is not the shrinking national average we have now that puts us last among industrial nations. But would you mind dying a little early to keep the system solvent?

I know, I know, it could be a lot more than a little early. Current longevity hovers in the 70s (age 76 in 2021), but there were over 13 million US octogenarians in the 2020 census, almost 3 million over age 90, and nearly 100,000 centenarians. This is all before the baby boomers started reaching those benchmarks. Bottom line: tens of millions more projected to live past average longevity (centenarians expected to quadruple in short order). So, what’s the big question mark?

Answer: overloaded Medicare – flooding the system with non-citizens whose health needs are disproportionately larger than their contributions. Health statisticians never factored in that one political party might expand Medicare to cover illegal immigrants, counted or uncounted, or that we would be the world’s destination for poor, uneducated, low-skilled people (including those from countries that emptied their hospitals and prisons to “gift” us extreme needs, gangs and violence). Add swamping ourselves with criminal drug cartels that fuel addiction treatments for millions more. Woke compassion dictates that we ignore our already generous immigration quotas and assimilate them all, right? Even if we are infinitely past manageable numbers, as we are – free hotels, free cell phones with pre-paid plans, free Medicare for all! Free? Well…not to the paying citizenry. Not if you fund everything with your taxes and don’t mind dying early (“…give Grannie a pill or something” – Obama said). Cutting and rationing have already begun. Private competitive insurance is on the chopping block now, even though it incentivizes the best research and healthcare in the world (the reason why world leaders come here for cutting-edge care). Single-payer replacement has been high on the liberal agenda since Hillary’s push was rejected back in the 90s. And for better or worse – depending on your politics – Kamala-Walz are set to win that healthcare boondoggle for Democrats looking to stay in power with mushrooming dependencies that they believe translate inevitable amnesty and citizenship into future votes for them. 

I fully expect to die from denial of some specific Medicare service as I’m past the average shelf life now. Actuarials will render me ineligible for one thing or another eventually. If you’re over 55, or love someone over 55, expect the same. Single-payer nationalized healthcare is great for dispensing aspirins; not so much for expensive interventions. Forget a kidney replacement at 55 in the UK model, and if you need a 20-minute procedure for incontinence, the wait is 9 years. Single-payer…the Left will deliver on government control. More is always better to liberals no matter the long-term unintended consequences.

Kinda reminds me of the oh-so-holy cemetery owner (Jonathan Winters) in the flick “The Loved One.” When suddenly faced with the fact that his cemetery is full-up, he mutters to himself: “Gotta figure a way to get all them stiffs off my property.” Winters starts launching corpses into outer space, and Medicare for illegals will do the same thing in a matter of speaking. But, hey, if that’s what you vote for, there’s a personal bright side until you hit 55.

You get to tune out all the annoying health freaks, the goodie two-shoes with their lectures and sweaty self-denial diets, because what’s to lose if the government already has your expiration date set in stone (granite)? Live what they give you (shades of “Logan’s Run”), be normal, enjoy womb-to-tomb assurances, tune into woke culture and tune out old, arduous, unjust, moral elitists with their quaint values. It’s your right to be average. 

And why stop there when so many other things about the meritocracy have been demonized? Law and order, honest labor, getting ahead through education, effort and competency – so yesterday! Those are the passe values of victimization and enslavement, we are told by the Left. Turns out, the world DOES owe you a living, unless you’re “privileged.” You don’t have to know who your ancestors are. You just have to know they were owed, and you are their heirs. Guilty Western society owes you, free-market capitalism owes you, success and wealth owe you. Demand reparations!

And while you’re at it, take a look at the socialist/Marxist world of collectivists. Have we been too hard on them? Could it be that despots and tin-horn dictators, whether religious fanatics or simply corrupt, have given them a bad name? Used to be that an ambitious general would seize the radio station first, then take over the judiciary and education while his Party purged government institutions. But now Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Afghanistan and all their client states are refining AI to merge Marxism with socialism in the free world. I know, I know, they still subscribe to “any means to an ends,” but they promise to be benevolent rulers once bad ol’ America collapses from within like Khruschev said it would. Dithering away our freedom over single-issue politics or snits at being offended will hasten that outcome, and that’s the choice you get to make starting with early voting!

And then there’s the socialist economy. Free markets and competition may have worked historically, but if ants and bees can be wonderfully efficient and self-sacrificing for the good of the whole, how much better can altruistic humans be if everyone just dumps that individual right to “liberty and pursuit of happiness” thing and puts global society first? Could it be that Orwell and Huxley were wrong and central control is essential in all avenues to the future? Imagine new hero statues in our parks – Pelosis and Obamas and Hillarys and Bidens and (brass trumpets)…Kamalas!

A little tongue-in-cheek from me? Perhaps. But there’s nothing satirical about where we are. You don’t like Trump’s crudeness? I don’t either. You don’t like his bluntness? I do. Much easier to interpret than the stealth, glad-handing, flip-flopping, finger-in-the-wind cackling facades, reading teleprompters and dodging interviews. Trump might not be my choice at other times in history; but extremes beget extremes, and we are at critical mass. It’s flat-out astonishing that someone could come in with real business success and superb negotiation skills, defy the swamp, defy the media, defy the Beltway, defy political kangaroo courts, defy gagging, defy judicial circuses, and actually do what he says he’s going to do, and survive even a week, let alone eight years of relentless TDS! Remember the 2016 ad of liberals from Obama to Colbert hee-hawing about the wall never going to get built and no chance of Trump becoming President? Trump could never be forgiven after winning against that. And every success thereafter with the economy, the border, re-negotiated international deals, recovery of our military, energy independence, NATO financial comeuppance, America’s enemies back on their heels with nary a new war, companies returning from overseas, record employment for minorities, crime down, daily engagement with the hostile media, etc. etc. – UNFORGIVABLE! Drove the Left nuts. So, repeating his actual 4-year Presidency is a better risk for me than the do-nothing, wrong-direction radical San Francisco socialist/Marxist alternative who also has a 4-year record.

If you’ve read this far, you are at least part of any hope for America, even if you hate everything I’ve written. No hard feelings from me. Too many people are burning bridges that won’t be re-built in their lifetimes. I’m not trying to change anyone who is emotionally invested in their sincere beliefs, and this isn’t a forum for toxic debate, so no political rants invited here. I appreciate your tolerance for my Timeline and I respect yours. This Sullygram is a link that will be seen for global off-channel responses here and on my author’s site. Think about this, if you will: no matter the upcoming results, we will all share the same fate as fellow citizens. Whatever we want, we are wishing the same outcomes for each other. Call that friendship of a sort or not. It is still a bond called Americans.

Thomas "Sully" Sullivan