Vampires Do Not Own Mirrors

They don't - because they don't have reflections. Democrats don't own them because they do.

I really want to keep Bernie Sanders around, not for his policies, but for the sheer joy of hearing him say “oligarchy.”

The way he rolls it off his tongue with that gravelly Vermont accent is pure entertainment. I’m not convinced Bernie or his occasional ally, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (or as I like to call her, Sandy Occasional Cortex), fully grasp what “oligarchy” or “authoritarianism” mean. But every time Bernie spits out the word, I can’t help but chuckle. Simple pleasures, I guess.

There’s something ironic about the left’s obsession with certain words - like “oligarchy,” “authoritarianism,” “socialism,” “tyranny,” or “dictatorship.” In their world, these terms are reserved exclusively for the right wing. Try using them to describe anyone on their side, and you’ll be met with a lecture on dictionary definitions. I once called Obama a socialist in a conversation with some alleged friends on the left, and they pounced. “Socialism means the government owns the means of production,” they insisted, pointing out that Obama didn’t nationalize industries wholesale. Fair enough, but he didn’t need to. Through laws, regulations, and those infamous “Dear Colleague” letters, he sought to control the means of production on the cheap, sidestepping outright ownership. It’s socialism with a bureaucratic smirk, but if it doesn’t fit the textbook definition, they won’t hear it.

This obsession with semantic precision reveals a deeper hypocrisy. The left loves to weaponize words but cries foul when they’re turned back on them. The real way to understand who the authoritarians, oligarchs, or dictator-lites are is not through dictionary or debates about the literal accuracy of terms – it is by looking at who faces consequences and who gets a pass. Follow the trail of prosecutions, regulations, and government favor. Who gets hammered by the law, and who skates? Who benefits from the system, and who’s crushed under it?

That’s where the truth lies. That is the rock that must be turned over to find the snakes.

Take the prosecutions of Donald Trump, for example. They’re unprecedented in their scope and creativity. Compare the charges against him to others accused of similar “crimes.” How many faced the same legal onslaught? How were their penalties calculated and assessed? The disparity is glaring. Now, contrast the treatment of January 6th defendants with the handling of ANTIFA and BLM “mostly peaceful” protesters. Democrats have crowed about the hundreds of J6ers arrested and jailed, many for minor offenses like trespassing.

It seems to anyone with a modicum of objectivity that if the same zeal and scale of prosecution were applied to ANTIFA and BLM activists - whose protests often involved property destruction, violence, and chaos while many J6ers got jail time and heavy fines for trespassing and “parading” (or pleaded out after being threatened with a terrorism augmentation of their charges) - tens of thousands would have been rounded up, prosecuted, and imprisoned across the country. The Department of Justice, local district attorneys, and law enforcement turned a blind eye to one side while throwing the book at the other. That’s not justice; it’s selective enforcement.

This double standard exposes the real authoritarians. It’s not about who fits the dictionary definition of an “oligarch” or “tyrant.” It’s about who wields power to protect their allies and punish their enemies. The left’s outrage over words is a distraction from their own inconsistencies. Meanwhile, I’ll keep chuckling at Bernie’s “oligarchy” rants - not because I agree, but because it’s a reminder of how much fun hypocrisy can be when you see it for what it is.

I think part of the humor I see in the Bern and Sandy National Fight the Oligarchy Tour goes back to the old Walt Kelly Pogo cartoon, when Pogo says “We have met the enemy and he is us”.

Vampires do not own mirrors because they do not have reflections. Democrats do not own them because they do.