The Democrats and a Cup of Coffee: A Cautionary Fable

Imagine this: the Democratic Party was overwhelmingly elected on the platform of coffee: coffee for every American. Apparently, the Republican's Sanka of the last 8 or 15 years was no longer palatable, many Americans did not even get the Sanka, and the American people wanted a change.

After the euphoria of the return to significance was over, the Democrats went to work crafting a better cup of coffee. It would need a little cream, some sugar, and it need to be brisk but not too strong. It needed to be a cup of coffee that all of Americans could drink.

The Republicans demanded that this be a bipartisan cup of coffee, so the Democrats invited them to be baristas. Then the Republicans said that only socialists drink coffee, and that what Americans really wanted was more Sanka, with extra bitterness and some saccharin.

The Democrats adopted some changes: they mixed in Sanka with the coffee, and put in an option to include NutraSweet or saccharin for those who can’t use sugar, and made the cream skim milk instead.

Then the Republicans said that their job was to kill coffee reform because Hitler and Stalin and the French drank coffee, and the Democrats were going to use coffee to kill Grandma, puppies, veterans, babies, and put Republicans in concentration camps. The Republicans argued that European and Canadian style coffee were un-American, and that those countries had to ration coffee, and wait in line for coffee, and that American style coffee was the best in the world, even though that every statistic showed this to be false. Tens of millions of Americans did not get coffee at all, and it cost Americans 3 times the amount to provide coffee for those who did get it.

Then some Democrats, forgetting that they were elected on the coffee platform, and fearful of the loud Republicans, started to waffle. Their knees got weak. Their livers turned to lilies, and a yellow stripe came down their backs. They forgot all these arguments about Socialist coffee were used before and proved wrong in the ‘40’s, ‘50’s, ‘60’s and ‘70’s. They said that maybe they should be making hot chocolate, or ice tea, or just not reform coffee, even though the costs were getting astronomically out of hand and every American needed coffee.

They took out the milk and sugar, and replaced it with tar; they burned the coffee; they put it in bowls instead of mugs; they served it cold instead of hot, and during dinner instead of breakfast or dessert. They listened to the Republicans and mixed in more Sanka, even though the People hated that stuff. And the American people turned on the Democratic Party for their weakness.
The moral: The Democratic Party, even when it has everything going for it, can screw up a cup of coffee.