In the runup to last fall's election, and in the interim period between that and the inauguration, my Twitter feed was full of sentiment along the lines of how refreshing it was going to be to have some moderation, interest in unity, level-headedness and decency characterizing the office of president. I cringed at every instance of coming across such expressions, most of which came from people who had always voted Republican but were now done with that party due to the Tumpism phenomenon.
For the record - and I've said this in various ways many times here at LITD - I did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020. I wrote someone in both times. From the moment he descended the escalator in 2015, I knew he was bad news. I won't rehash the reasons, which LITD readers are presumably all too familiar with. Even though I never cottoned to the term "Never Trumper," I guess that's what I am.
But I knew Biden was not as he was being portrayed by the tweets. His track record is one way of knowing that. Additionally, there were no signs of pushback against the leftward lurch of the Democrat party during the campaign or transition. He was on board with its agenda and in fact was looking forward to taking the leadership role in implementing it.
And since January 20, it's been one executive order, statement, cabinet appointment and policy proposal after another. From profligate spending to social-justice preening to indulging in climate alarmism, he's behaved in utterly predictable ways.
Consider the last week.
On the subject of race, he went there. He straight-up said the country he presides over is rife with systemic racism. It's a falsehood, and, if one looks at intent, probably a lie:
President Joe Biden has continued to push the narrative of “systemic racism” against black Americans when it comes to police shootings in the aftermath of the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. But Chauvin's conduct is an outlier, not the norm. It isn't just the data that demonstrates this. The very examples that activists themselves choose to highlight undercut their own assertion that racism is an inescapable, ubiquitous part of American life.
The latest example of how shaky the "systemic racism" narrative really is comes from media outlets such as NPR and the New York Times. Short on good, clear examples of unjustifiable brutality, they are now trying to tie the apparently justified police shooting of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant to George Floyd’s death after Chauvin’s trial.
Body camera footage shows Bryant ignoring officer commands and charging at another woman with a knife. At that point, the officer shoots her four times. Despite what appears to be a clearly justifiable use of force to protect another person's life (a black person's life, in fact), the White House still tried to tie the incident to "systemic racism."
This is typical. The examples that activists and their media allies cite persistently undercut the idea of systemic racism. To this day, the police shooting of Michael Brown continues to be cited as an example of racism. But Brown was shot in self-defense by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, after Brown attacked the officer and reached for the officer’s gun. Jacob Blake, whose case is also cited, was a domestic abuser and an accused sex predator armed with a knife. He ignored police instructions when they confronted him over his violating a restraining order taken out by the woman he had abused.
If the activists' inability to find convincing anecdotes doesn't convince you that "systemic racism" is a bogeyman, then consider the data. Of the roughly 330 million people living in the United States, 1,021 were shot and killed by police officers in 2020, according to the Washington Post police shooting database. Of that number, only 55 were unarmed. Of those 55, 18 were black.
Even those 18 are not clear-cut cases. Fred Brown, for example, was shot after he tried to choke one police officer in a confrontation that occurred because his girlfriend reported him for assault. An officer killed Kurt Reinhold after he got into an altercation with police officers and tried to grab one of their guns. In other cases, such as the shooting death of William Green, the officer was at least charged with murder, so (as in Chauvin's case) it cannot be said that such behavior goes unpunished.
The idea that police officers are gunning down black Americans across the country is complete nonsense. The numbers don’t bear it out, and even the high-profile examples that are cited, from Brown to Blake to Bryant, make it clear that those pushing the narrative can’t back it up.
Then there is his push to halt human advancement - also known as using the coercive power of government to tell energy companies what kinds of energy they can produce and consumers what kinds of energy forms they can buy - hell, even what we can eat:
In anticipation of the virtual Leaders Summit on Climate, a two-day global gathering of more than 40 world leaders, President Joe Biden declared that the United States had a "moral imperative" to adopt an "ambitious" goal of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions by 50% from 2005 levels by 2030 and 100% by 2050.
Such an effort, if we were serious about it, would entail massive destruction of wealth, a surrender of our international trade advantages, the creation of a hugely intrusive state-run bureaucracy at home, the inhibition of free markets that have helped make the world a cleaner place and a precipitous drop in the living standards of most citizens -- especially the poor.
Of course, it should be said that those who oppose the expansion of fracking and nuclear energy -- most elected Democrats, it seems -- aren't even remotely serious about "tackling" carbon emissions, anyway. Around 80% of American energy is generated by fossil fuels and nuclear right now. Around 20% is generated by "renewables" -- predominantly wind and hydropower (which is unavailable in most places). Only around 2% of our portfolio consists of inefficient and unreliable solar power -- this, even after decades of subsidies and mandates.
It's always funny to hear people speak about solar panels as if they were some sort of cutting-edge technology. The discovery of the photovoltaic effect goes back to 1888. President Jimmy Carter declared a national "Sun Day" in 1978 and put 30 solar panels atop the White House. One of those panels is now on display at the Science and Technology Museum in China -- not only the top producer of solar panels and carbon emissions but also the nation that would most benefit from the United States' unilateral economic capitulation.
To reach Biden's goal, the United States would need to envelop most of the nation in panels and windmills and then rely on enormous Gaian prayer circles -- may she grant us sunshine and gale-force winds. We would be compelled to eliminate most air travel and cars -- making new ones produces lots of carbon emissions -- and retrofit every home, factory, warehouse and building in America to utilize this type of energy. We would need to dramatically cut back on our meat and dairy intake as well.
And then there is his stoking of resentment against "the rich." The present form that's taking is his push to tax capital gains:
President Joe Biden wants to end the preferential U.S. tax treatment of investment income that has benefited the nation’s wealthy as he seeks to fund a sweeping new social-spending program. But he will need to overcome a major political hurdle in Congress to do so.
The White House plans to propose almost doubling the capital gains tax rate for those earning $1 million or more, to 39.6%, according to people familiar with the proposal. That wouldn’t affect many. Only about 0.32% of American taxpayers reported adjusted gross income of more than $1 million and capital gains or losses on their returns, according to Internal Revenue Service tax return data from 2018.
The move would send the top federal rate on the appreciation in assets sold by the rich as high as 43.4% when including a surtax to help pay for Obamacare. And it would upend a century-old precedent of under-taxing investment relative to wages and salaries.
Surging stock and property prices over the past year only strengthened the Biden team’s determination to follow through on campaign pledges to demand higher taxes from the best-off. The president is betting the initiative will be popular enough to win passage in Congress, where he can’t lose a single Democratic vote in the Senate and only a handful in the House, since Republicans are likely to be united in opposition.
Stocks dropped the most in more than a month on the news Thursday, with the S&P 500 Index closing down 0.9%, though futures trading early Friday in Asia suggested some stabilization.
Let me reiterate something else I've said many times: From a moral standpoint, it doesn't matter one subatomic particle whether someone is rich, middle-class or poor. His or her money is his or hers. Government ought to have to puke all over itself to take the first red cent of it. If the purpose for which government says it's justified in taking it is not something James Madison would. approve of, no dice. Hands off.
No, sorry, everybody, Joe Biden is no improvement over the Very Stable Genius. He is greatly pleased with his party's shift even further leftward than where it was under Obama. Its gives him the opportunity to establish a legacy as a Doer Of Big Things like FDR and LBJ.
Now, back to my point about the Trumpist infection of the Republican Party: the GOP is in no shape to counter this, unless the three percent of sane grownups among its elected officials - people like Liz Cheney, Peter Meijer, Adam Kinzinger and Ben Sasse - can wrest control away from the sycophants, nuts and cowards. That's one hell of a tall order. Post-America may be too far gone for such a possibility to have a chance.
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