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Tuesday, July 23, 2024

The Problem Is the Policies

We're living in very interesting times. We had, for a time, a presidential campaign in which both candidates have served as president and now may have a campaign in which one candidate has never received a vote in his or her party's primaries. We've witnessed an unprecedented use of the law to seek to eliminate one of the candidates, which has only increased that candidate's popularity and cash resources, and we were horrified by an assassination attempt on that candidate.

Then we saw a decision by the other candidate, based upon his obviously failing cognitive abilities, to discontinue his campaign for a second term, but to nevertheless continue serving out the remaining six months of his first term. If his cognitive health precludes a second term why does it not preclude leading the country for the next six months?

Anyway, now there'll be a lot of drama as a successor for that candidate is selected.

The Democrats pressured President Biden to drop out of the race because he appears too unpopular to win, but, contrary to what they'd have us believe, his unpopularity is not due to his debilities, which have been apparent to everyone who has been paying attention almost since the beginning of his presidency, but to his and his party's policies and behavior.

For example, the lies Americans were persistently told by sundry Democrats about Trump's Charlottesville remark, the lies by the media and former government officials about Trump having colluded with Russia in 2016, and the attempt to impeach him over it are repugnant to a lot of Americans. So are the aforementioned attempts to have Trump thrown in jail on charges that no other American citizen would ever prosecuted on.

Many Americans are also repelled by credible reports of corrupt use by Mr. Biden of his office to benefit his family.

Furthermore, a majority of Americans are bewildered by the Democrats' failure to secure the border, opening it up to a flood of immigrants, including among them violent criminals and potential terrorists. The lies the nation has been told by administration officials like Alejandro Mayorkis about the border being secure are offensive and outrageous.

Americans were stunned, too, by the incompetence of the haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan, the loss of American lives, the betrayal of thousands of Afghanis who had helped us over the years, and the lies we've been told about that debacle. Americans' lack of confidence in the Democrats' ability to navigate foreign policy has been exacerbated by the administration's tepid, on again/off again policies toward Ukraine and Israel, the latter despite Hamas holding five Americans hostage.

They're dismayed by the exorbitant spending and the resulting inflation that prevents them from buying a home, putting food on the table or gas in the car. They're puzzled by the assumption that we have to upend our economy in order to mitigate climate change, as if it's been proven beyond doubt that whatever change that's occurring in the climate can be arrested by anything we do.

They're appalled by the sexualization of our children in schools and the Democrats' support for compelling our daughters to compete athletically against men and to shower with them. They're shocked by the Democrats' support for gender transition surgeries that permanently mutilate a child confused about who he or she really is. They're outraged that Democrats pass laws requiring schools to hide a child's gender confusion from the child's parents, and they mock the Democrat fetish of pronoun usage and laugh about the crime of "misgendering" and other "microaggressions."

Many Americans are disgusted by the emphasis in almost all of our governmental and educational institutions on DEI rather than competence, and disgusted, too, with the failure of Democrat prosecutors to enforce the law, to punish criminals, and to make our cities safe. The disgust extends to judges and SCOTUS justices, appointed by Democrats, who believe that the law should be interpreted according to the jurist's feelings and not according to an objective reading of the relevant statutes or the Constitution.

They're disgusted, moreover, with the Democrat tolerance of antisemitism and anti-white racism in our culture and on our campuses, as well as the religious zeal with which Democrats reverence abortion, cherishing it as sacramental and demanding its legalization up to and even after birth.

These Americans are puzzled as to how January 6th could be plausibly labeled an "insurrection" when it was obviously a riot by a motley mob of confused goofballs, but the riots in the wake of the George Floyd death, riots which took the lives of dozens and caused billions of dollars of property damage, were "mostly peaceful" expressions of discontent.

They're dismayed by the hostility the current administration has displayed toward Christians and Christianity, labeling traditional Catholics as terrorists, using the courts to punish business persons who simply wish to peacefully remain true to their consciences, and seeking to delegitimize religious expression in the public square.

They're disturbed, too, by the authoritarian approach to governing resorted to by the Democrats whose president has frequently imposed policy by executive fiat, regardless of its legality. Last weekend the party that has campaigned on "saving Democracy" has simply overridden the will of millions of voters and executed a coup d'etat to remove their party's presumptive nominee because they believe he can't win.

Finally, many Americans are fed up with a corrupt media that distorts, lies and covers for all of this, abandoning traditional journalistic principles in order to refashion itself as the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party.

The Democrats may come up with a candidate who'll appear a bit more reasonable and moderate than Joe Bidenand his administration have been, but the appearance will not be the reality. Whoever the Democrats pick - and if it's not Kamala Harris there'll be a civil war in the Democratic party - will be at least as far left as Mr. Biden and do nothing to end the policies that resulted in Mr. Biden's unpopularity.

Only a thorough political housecleaning will do that.