The coronavirus pandemic upended American life, killing more than half a million in a year, leaving millions unemployed, businesses shuttered, schools closed, suicides increasing, kids out of school, and a nation perhaps as divided as it has ever been since the Civil War. A sort of cold civil war has descended on the nation in the form of critical race theory and cancel culture which has everyone everywhere walking on eggshells lest they offend the easily offended and find their reputations in tatters and their lives destroyed instantly.
My colleague Tyler O’Neil noted this in the aftermath of a bogus racial incident at liberal Smith College, in which staffers were tossed under the bus by the college’s leadership and years later struggle to find work.
All of the major successes in fighting the pandemic — all of them — were to date accomplished either by the Republican administration that first had to respond to it, or by the states under Republican leadership. The vaccines, which were developed and deployed in record time, ought to be called the Trump vaccines.
In fact, Republican-led states such as South Dakota, Arizona, and Florida provided a kind of control group as Democrat-led states such as New York, California, and Michigan experimented with hard lockdowns of their citizens, which destroyed jobs and dreams.
The results are in. The states’ respective COVID caseloads tracked very similar paths, but Florida is flourishing while the Democrats who lead the lockdown states are mired in issues and scandals that threaten to end their political careers. Just consider:
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom, facing recall
- Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, facing an investigation into nursing home deaths
- New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, facing impeachment and calls for his resignation in light of serious ongoing sexual harassment accusations and investigation into 15,000 nursing home deaths due to his policy
These are major Democrat leaders of major blue states. If you’re a Democrat in power right now, how do things really look? Your bench is being cleared of three of its major future players, leaving the field clearer for the likes of AOC, who is deeply unpopular outside her deep-blue district. Sure, you control the White House, the House, and the Senate. But the presidential election deserves an asterisk (and you know it), you lost seats in the House, and only “control” the Senate because it’s split 50-50 and your two most recent wins there — Georgia — also deserve asterisks (and you know it). One of those seats is also up for grabs in 2022, and you can be sure the Republican-led legislature will do its best to undo the damage done to flip the state in 2020. One simple measure, banning private funding of elections, would go a long way as a corrective. If football legend Herschel Walker seeks either of those seats, he’ll likely win, and take a seat as the first black Republican elected to the Senate from Georgia.
Along with Sen. Tim Scott, Walker will rocket to Republican leadership positions. The old South would have two black conservative Republican senators. Republican rising stars include the likes of Rep. Tony Gonzales from Texas and Rep. Carlos Gimenez in Florida. If you’re a Democrat who has banked on minority voters keeping you in power forever, Scott and Walker and the rising minority vote for Republicans after Trump represent mortal threats. The Republican coalition is becoming more working-class, more women are running and winning as conservative Republicans, and the Tejano vote Democrats counted on to deliver Texas is shifting toward the Republicans. The Democrats’ urban, out-of-touch, university faculty lounge coalition is fracturing. Its policy set is actively making life in America more dangerous and less economically secure.
As a Democrat, you know you have a brief window in Washington during which you can wield power, and you have an agenda set that frankly you did not run on and most Americans don’t support. Your policies are driving people to leave blue states for red states, which will increase their representation in Congress after redistricting. Instead of offering any unifying, middle-ground policies that would be popular, consider what the Democrats have prioritized since January:
- Canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, despite majority support for it
- Defunding the police, which 80% of Americans oppose, and which led predictably to rising crime
- Hardline gun control, which most Americans oppose
- Politicizing government institutions such as DoJ and DoD, among others
- No return to “normal” after the pandemic ebbs
- An open and chaotic border, straining local law enforcement and likely spreading more COVID-positive individuals across the country, while some Americans remain locked down
- Prioritizing transgender surgery paid for by the military, while many veterans are still unable to get basic care
- Threatening about 57,000,000 contract jobs as a boost to the big unions, while union membership declines, via the PRO Act
- Nationalizing elections, for which there is no demand from the voters, but which would cement Democrat power
Americans want economic growth, lower taxes, and a return to normal. The Democrats are offering none of that. Gov. Newsom explicitly forbade that in his recent state of the state address, and the media cheered him on. The policies they offer are provably increasing crime in our cities, making us all far less safe. Americans would be increasingly disarmed by Biden’s new gun control measures. Gas prices are already rising; once Biden’s anti-energy policies take hold, one analyst I recently spoke with predicted gas prices as high as $6 per gallon. And if the Democrats’ and Big Tech’s censorship takes firm hold, we all will be less and less able to speak out against any of it.
This is a ghastly policy set that’s terrible for America. It’s likely to destroy the party that’s imposing it, if Americans are free to use the ordinary political process against it. The Democrats’ agenda is a direct threat to American freedoms we took for granted just weeks ago. It will leave millions under threat of crime, unemployed, dependent on government handouts, and unable to speak up. Joe Biden even signaled that the American experiment is over in his mind, when he used July 4 — Independence Day — as a hallmark of when he may grant Americans some of our freedoms back, if we do what he says.
Frankly, to hell with that.
About 13 states are reopening, including Texas. Biden can say whatever he wants. We’ll go on with our lives. He’s not a king, he’s a vacant president who doesn’t even know where he is when he wakes up in the morning.
The Democrats’ extreme agenda and their rapid-fire approach to it reveal something important: They know they’re actually weak and getting weaker. They know their union-first, freedom-last agenda will hurt millions but it will shore up union membership and put millions into their campaign coffers. Your misery is the price of their power, and that’s a price they’re more than willing for you to pay. They took a beating at the state level in 2020, as they have consistently since Barack Obama’s election. A party confident in its agenda would not resort to the kind of tactics the Pelosi Democrats are resorting to. They are politicizing every branch of government and disarming Americans’ free speech rights because they know millions will rise up and oppose them if we can, once things get back to normal.
These are the actions of a party devolving into Marxist madness that knows it’s only possible to keep people down under the thumb for so long before they rise up. The Democrats are weak and they know it, so they’re locking in as much power as they can while they can.
The hour is late. As I’ve said before, it’s up to the Republican states to lead the fight back. They will have to fight HR1, the PRO Act, and other extremist Democrat legislation if it passes. They will have to ban social media censorship and be prepared when cases under such bans go to court. The states will have to do their jobs, or the Democrats’ power grab from their present state of weakness will consolidate their power in destructive one-party rule for generations. The republic was not designed for that and isn’t likely to survive it.
