The cliché currently floating around is, “This is the most important election in the nation’s history.” That was said last time and the time before that, and it will be said next time too. Over the last 20 years or so, they have all been extremely important elections. As the chasm between the opposing parties widens and the governing philosophies diverge to an ever-greater degree, presidential elections have greater consequence in all areas: social, economic and tax policy, military readiness, high court judicial matters, and the environment and/energy.

In every single area, the quality of day-to-day life in America will decline precipitously if the Democrats regain control. (Note I didn’t say, “If Joe Biden wins the presidency.” That was intentional. If “Biden” wins, everyone knows he will be a figurehead, an inert surrogate of unseen, unelected Democratic operatives working behind the scenes, implementing Leftist policy, creating Leftist legislation, while Diminished Joe smiles and nods unknowingly.)

Let’s look at the major areas that the Democrats will ruin:

Democrats Will Raise Taxes

Biden has promised to “Rescind Trump’s tax cuts.” That’s a cowardly, deceptive way of saying he’ll raise taxes. The Democrats like to imply that only the 1%-ers benefitted from the Trump tax cuts, just like they lied and said the same thing about Bush’s tax cuts in 2001. Everyone benefitted, and a $200/month tax cut means a lot more to a lower income family than $1000/month means to a multimillionaire. Nonetheless, pompous Democrats spout dishonest drivel like, “The rich need to pay their fair share” and “Everyone should play by the same rules.”

Democrats seem to regard the “rich” and the “corporations” as static, ever-constant objects, whose income is permanent and there to be taxed to whatever degree the Government wishes. Democrats apparently think their income is inelastic -- i.e., not subject to change in changing circumstances.

It’s not. It’s very elastic. That income will shift and move the more the Government tries to go after it. Corporations will transfer more of their profit-producing operations to locales beyond the reach of U.S. tax laws. Wealthy individuals will find more tax havens and loopholes. Many individuals and businesses will simply retire or close up shop, weary of the chase, and then that fat, juicy taxable income -- once so tantalizingly close -- evaporates into nothingness.

This is the folly of punitive taxation. Higher tax rates really slam middle-class workers and small businesses right over the head. Higher taxes don’t “punish” big corporations anywhere near as much as they hobble the average 9-to-5 worker. So much for the Party of the People.

Democrats Will Undermine the Business Climate

The Democrats’ kneejerk, reactionary business policies introduce the worst possible element into an economy: the element of uncertainty. Higher business taxes, restrictive, burdensome regulations and irrational, arbitrary race-based quotas are all bad enough. Any of those puts a chokehold on business and limits hiring and expansion. But the worst thing is this: Most of the time, Democrats impose these taxes, regulations, and quotas as punishment, to give a favored group some advantage, putting their thumb on some arbitrary scale of justice. Businesspeople never know when the Democrats’ next hand grenade is going to be lobbed in their direction, ripping apart their plans.

Human nature being what it is, when people are faced with financial anxiety, they pull back, they spend the least amount possible. For individuals, this means no new car or vacation, the old sneakers soldiering on. For businesspeople, it means expansion plans delayed, hiring the bare minimum, pay raises on hold. Under President Trump, taxes were reduced and job-killing regulations were rolled back. But the best thing was that businesses felt confident about future conditions, that the rug was not going to be pulled out from underneath them. This is precisely why the economic “recovery” was so tepid under President Obama: Businesses were never confident -- they felt that Obama would betray them at any moment to please his voters. Under the 2020 Democrats, it will be even worse.

Democrats’ Misguided Sense of Social Order

Let’s give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt here and stipulate that all their efforts concerning racial quotas, gender equality and so on are done strictly for the compassionate, high-minded reasons of improving daily life, and not with the cynical intent of merely currying favor with carefully identified special-interest voting blocs. That’s a huge leap of faith, but let’s go with it for this discussion.

Even if their intentions are good, the Democrats’ recent history is abysmal. They go much too far and push for changes that end up ruining the very institutions they’re trying to improve. In the supposed name of equal rights for people identifying with different genders, we get grown men being allowed in girls’ bathrooms and biological men competing in women’s scholastic sports. Biological males beat biological females in athletic competition virtually all the time, so legitimate girls are being denied athletic scholarships and the distinction of being listed as record-holders. Affirmative action racial quotas end up creating a new racism, with entirely new ethnic groups (mostly Asians and whites) being denied admittance to colleges strictly because of their race/ethnicity. This is lunacy.

Democrats Will Pursue Pointless Green Environmental Initiatives

Why? Mostly to raise America’s image among the liberal European states and mollify their domestic environmental voting constituency. It certainly won’t be to lower America’s energy costs (alternative renewables tend to be far more costly than traditional fossil fuels) and it certainly won’t be to “save the planet.” Even John Kerry admitted that the Paris Climate Accords wouldn’t do anything to stop so-called global warming. Like virtually all the current Green New Deal policy proposals, Paris in 2015 was all show and no go. With Democrats, energy costs go up, the average American suffers and the planet doesn’t benefit.

The Judiciary Will Become More Liberal Activist

We’ll get rulings that restrict speech that is arbitrarily deemed “offensive” or “hurtful,” peoples’ gun rights will be severely curtailed and we’ll have reduced access to religious participation. For Democrats, a well-run society is where abortion clinics and liquor stores stay open during the lockdown, but churches are closed.

They Will Weaken the Military

A crippled military reduces our options in how we respond to critical global flashpoints, be it in the South China Sea, Korea, the Middle East, etc. American interests will be threatened and our influence will be dangerously curtailed.

This is what Democrats will give us. Many well-off Democrats dismiss the current rioting and unrest as something that will end once that irritant Donald Trump is out of office. From their vantage points -- safely ensconced in their insulated, higher income residences in untouched neighborhoods -- they live their lives pretty much as they always have. None of the current turmoil has actually reached them, nor does the virus-caused economic slowdown really affect them. They have enough money to afford the luxury of tossing accusations at a president whose personal style rubs them the wrong way.

If the Democrats assume power in this country, life will never be the same again. Every aspect of daily life will be worse.

Image: Charles Fettinger