During Joe Biden’s campaign for president, he said he was going to transform the country. Was it clear what he meant by that? The mainstream media presented Biden as a moderate. However, moderates are not usually in the business of transforming. So, it would have been wise to ask the candidate what he meant.

Was Biden’s promised transformation merely a reprise of Obama’s change slogan? Was he just planning to roll back Trumpism and return to the Democrat priorities of the Obama years – healthcare, education, immigration, and the environment? Or…was he going to pack the court, pursue a Green New Deal, enact reparations for slavery, and abolish fracking, as conservative pundits warned?

Was Biden more sincere while assuring national audiences he was a kind and decent grandfatherly type who wants what’s best for everyone? Or were his true intentions on display when he was talking to supporters of Sanders and Sharpton, environmental lobbyists, gun control activists, and other leftist special interest groups?

We never got answers to these questions, largely because they weren’t asked. On the rare occasion that he was asked hard questions, he didn’t really answer them.

Now that Joe Biden is president, though, he has unveiled the hidden things of his transformational intentions. It has become clear that the Far Left is steering the president and the country away from anything resembling its founding, away from any moorings to common sense and basic decency.

For example, although Americans do not list transgender issues among their top ten concerns and it seems unlikely that it was ever a priority for Joe Biden before he began to show signs of cognitive deterioration, within the first hours of his administration he took an unpopular executive action allowing men to use the ladies’ room and to compete in women’s sports. Both things surely make the U.S. the laughingstock of the world. One wonders what the IOC would say if the USOC came to them with a plan to let American men compete in women’s events at the Olympics if they identify as women.

In other early actions, the Biden Administration clearly indicated its intention to open the border and to treat illegal immigrants like super-citizens, unaccountable to the law. It must leave international heads of state perplexed. America had clearly grown stronger under Trump’s immigration and border policies.

The nations of the world know that they need a free United States to bolster their economies, protect weaker countries, and provide a competitive alternative to the stagnancy and futility of socialism. Many international leaders have noted with grave concern the blatant, bewildering censorship of all that represents the considered and historically-informed opinions held by half of America. On top of that, there is a soviet-style movement to punish and degrade anyone who supports Trump. The rest of the world is not rejoicing at this.

For their part, Washington Republicans pose as Trump defenders, but in this virulent post-election political atmosphere, way too many of them have failed to take up the Trump voters’ cause. Worse yet, many seem to have formally joined the anti-Trump movement. Who would have guessed that seven Republican senators would join every Democrat in voting for Trump’s conviction on the weakest article of impeachment imaginable?

Perhaps career politicians on the right were secretly just as concerned as Democrats were when Trump took on the establishment, which he did on behalf of patriots who recognize that they are essentially being ruled by an oligarchy. In his inaugural address, President Trump made this remarkable pronouncement:

For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.

For decades, Joe Biden has been the avatar of this dynamic. Trump went on to remind us that America belongs to its citizens and to proclaim that he was returning its governance back to them. He had no idea the measures the oligarchy would be willing to take to maintain their power.

When the oligarchs yelled, “You are not above the law,” at Donald Trump, well-informed people knew what they meant: “We are the ones who are above the law, not you. We will never be held accountable for our lawlessness and corruption, but no evidence will be needed to investigate and prosecute you for things that we do. And we will make sure you are not reelected, no matter how Machiavellian we must show ourselves to be.”

The press was in on the cover-up of Biden’s low character and leftist intentions while they sold us a decent centrist. There were many who warned that Biden and Harris would make a hasty charge toward leftist goals that have been in the “wacky column” for generations.

While the mainstream poured out visceral hatred for Trump at the expense of factual reportage, investigative journalists on the right used verifiable information to make their case. Now, there are many with buyer’s remorse with New Mexico serving as just one example. Will they begin to pursue information outside the mainstream?

Conservative journalists warned that Biden and the Democrats would pursue statehood for Washington, D.C. The mainstream either ignored or derided the claim, but now there are a record 38 sponsors in the Senate for the measure, which passed the House last year under the radar. Abolishing the filibuster can’t be far behind.

With regards to packing the Supreme Court, Biden dodged questions and said that voters don’t deserve to know his position. Only conservative journalists sounded the alarm. Now we know they were right: Biden has announced a commission to look into expanding the high court.

Biden assured Rust Belt states that he was not an enemy of their energy-driven economies. But he immediately canceled the Keystone Pipeline and Kamala Harris told coal miners they would be able to get a better job deactivating abandoned land mines once their jobs were gone.

Contrary to promises of centrism, we already have measures in congress for a federal takeover of elections (H.R.1) and for more gun control (H.R. 127).

We know now what kind of transformation Biden meant during the campaign: A radical, authoritarian transformation, one that provides a more meaningful division between rulers and subjects, as poetically symbolized by the hideous wall that Democrats erected around the capital.

Sometimes storm waters change the course of a river. This is a tempest. It will be a major undertaking to hold the banks of our constitutional republic.

Reese Daniels is a pseudonym.

IMAGE: Joe Biden. YouTube screengrab.