In case you haven't noticed, the Biden Administration is a dumpster fire of seeming incompetence and dementia. I don't believe that is by accident, and I believe those calling the shots wish to do harm to the United States.  A brief review of the Biden family's financial dealings in China begs the question of a compromised or even installed presidency.  Even the staunchest of corporate media allies have at times brought themselves to question the mental health status of Joe Biden, which has led to the assertion that the lights are on but nobody's home.  And given the projection on display during the Trump Administration, any recognition of the current state is met with a dose of leftist "whataboutism." Accusations of poor mental health or incompetence are chalked up to retaliation in the current political climate.

Surely there is a puppet master pulling these strings?  Joe Biden didn't bother to campaign for office and yet raked in more votes than any candidate in history by a wide margin, after all.  This is just one of the primary drivers of skepticism in the legitimacy of the Biden administration and for the aware conservative escapes rationale.

Currently, the situation at our southern border is a nightmare with record numbers of migrants overwhelming infrastructure and bringing new variants of COVID along with cartels smuggling drugs and human capital across.  The current administration seems to have no response, and what's more, no concern. The swift deterioration of conditions and withdrawal in Afghanistan has enabled U.S. persons, weapons, and intelligence to fall into the hands of the Taliban, undoing 20 years of stalemate in a month's time.  The push for COVID vaccines and rejection of natural immunity is driving a record silent super-spreader event across the country. Inflation is running rampant as supply shortages are met with an overabundance of stimulus dollars injected into the bank accounts of American taxpayers.  Just eighteen months ago we touted energy independence, and now the Biden Administration is begging OPEC to make up for artificial shortfalls in supply that are driving exorbitant fuel prices. Meanwhile, local school boards, government agencies, and corporations continue to double down on racist and divisive social policy designed to drive a wedge down the spine of society.  This is not business as usual.

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame would often describe the Donald Trump leadership style in terms of the Big First Demand.  He would describe a negotiating tactic in which Donald Trump would throw out extreme first demands so that he could set the margins of the conversation and bring participants back to a happy middle ground.  The Biden Administration, and more specifically the American Left, has taken a piece of this playbook and deployed a familiar but very different rhetorical strategy called the Motte and Bailey.  In the Motte and Bailey, extreme first demands are thrown out until pushback is received, at which time they retreat to a more sane middle ground.  The difference between this and the Big First Demand strategy of Donald Trump is that the big first demand is actually the goal of Motte and Bailey. The retreat is only temporary, to allow scrutiny to die down before returning to an extreme position, such as the promotion of CRT in primary school education. Their extreme assertions call for a radical revolution, and conservatives would do well to take them seriously. When the Biden Administration fails to act in the face of an overwhelming crisis it is not by accident. It is setting the stage for a radical revolution.

Conservatives have a tendency to play a mental game where they rationalize that the public is going to have an epiphany and that the latest display of ineptitude or malfeasance will be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back and wakes up the herd.  They overestimate the herd.  There is a concept in psychology called normalcy bias that explains why people have a tendency to downplay serious threats like natural disasters and creates a failure to act in the face of crisis.  Those under the spell of normalcy bias will ignore the severity of a situation and justify to themselves that their circumstances are just another in a series of life challenges that will pass.  Those who attempt to sound the alarm in the face of these circumstances are merely overreacting.  The inaction that results from normalcy bias leads to poor outcomes as appropriate preparation measures are ignored and responses are delayed.  The incremental nature of our deteriorating circumstances is a potent but detrimental combination when paired with normalcy bias. 

In all of this insanity, where is the Republican Party?  There seem to be two possible responses: Republicans either hope to stay silent and allow for the Biden Administration to self-implode by 2022, or they are complicit in allowing the rapid decline of the United States.  There really is no middle ground. Famed Nixon economist Herbert Stein, the father of actor Ben Stein, theorized that if something cannot go on forever, it will stop.  This has come to be known as Stein's Law.  The question remains, which will cease first, the absurdities of the Biden Administration, or the United States itself?  The time for normalcy bias has passed. 

Brian Parsons is a digital marketing consultant by trade, a proud husband and father, saved by grace & an unabashed paleoconservative. You can follow him at WithdrawConsent.org or find his weekly opinion column in the Idaho State Journal. Gab, MeWe, Email

Image: Ben Watts

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