It seems as if pretty much all the news these days is bad, doesn't it?  When things aren't good, the one thing the average person wants is to feel that he has some real, dependable representation in D.C., someone who empathizes and cares about his concerns.  For conservatives, this means they want trustworthy Republican representation.  Unfortunately, today's Republicans are generally feckless.  They do not fight for their constituents' concerns and principles.

Whether it's a matter of gross incompetence or willful intention, nothing the current Democratic administration is doing is improving the lives of the average American citizen.  Nothing.  Consider:

• Inflation is raging out of control.  Gasoline prices — splattered in huge lettering on the "daily scorecard" of every local gas station — are a constant reminder of how far behind everyone feels like they're falling.
• Month after month, the new jobs data disappoint, missing the so-called experts' projections by a country mile.
• The divisive seeds of racial division are being sown by the Democrats like never before, for the inexcusable reason of political leverage.
• Illegal immigration is not merely out of control.  It is being actively encouraged.
• American energy production is intentionally curtailed, while we beg our OPEC rivals for greater production to make up for our shortfall.  Try to figure that one out.
• Russia and China — our main global adversaries, both economically and militarily — are gaining on us (if not surpassing us) with nary a whimper of opposition from the Brandon administration.

And there's the Big One: the COVID pandemic.  Despite Biden's risible campaign squawking of "I'm not gonna shut down the economy; I'm gonna shut down the virus!," he's managed to do the exact opposite.  The virus is running rampant while the economy is staggering along like a drunken sailor who picked an ill-advised fight with George Foreman.

Our hapless government gives every indication that it's making up its COVID policy as it goes along, without any regard for actual science.  Instead, complete and utter allegiance to political considerations (such as perpetuating the "threat" of COVID in order to maintain fraudulent mail-in voting) rules the day.  The opening in the common cloth mask is four times larger than the virus particle (500 nanobars vs. 125 nanobars, giving rise to the saying, "It's like trying to stop a swarm of mosquitoes with a chain-link fence"), yet the government tells the public to "mask up."  Children have a demonstrable natural resistance to COVID, yet the government imposes vaccine mandates on children under 12 years of age when the statistical likelihood of an adverse reaction to the vaccine greatly exceeds the chances of a bad COVID event in children.

The government yelps daily that we are experiencing a "pandemic of the unvaccinated," yet a huge proportion of new omicron COVID infections are those who've been not only vaccinated but boosted as well.

In short, from every angle — economic, foreign relations, immigration and especially public health/safety — this Democratic administration is a total, abject failure, the likes of which have never been seen before.  It's truly historic.

But you wouldn't know any of this from the way the Democrats control the public narrative.  Republicans do not fight.  They let the Democrats set the agenda and present all the public talking points.  Whether Republicans are incapable of effectively countering the Democrats or are simply too afraid to try to is an open question.

Republicans sit by passively as the Progressive Big Tech monopoly bans one conservative after another.  Marjorie Taylor Greene is banned by Twitter — another in a far too long line of Republicans removed for the "crime" of presenting conservative views — and her party says nothing.  If there were a reciprocal situation in which a Democrat was unfairly targeted by a conservative media source, the entire liberal machine would kick into high gear and beat the publicity drums with unrelenting outrage.  Yes, the liberals do retain control of the old-line legacy media (network TV, printed newspapers, CNN/MSNBC, NPR/PBS, etc.), but there is far more alternative media reach today than there was even five or ten years ago.  Yet the Republican leadership is mostly silent.

During the recently passed anniversary of the over-hyped January 6, 2021, Capitol riot (an event in which not a single person has been charged with "insurrection," nor was a single elected government official so much as scratched), the supposedly brilliant and articulate Senator Ted Cruz described the event on the Senate floor as a "terrorist attack."  It was nothing of the sort, and Tucker Carlson took Cruz to task for Cruz's wildly inaccurate and arbitrarily histrionic remarks.

The question that needs to be answered is, why did Senator Cruz use that terminology?  It's as if conservatives are so browbeaten by their liberal overlords that they feel the need to curry favor by ceding some positions to the liberals.  It was as if Cruz was essentially saying to the liberal establishment, See?  I can call it 'terrorism.'  I can condemn it.  Aren't you proud of me now?  Won't you give me some credit now and say I'm a pretty good guy?  Please?

How is such a betrayal of conservative ideals supposed to engender confidence and loyalty on the part of the conservative rank-and-file for their representatives in D.C.?  It doesn't.  It does just the opposite.

The list of topics that Republicans shy away from fighting goes on and on.  When one credible doctor or researcher after another is shunned and banned from YouTube or Facebook for presenting anti-vax research or suggesting yet another viable, inexpensive COVID therapeutic, where are the Republicans defending the rights of the American people to hear the complete story and decide for themselves what course of action is best for them?

Save for a brave few, they are nowhere.  They are afraid, interested, apparently, only in protecting their own personal sphere of government-paid largess.  They are feckless.  And conservatives everywhere suffer every day as a consequence.

Correction: nanowebers corrted to nanobhars

Image: hansgklein via Pixabay, Pixabay License.