Last week we ordinary Americans took a couple of punches in the gut. First, lawyer Michael Sussmann was acquitted by a jury of lying to the FBI about who was employing him to dish dirt on Candidate Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Said the jury forewoman:

“I don’t think it should have been prosecuted,” she said of the case. “There are bigger things that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI.”

You think? Bigger things than an accusation of using the FBI to prompt the media to accuse a presidential candidate -- a presidential candidate! -- of colluding with Russians?

And then the Biden administration did the thug thing on 72-year-old Trump White House official Peter Navarro and had the FBI arrest him while he was boarding a plane and put him in handcuffs and leg irons, just so they could make quite sure to have him in court the next day.

Now, I have to say I am not outraged by this. No, my reaction is far deeper and philosophical. The whole point of the legal system is to invite everyone, Inner Party, Outer Party, and Proles, to bring their disputes to judges and juries – presided over by the blindfolded maiden and her scales -- rather than resort to revenge and armed gangs. But if an Inner Party chappie gets a free ride, and the Outer Party chappie gets leg irons, what is the fate of the Proles in Biden’s America? Hey, ruling class: you may not think about where this injustice leads, but I can.

Here’s some partisan red meat from Andrew Sullivan’s Substack. He quotes a long diatribe from a commenter:

Trump is a symptom of a political party that (with very, very few honorable exceptions) wants to grab onto power and hold onto it, ethics be damned.

What? You mean that the GOP doesn’t have power, and is therefore reduced to an unethical “grab onto power”?

Sullivan replies to his commenter:

I would vote for any Democrat rather than Trump, who remains a profound threat to what’s left of liberal democracy. And even if you think Trump represents the real GOP, I don’t think you can argue that his personal vileness, demagogic genius, and insatiable narcissism didn’t also make a difference.

Earth to Sullivan: Is there any headline politician in America in the other party that does not display “personal vileness, demagogic genius, and insatiable narcissism?”

Let’s apply the Sullivan standard to Joe Biden. Personal vileness? How about Biden, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Bork nomination? Or handsy Biden and the eight women he is accused of “touching inappropriately” or worse? Demagogic genius? What else do you call a man that has kept himself in headline politics since 1973 riding the rails between Washington and Delaware? Insatiable narcissism? I rest my case. 

And whatabout “what’s left of liberal democracy?” If only! You liberal chaps have the following agenda items going full bore in 2022:

• Government Pensions: 7% GDP
• Government Healthcare: 9% GDP
• Government Education: 5% GDP
• Government Welfare (other than healthcare): 3% GDP

I’d say that spending 24 percent of GDP this year and every year on your pet programs is not “what’s left.”  I’d call that “we own you.” Because if I had my druthers I’d privatize government pensions; I’d reduce government healthcare to vouchers, and replace government education with vouchers, K thru grad school. And that would just be the start.

Oh yeah, I forgot. President Trump started to build a wall on the border. End of liberal democracy!

Here’s another thing to worry about. The climatistas in the Biden administration are fit to be tied about the administration’s failure to put the pedal to the metal on climate change:

The office headed by domestic climate policy chief Gina McCarthy has held up progress on multiple fronts, nine Democrats inside and outside the administration told POLITICO -- accusing it of too often placing political considerations and relations with Congress ahead of weaning the nation off fossil fuels.

Hey, climatistas! When your guy has just a nine-seat majority in the House of Representatives and a tied Senate, you don’t get to ram your agenda down the throat of America. Even if you know, absolutely know, because science and experts and climate activists, that your program is the only thing standing between humanity and the end of life as we know it.

Here’s a sobering thought. How in the world are we going to persuade the average Democrat partisan to stay home and cool her mostly peaceful jets when President DeSantis (or Trump) takes office in 2025 with a solid Republican Congress? She knows that there are no “bigger things that affect the nation” than a racist-sexist-homophobic political party that, experts agree, represents “a profound threat to what’s left of liberal democracy.”

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.

Image: National Archives