Biden's center, such as it is, will not hold
President Trump enacted policies about the economy, the border, and national security that benefited all Americans. Biden's initiatives, however, benefit only special interest groups, and, along the way, they will harm other special interest groups, as well as most Americans. Biden's center cannot hold; the administration will eventually maintain power only through brute force.
Biden's executive orders in his first week in office have a few common themes: subordinating the economy to climate change madness; using the strong arm of government to impose "racial equity" (the opposite of equality), erasing our borders, giving China complete access to America, and elevating the tiny group of body dysmorphic people known as "transgender" to a position of power in America. In each case, the consequences will damage members of the Biden coalition as well as most Americans.
Subordinating the economy to climate change madness: I won't debate here whether the Earth is dying from anthropogenic climate change or whether the Earth is simply a dynamic system that has been changing consistently for 4.5 billion years. What's important is that the Biden regime either believes in anthropogenic climate change or sees it as a useful tool to achieve maximum control over people. Either way, the outcome is the same.
In one of the first executive orders he signed, Biden revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and paused energy leasing in Alaska at ANWR. The oil will still be transported to America, only it will come via Warren Buffett's trains. Thus, it will generate more pollution, not less. It will also make oil more costly, which will hurt poor people most, including many minorities.
The order also instantly erased 10,000 union jobs — and the unions supported Biden all the way. The center just vanished in the schism between environmentalists and unions. This man speaks for many who, because of a stroke of Biden's pen, are now unemployed:
I think I should put this on a loop for @JoeBiden. Sad! pic.twitter.com/tmFEGSzgti
— Grant Stinchfield (@stinchfield1776) January 28, 2021
Using the strong arm of government to impose "racial equity": Biden signed multiple executive orders that purport to remedy racial inequality in America. There are two points to be made: first, 21st-century America has no laws or regulations that discriminate based on race or any other external factors. Second, it's true that Blacks in America are not doing well in terms of economics and committing or being victimized by crime.
Conservatives say tthe second factor is the result of Democrat policies that trapped Blacks in awful public school districts; marginalized men — especially fathers — by substituting welfare for a man in the family; enacted criminal laws in 1994 (with Biden's help) that sent generations of Black men to prison; and created a vicious cycle of low expectations for Blacks that denies them the incentive, rigor, and challenge of accomplishment.
Leftists say the problem is systemic racism. This means that, while they can't point to any specific racist behaviors or laws, reasoning backward from Black and other minority problems, they have concluded that the fault must be that somewhere, somehow, someone is discriminating. It is this inchoate, intangible, probably illusory discrimination that Biden intends to attack with the full weight of the federal government. Once the government's thumb goes down on the scale for one set of people, it will inevitably use its police power to discriminate against another set.
One of the major tenets of repairing systemic racism is destroying the criminal justice system: decarceration, the end of policing, the end of bail, etc. This bow-down before criminals will hurt most those minorities living near those criminals and frighten most the security-conscious soccer moms who gave Biden their votes. Again, there is no center here.
Opening the borders completely: Biden's executive orders effectively open the borders to all comers and remove any restrictions on illegal aliens within America. This will put enormous pressure on our welfare systems, increase crime, and take jobs from America's legal minorities. By pandering to the margins, Biden again destroys the center.
Giving China complete access to America: Despite his "buy American" rule for the government, Biden is inviting China back into the American economy and America's national security. This will destroy American jobs, threaten the American economy, and decrease national security as our geopolitical foe strengths.
Supporting the transgender lobby: Biden has overturned feminism by giving mentally ill and opportunistic men permission to compete with women in all things physical, from high school and college sports to the military. He also puts women at risk of rape and assault from these same men in locker rooms and bathrooms. Again, this will not play well with feminists or soccer moms.
In "The Second Coming," William Butler Yeats described Biden's nascent presidency when he wrote:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Image: Antagonism by Dimitry Abramov. Pixabay license.