By Peter Pavarini
By any measure, no U.S. president has ever had a month worse than the one Joe Biden just had. Despite that, according to Real Clear Politics’ average of polls[i], 46.3% of American continue to have a favorable opinion of this man. Granted, that represents a nearly 20% decline in favorability since the start of his presidency. However, if those polls are correct, one could easily conclude that nearly half of the country (1) is not paying attention to the news, (2) had very low expectations of this bumbling old fool, or (3) are so happy to be rid of Donald Trump that Joe’s performance in office doesn’t really matter.
Trying to Understand Biden Supporters
I’ve been trying to get inside the heads of the most loyal Biden supporters (or at least the most hardened Democrats) to understand how they can excuse his many unforced errors or simply choose to ignore them. Here’s a partial list of presidential decisions a loyalist would need to rationalize:
- Issuing an avalanche of Executive Orders during the first few months of his presidency touching off an inflationary spiral that shows no signs of slowing.
- Reversing Trump’s policies on immigration triggering an unprecedented breach of our southern border – likely to result in over 2 million undocumented aliens entering the country by year’s end.
- Bungling the nation’s COVID response after promising during last year’s campaign to eradicate the disease – notwithstanding being gifted 3 vaccines by the previous administration’s Operation Warp Speed.
- Abandoning thousands of American citizens and others with preferential status when the U.S. military evacuated Afghanistan in the dead of night.
- Causing the avoidable deaths of 13 service members during the Afghan retreat, while wiping out 10 innocents (including 7 children) in a drone strike meant to send a message to terrorists.
- Issuing mandates that precipitated an exodus of essential healthcare workers, FDA officials, members of the military, law enforcement officers and first responders while 10 million able-bodied Americans remain out of work and an equal number of jobs can’t be filled.
- Using federal power as a bludgeon to get state governors to follow his COVID edicts, even to the point of withholding life-saving monoclonal antibodies to Red States like Florida.
- Politicizing the Armed Services to make them a laboratory of woke ideology or a security force for the political elite.
- Calling a meeting of the United Nations in New York City a “super-spreader event” while Biden supporters ignored mask mandates a few days earlier at the Met Gala in Manhattan.
- Ignoring skyrocketing crime, homelessness and substance abuse in major U.S. cities while ordering the FBI to crack down on supposed domestic terrorism of the white racist variety.
- Blaming all of the above on his predecessor when things didn’t go as expected.
If this is Biden’s promised return to “normalcy”, even Barack Obama must feel his legacy has been besmirched.
Analyzing Leftwing Commentary
Because the corporate media cannot be relied upon to accurately report much of anything nowadays, I’ve been forced to read leftwing commentary in the social media to comprehend why 46.3% of Americans say they’re okay with the dysfunctional Biden Administration.
The first thing I learned is that nobody except a few far-Left nihilists are happy with the way things are going.[ii] Progressives, by and large, don’t believe Biden has done enough to advance their socialist agenda. Traditional Democrats and the few remaining moderates know they are walking a tightrope. They understand they will either be primaried from the Left or beaten by a resurgent GOP. So, to be blunt, very few are defending the mess the Biden regime has made in eight months[iii].
Instead, the Left has employed a witch’s brew of virtual signaling, projection, Clinton/Obama nostalgia, and character assassination to counter the criticism Biden is receiving – even from the reliably Leftist media.
Virtue Signaling
Take the Critical Race Theory brouhaha, for example. Rather than defend this as a proper way to educate our kids, the Left has decided to demean parents who have questions about this radical, unproven ideology. Essentially, they accuse these “uneducated, awful people” of “prioritizing their conservative, Born Again politics over the well-being of their children”.[iv] As if the Left hasn’t been doing that through the teacher unions and Democrat Party machinery for decades! And, speaking up at a school board meeting, why that’s “criminal disruption of a governmental proceeding” – except, of course, when the Left does the same thing.
Also consider the Left’s favorite shibboleth – the sanctity of Roe v. Wade. It’s always been “my body, my choice” – except when your decision to remain unvaccinated violates my right to demand that everyone around me (except for foreign refugees and celebrities) has to prove their vaccination status.
Yes, in the Age of Karen, informed consent must take a back seat to the sensitivities of hypochondriacs and other malcontents. They’re not “bullying” you. They’re just reminding you about your personal responsibility to society.
Projection
When virtual signaling isn’t enough to coerce deplorables into doing the “right thing”, our Leftist overlords resort to various forms of projection. For instance, when you know your party has been stealing elections since Reconstruction, you must distract your GOP opponents by accusing them (without evidence) of doing the same thing. To prepare the public, plant alarming stories in the friendly media warning that the MAGA movement will go berserk when election results defy mathematical probability. When they do, call it an “insurrection” and the election results immediately become audit-proof.
Nostalgia for Clinton and Obama
Another way to distract from Biden’s miserable performance is to wax nostalgic about the days of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. I read one post by a high school classmate earlier today that made me wonder whether I had been out of the country those 16 years. Ah yes, the golden years when the world was at peace, the U.S. economy was humming along, the federal government was running surpluses, and we were on our way to becoming a racially just society.
Admittedly, I remember being happier back then too – despite of, not because of what Washington was doing. I certainly don’t remember my Black friends and colleagues telling me how much those presidents did to improve their lives. I don’t recall anyone telling me how safe they felt when Islamic terrorists first tried to bomb the World Trade Center, or when they did succeed shooting down TWA 800 over Long Island (despite Clinton using the FBI to cover it up). I don’t remember feeling financially secure when a Democrat-controlled Congress pushed through mortgage lending reforms that precipitated the financial implosion of 2008. I already knew enough about the character of most politicians – regardless of party – to understand that the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness depended mostly upon me.
Character Assassination
Which brings me to the last tactic used to prop up a failing president. Character assassination is as old as politics. Denigrating one’s opponents has long been part of a politician’s job description.[v] However, the practice of destroying a person’s character peaked during the Trump presidency. Sadly, American politics are unlikely to return to a tolerable level of acrimony. Donald Trump was regularly cursed and bullied throughout his presidency. Every decision he made was criticized; every one of his statements was fact-checked by hyper-partisans; his supporters were routinely demeaned or cancelled. Once the Left saw how effective this tactic could be when consistently applied for four years, it became their favorite way of vanquishing anyone right of center.
I’ve imagined being a fly on the wall of a house filled with crazy Leftists, and this is what I heard:
Ashley: I’m so upset. I never thought Biden would turn out to be this bad.
Brianna: Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter. Obama is still in control.
Cameron: And besides, don’t forget how vile and uncouth “45” was. At least he’s gone.
Brianna: Right, and most importantly, we stopped him from tweeting with his wretched followers by getting him kicked off of our social media.
Ashley: But what about this DeSantis guy? He’s more of a fascist than Trump. Imagine giving his deplorable buddies a choice about vaccines!
Cameron: That’s why the DNC needs to hire Marc Elias to fabricate a dossier on him too.
Power in the Left’s Depravity
Lao-Tzu, the Chinese philosopher who founded Taoism, is credited with saying:
“There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent.”
The 46.3% of Americans who still like Joe Biden should not be underestimated. They may be misinformed, high on weed, or bent on getting their slice of the proposed $3.5 trillion social infrastructure bill, but they are certainly committed. They obviously want America to be something other than a constitutional Republic. Their perception of current events may seem detached from any objective understanding of what’s going on in the world, but they are extremely good at blocking out facts that contradict their world view. Their belief system may lack any moral foundation, but they have unwavering trust in their feelings. They only feel safe when the people around them speak, act and think as they do. They do not appreciate the harm they are doing, which makes their depravity ever so more powerful.
For conservatives and a growing number of people who regret having voted for Biden, this is no time to compromise or yield to the Left’s convoluted, contradictory agenda. Their relentless resistance to traditional American values is a good sign that, in military parlance, “we are over the target”.
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something sometime in your life.”
-Winston Churchill
Our Bond with the American People
So then, let’s be like Ronald Reagan who was underestimated by his political opponents throughout his career and as president. Like him, we must believe that our bond with the people of this great Nation remains our greatest weapon against the incompetence and mendacity of the Left.
[i] Average of 8 polls from September 9 to September 20, 2021.
[ii] The RCP average of polls indicates 61.8% of the country believes we are on the “wrong track”.
[iii] In a future blog, I’ll address why some people believe the past eight months are playing out exactly as the Left had planned, i.e., intentional destruction of the American constitutional system.
[iv] Based on a chat room about a local school board election in my area.
[v] Abe Lincoln was called a “barbarian, a Scythian, yahoo and gorilla” by a number of prominent people including the commanding general of his armies, George McClellan.
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