Breaking Down and Breaking Up?
Article by J. Robert Smith in The American Thinker
Breaking Down and Breaking Up?
The other day, Liz Peek, writing at Fox News online, said this about the 46th president:
Joe Biden woke up on third base and thinks he hit a triple.
Someone has told the president that he was elected by the American people to fundamentally change our country. He thinks he has a mandate, and that all that stands between him and success is a few ornery Republicans in the Senate who refuse to get out of the way.
Correction. Biden believes that the only thing standing between him and greatness are cranky senators who do not see the United States as systemically racist, who don’t believe in vastly expanding the welfare state, who think that individual creativity and achievement have built our great country and who are absolutely positive that Democrats are leading us down a very dangerous path.
A very dangerous path. Because what the Biden White House and congressional Democrats are serving is a smorgasbord of destructive measures, from executive orders to federal policy changes to legislative initiatives. Destructive to our economy and society -- to our liberties, in fact -- which makes their assault, well, total.
Could it all lead to a national breakdown and, finally, a national breakup? Or might it lead to something better?
Democrats are trying to remake the nation in a compacted timeframe -- weeks and months, not years. Deliberation and debate -- careful consideration, in other words -- are wholly inconvenient. Besides, what if congressional Republicans succeed in stopping key portions of the Democrats’ radical agenda? Might doing so be an expression of the will of the people or a substantial portion thereof? Can’t have that. The revolution -- is this not a form of revolution? -- must happen immediately.
The Biden cabal’s executive orders are government by fiat. That’s un-American. Democrats’ motto should be “Fait accompli.” The Senate filibuster remains in their crosshairs. The filibuster is the primary weapon Republicans have to hinder Democrats desire to ram their extreme agenda down our throats. It’s an iffy proposition to rely on the squirrelly Joe Manchin or Arizona’s Krysten Sinema to preserve, protect, and defend this indispensable Senate procedure. Nonetheless, West Virginians and Arizonans need to lean heavily on these two Democrats.
For the sake of discussion, let’s say that the White House and congressional Democrats run the board and impose their schemes on the nation -- or, at least, major elements. The southern border is wide open now, so let’s say it stays open, flooding the nation with many hundreds of thousands -- finally, millions? -- of illegals. For Democrats, that makes for waves of new constituents and, if they have their sinister way, new voters. It means greater financial burdens, initially for our spectacularly indebted Uncle Sam -- and for state and local governments, many of which are hard pressed now. Taxpayers burdened? Of course. But name a tax Democrats oppose?
That’s the financial impact of throngs of Latino (and other) diaspora. All these illegals place strains on school and healthcare systems, among other services. Crime goes up where illegals go. Communities suffer. The social fabric is torn yet more.
Let’s say, too, that the Biden cabal’s binge spending, amounting to trillions of dollars in spoils for Democrats, their constituencies, and favored special interests, continues with abandon or near enough. The national debt is nearing $30 trillion. The laughably named “COVID Relief” measure was relief, all right -- relief for incompetent, profligate blue state and big city governments. The Biden cabal’s $3 trillion infrastructure improvement proposal -- now being fine-tuned to “combat” climate change and guarantee that all the usual suspects get their share of the spoils -- is more budget busting.
Interest rates, currently at historic lows, won’t stay low forever. Why do we know this? Because there are no constants in the universe or on Planet Earth. When interest rates rise, public and private debt becomes significantly more expensive. What then?
Pour onerous tax increases and heap mountains of red tape on businesses large -- and most distressingly -- small.
To compound bad, wash down the poison pill of the Green New Deal. Even brash Democrats aren’t trying to pass it as a comprehensive measure. They’re doing so piecemeal -- see the infrastructure proposal above -- infiltrating it through dozens of different channels. Accomplished insidiously, the Green New Deal alone is capable of wrecking the economy. Sane analysts (the times require us to filter for delusion and zealotry) have warned us it’s bad.
It doesn’t take much imagination to understand that a combination of these factors can ruin the country -- and with a rapidity that might astonish the clearest-eyed observers.
Should that dreary fate befall us, what might be the outcome? For that, let’s turn to Craig Shirley. Shirley is a successful chronicler, most notably a Reagan biographer. Shirley sees national dissolution ahead.
This from a CNS News article Shirley penned on March 30:
It saddens me to have come to this conclusion [the nation splitting up], but I don’t see any sort of viable path forward at the rate we’re going. Congress is hopelessly deadlocked with both sides convinced they are doing the Lord’s work and that anything less than total, utter legislative victory is a sorry defeat. Likewise, the grassroots on both sides of our country’s ideological divide seem incapable of seeing eye-to-eye.
Our new president isn’t helping matters. After four tumultuous years of Donald Trump, Joe Biden promised to be a breath of fresh air, telling us that he would promote “unity” or at the very least dial down the proverbial heat. We’re nearly two months into his administration, and so far he’s shown little inclination to do either, preferring instead to pander to the progressive base and sign whatever Congressional Democrats shove across his desk.
Mind you, this lay-of-the-land and Shirley’s glum prognosis are presented for sober reflection. Both should be regarded as cautionary. As we learned from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the future shadow needn’t be realized. With another Christian holiday fast approaching, Easter, there’s cause for some optimism.
Democrats are, in fact, pursuing a ruinous course. But we simply can’t account for X factors, those intangibles that can dramatically change fortunes. Providence’s hand is a principal intangible.
Democrats and the left are surfeit with conceit. There’s almost a stench to it. Perhaps mixed in is a whiff of desperation? Doesn’t their feverish race to impose their agenda and rule seem so?
To mix metaphors, Democrats are overplaying their hand, bigly. There’s practically an iron law of conceit: it leads to hubris. And hubris is where Democrats are headlong charging. The goal is to let them go there without dragging us along. Their ruin is our boon.
How do we accomplish this not-so-easy feat? Offered, again, from my last American Thinker article: We must find and champion ways of frustrating Democrats’ efforts. Vigorously back Senate Republicans in their fight to retain the filibuster. Encourage red state governors and legislators to roadblock imperious federal mandates. Gridlock is our ally. Win back the U.S. House in 2022. Buying time worked for Washington during the Revolution, for Grant at Shiloh, and for McAuliffe at Bastogne. The rest is history.
America -- the ideal of America -- deserves far better than wreck and ruin. The Good Lord and history are providing patriots this opportunity to defeat tyranny and renew liberty. Nothing good comes easily. The good achieved in this historic fight will be remembered and honored for generations to come.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/04/breaking_down_and_breaking_up_.html
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