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The Politics of Innocence
Joe Biden’s administration ushers in a destructive new version of the American regime.October 22, 2021What do the Biden administration’s three spectacular failings—the
sudden and purportedly unpredictable collapse of Afghanistan, the
deliberate effort to undermine U.S. energy independence with the
sabotage of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and the unconscionable
national border crisis—have in common? More is at work here
than normal political shifts, of the sort expected when one
administration succeeds another. We are witnessing, instead, a
change in the very purpose of politics.
The American regime, founded on the idea of limited government, presumed that citizens were competent and largely capable of taking care of themselves. Our competence was developed, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America, through the mediating institutions of family, church, civic associations, and municipal government. No citizen competence, no limited government. That was Tocqueville’s formula—the American formula.
The first phase of the American regime, characterized by citizen competence, lasted for more than a century. Supplanting it was the second, progressive, phase of the American regime, in which expert competence purportedly replaced citizen competence. The Biden administration came to power claiming the mantle of expert competence. “The adults are back in charge,” our legacy media jubilantly proclaimed.
The failings of the so-called adults in the Biden administration are a consequence of a shift to a third phase of the American regime, a shift so large that it would be more accurate to say it is the end of one type of regime and its replacement by another. The American fixation on the politics of competence, whether citizen or expert, is being replaced by the politics of innocence.
In this new politics, what matters most is your standing as an innocent victim. If you are not an innocent victim, you are anonymous or, more likely, a threat.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken gives the order to fly the LGBTQ+ pride flag at all U.S. embassies, including Afghanistan, signaling that innocent victimhood is the singular policy orientation of the United States government. Much of the rest of the world is incredulous, and the effort to shape Afghanistan in our own image collapses within days of our military withdrawal.
The Biden administration shuts down the Keystone Pipeline because we are all innocent victims of fossil fuels who must be saved by green energy and the crony capitalism that will usher in a new age of cleanliness.
The United States border should not, in the eyes of the Biden administration, protect us from illegal aliens. It should instead serve as the porous pass-through for “undocumented migrants,” who, along with an ever-growing list of legally protected identity groups, are also innocent victims.
More recently, Attorney General Merrick Garland has led us to believe that parents repulsed that their children are being taught critical race theory, not to mention Orwellian assertions about the fluidity of “gender,” may be investigated as domestic terrorists under the Patriot Act. Our children, the administration insists, must be taught that they are transgressors whose doltish and deplorable thoughts conspire against innocent victims everywhere. These innocent victims must now be the singular focus of the efforts of our government—not excluding the military—which must purge its ranks of the guilty to make room for the innocent victims soon to fill the vacancies.
The Biden administration is pulling the United States into a third phase of politics. We are witnessing the birth of the politics of innocence. From this we can only expect an ongoing sequence of failures.
Biden exposes himself on national TV
Last night, CNN held an invitation-only "town hall" for Biden in Baltimore. The audience was beyond friendly, the questions were obviously vetted, and Anderson Cooper was there to hold Biden's hand. And still, as the RNC's Twitter feed reveals, Biden repeatedly showcased his weirdness, incipient dementia, inability to lead, and sheer heartlessness. No wonder only 27% of likely voters are confident that Brandon...er, Biden is up to the job.
I must be honest here: I didn't watch the town hall. I doubt many did. However, the good people at RNC Research did watch, and the clips they shared are illuminating.
What caught everyone's attention was the moment when Biden combined his creepy whisper with the "White supremacy symbol." And yes, I know that was a 4Chan hoax, but leftists have used it to go after multiple innocent people, everyone from Navy cadets to Hispanic truck drivers to firefighters to Brett Kavanaugh–supporting lawyers. I doubt they'll go after the one who has a long history of racism and hanging out with White supremacists.
One of the weirdest moments was Biden standing there with his elbows bent and fists clenched as Anderson Cooper talked to him. Did he think he was skiing? Driving a car? Pooping in his Depends? It was certainly disturbing to see the guy with the nuclear telephone standing like that for almost 20 seconds:
At one point, Biden spoke out loud what everyone else was thinking: "What am I doing here?" he asked. He was trying to remember "Long Beach," a name that should be at the forefront of his brain, given the supply chain disaster playing out along California's coast. Anderson Cooper dutifully stepped in to help, although he was also unable to explain what Biden was doing there:
Occasionally, Biden's well-honed political instincts kicked in, and he made a coherent statement — coherent but completely dishonest. Thus, he claimed that people are doing better economically under him because wages are up. He forgot to add that inflation is keeping up with and even exceeding wages. People are still underpaid, and those on fixed incomes will soon go under:
Having done everything possible to destroy America's thriving, self-reliant oil industry, which was bringing prices down and allowing America to become an exporter, Biden confessed that he has no idea how to fix prices. I have an idea: reverse all your executive orders. That should do the trick.
Biden — a man who skips town every weekend to hang out in his Delaware house — announced that he hasn't "had a whole hell of a lot of time to get down" to the border to see the chaos and crime down there. For a man who has a plane at his beck and call, his excuses rang hollow:
The two worst moments came when Biden didn't even think twice about saying that all first responders who refuse vaccinations should be fired and that those who refuse the vaccination are killing people. He seems immune to the concept that if the vaccines worked as promised, those who take them wouldn’t be "killed." More importantly, America's COVID mortality rate is a low 1.6%, a number heavily skewed to those over 80. Furthermore, even that number is probably artificially inflated, both through overcounting and refusing to treat people until they're at death's door:
As you can see, in Biden-land, "freedom" is a dirty word:
I will never let go of my doubts about Biden's having honestly obtained 81 million votes. To believe that, I must believe that 81 million of my fellow Americans are so twisted, ideologically damaged, and stupid that they would vote for Joe Brandon...er, Biden. I prefer to think better of my fellow Americans.
(In honor of International Pronouns Day, I will share my daily pronouns with you for a week or until I get bored. Today, my pronouns are "Transgenderism = mental illness" and "chihuahua." If you're saying they make no sense, that's the point.)
Image: Joe Biden making fists. Twitter screen grab.
Jesse Watters: Democrats just want a dictator
Charles Hurt: Democrat Nightmare: They Went to Bed with Obama, Woke Up with Biden
On Wednesday, President Biden traveled to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to sell his doomed “human infrastructure” bill, which smells more like an un-showered Green New Deal and quacks like another welfare boondoggle.
“The cost of the Build Back Better bill in terms of adding to the deficit is zero, zero, zero,” he lied, lied, lied. “Because we’re going to pay for it all.”
Well, yes, you better believe we are going to pay for it. Just not in the way Mr. Biden claims. This bill is “paid for” — just like every other dime of the $28 trillion in debt these dirty louts have racked up in your name over the past several decades.
While in Scranton, Mr. Biden ambled down memory lane. And ambled and ambled and ambled.
Old stuttering nicknames. Family lore. Uncles in the kitchen. Grandmas and laced doilies at the dining room table. All fairly incomprehensible. He did manage to invoke just about every person in his family whoever died — just because that is what Joe Biden does when his chips are down.
And he talked about how much he loves the federal government’s disastrous and irrelevant Amtrak rail system. Again, not exactly what you would call “confidence-inspiring” if you are trying to sell a federal “infrastructure” bill.
“I commuted every single day for 36 years as vice president of the United States after my wife and daughter were killed. I went home to see my family. Never stopped.”
Hoo boy.
To be fair, it was one of Joe Biden’s best speeches of his presidency. Certainly among his least dishonest. And definitely not plagiarized.
Thirty-six years as vice president. That is the same kind of enthusiastic math that gets you to “zero, zero, zero.”
As we have noted before, the Biden administration is an aging, faded rock band that lost its lead singer.
White House spokesgal Jen Psaki, and all the rest of them are lobotomized zombies left over from the Obama administration. They are lost, out of tune, popped guitar strings, searching for their swamp god.
This reminds me of a joke. What is worse than waking up in bed next to Willie Nelson?
Realizing it’s not Willie Nelson.
How exactly does this apply to the current political situation? Well, for all these wandering Obama zombies, they all went to bed with Barack Obama — only to wake up and realize they had actually spent the night with Joe Biden. And his diaper came loose in the bed.
So now they are fumbling around, desperate to reignite the old magic of Hope and Change.
Ms. Psaki steps to the White House press lectern — a gentle crowd if there ever was one — and tries out a few lines of comedy. Anything to get that old spark back.
She tries cracking funny about the tens of thousands of children who have been illegally smuggled across the Southern border under the Biden administration because, for some reason, she did not want to admit that the administration is flying the children all over the country “in the middle of the night.”
But don’t make a joke about Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg taking two months’ paternity leave during the worst transportation crisis since Jimmy Carter’s gas lines!
Of the supply chain crisis, Ms. Psaki found more comedy material. In apparent mirth, she dismissed it as the “tragedy of the treadmill” — which is both unfunny and incomprehensible. At least she does an accurate job of capturing Joe Biden’s “thinking.”
Anyway, Ms. Psaki also dismissed the notion that the federal government is responsible for the collapsed supply chain.
“We are not the Postal Service,” she sniffed. Except, you are! Dimwit. And you run the post office about as brilliantly as you run Amtrak.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at the Washington Times.
Psaki: Biden Drove Through the Border ‘When He Was on the Campaign Trail in 2008’
(CNSNews.com) - White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that President Joe Biden “did drive through the border” while on the campaign trail in 2008.
As CNSNews.com reported, when asked Thursday whether he has plan to visit the southern border, Biden told a CNN town hall, “I've been there before, and I haven't -- I mean, I know it well. I guess I should go down.”
Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy asked Psaki, “Following up on something else the president said last night. Why did President Biden say he has been to the border?”
PSAKI: Well Peter, as you may have seen, there’s been reporting that he did drive through the border when he was on the campaign trail in 2008, and he is certainly familiar with the fact - and it stuck with him - with the fact that in El Paso, the border goes right through the center of town, but what the most important thing everyone should know and understand is that the president has worked on these issues throughout his entire career and is well-versed in every aspect of our immigration system, including the border.
That includes when he was vice president, and he went to Mexico and Central America 10 times to address border issues and talk about what we can do to reduce the number of migrants who are coming to the border. He worked in a bipartisan manner with senators like Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, John McCain and others to push for comprehensive immigration reform. He does not need a visit to the border to know what a mess was left by the last administration. That’s his view.
DOOCY: Does that count as a visit? He said, I’ve been there before. You’re saying he drove by for a few minutes? Does that count?
PSAKI: What is the root cause? Where are people coming from who are coming to the border, Peter?
DOOCY: The president said that he --
PSAKI: I’m asking you a question, because I think people should understand the context. Where do people-- where to people come--
DOOCY: I’m asking you--
PSAKI: Okay, I’ll answer it for you. People come from Central America and Mexico to go to the border. The president has been to those countries 10 times to talk about border issues. There is a focus right now on a photo-op. The president does not believe a photo-op is the same as solutions. That may be a difference he has with Republicans.
DOOCY: But that’s not what he said either. He said, I guess I should go down. So does he think that he needs a photo-op? Is that what he’s saying?
PSAKI: He doesn’t, and that’s a fundamental disagreement he has. I would say the former president went to the border at least once, maybe more. You may know the numbers. How did that immigration policy result, Peter? That immigration policy resulted in separating kids from their parents, building a border wall that’s feckless and that costs billions of dollars for taxpayers. The president fundamentally disagrees on how we need to approach the immigration issue.
DOOCY: Has anything changed at the border between 2008 when he drove by and 2021?
PSAKI: Aside from the fact that migrants are still coming to the border through the course of Democratic and Republican presidents and the need to reform the immigration system is even farther along overdue? No, but we need to work with Democrats and Republicans to get that done
Texas, Missouri Sue Joe Biden for Halting Construction of Border Wall
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt have filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden for halting the construction of border wall along the United States-Mexico border.
On Thursday, Paxton and Schmitt dropped a lawsuit against Biden accusing the administration of unlawfully canceling border wall projects that were funded by Congress. Since taking office, Biden has repeatedly canceled border wall projects despite their being approved and funded by Congress.
An analysis from July found that the administration had wasted $2 billion in American taxpayer money to not continue constructing border wall. The lawsuit states:
This Complaint focuses on the President of the United States’ refusal to spend funds appropriated by Congress mandating the construction of a wall along the southwest border, and the Department of Homeland Security’s termination of contracts to perform work on construction projects to build the wall.
In 2018, DHS assessed the effectiveness of physical barriers on the southwest border in controlling illegal immigration and drug trafficking, and proclaimed: “Walls Work. When it comes to stopping drugs and illegal aliens from crossing our borders, walls have proven extremely effective.” DHS noted that border wall construction in one sector led to a 90 percent decrease in border apprehensions. [Emphasis added]
…
DHS has previously recognized the importance of the construction of the southwest border wall. Among other things, DHS’s prior assessment concluded that “Walls Work,” that border walls are highly effective in deterring and preventing illegal immigration and illegal drug trafficking across the southwest border, and that the construction of border barriers on the southwest border led to a 90 percent reduction in border apprehensions in the Yuma region in particular. [Emphasis added]
Discontinuing that construction through the January 20 Proclamation (and subsequent implementation by DHS) represents a sharp departure from DHS’s previous policy, and it constitutes a final agency action subject to judicial review. Among other things, the President’s Proclamation and DHS’s statements make clear beyond any possible doubt that DHS has no intention of expending a single penny of appropriated money for Congress’s stated purpose of actual “construction of barrier system along the southwest border.” [Emphasis added]
According to the lawsuit, Biden’s administration failed to “consider the costs of ending construction of the southwest border wall to the States.”
“It transparently failed to do so, having made its decision without seeking input from Texas and Missouri and without inquiring about the costs Texas and Missouri bear from illegal immigration,” the lawsuit states:
DHS failed to consider the States’ reliance interests in securing the southwest border. The Supreme Court in Regents required DHS to consider reliance interests, including States’ reliance interests, especially when it “changes course[.]” Here, DHS simply did not consider any of Missouri’s or Texas’ reliance interests, such as increased costs for providing social services, rendering DHS’s actions arbitrary and capricious. [Emphasis added]
The lawsuit asks, among other things, for the court to hold that Biden’s termination of border wall projects was unlawful and require the administration to spend appropriated funds on border wall construction, as it was intended by Congress.
“The Biden Administration’s flat refusal to use funds that have already been set aside by Congress to build the border wall is not only illegal and unconstitutional,” Paxton said in a statement. “It’s also wrong, and it leaves states like Texas and Missouri footing the bill.”
The case is Missouri v. Biden, No. 6:21-cv-00052 in United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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