Have we ever had a president who in mere months made so many dumb, intemperate decisions, thereby precipitating major crises? You’d think that the Afghanistan and border fiascos would suffice for one four-year term. But the smart money is that we haven’t seen the last of Biden-manufactured crises. Biden is a nightmare version of Charlie Brown’s Pig Pen. A perpetual cloud of incompetence, conceits, corruption, and shabby political motives swirls around him.
Per Richard Fernandez at PJ Media, September 27:
As Niall Stanage of the Hill put it, “President Biden’s biggest vulnerability isn’t any single issue. It’s the risk that he could be seen as losing control of events.”
The dissolution of the landscape means the Biden administration isn’t plagued by any one malady anymore but by multiple organ failure.
What’s perilous to the nation isn’t likely any one crisis, as Fernandez and Stanage alluded to, but some combination. Afghanistan and the border crises aren’t that combination -- at least not yet. But both do threaten to be part of a toxic mix leading to greater crisis during Biden’s term.
Other potential areas ripe for trouble are the economy, a new round of COVID lockdowns, the 2022 midterm elections, and leftist instigated unrest. An economic downturn would be a big domino falling, setting off a chain reaction. The other three areas are likely intertwined. More in a moment.
Afghanistan wasn’t a one-off, in that what happened there stays there. Afghanistan again becomes a staging area for Islamic terrorism, which threatens the homeland. Biden’s surrender there promises to spin off threats to American interests and national security elsewhere.
America’s principal adversaries -- Xi, Putin, the mullahs, and Kim Jong-un -- know, like most Americans do, that Biden is over his head. More, the U.S. is divided and conflicted. Reported the Epoch Times on September 28, compounding homegrown troubles, the PRC is engaging in subversion here through their “3 Warfares” doctrine.
The greatest peril is open conflict, particularly with the PRC. Taiwan is increasingly a flashpoint for a Sino-American war. Biden’s bungling stupidity over Afghanistan can only stiffen Xi’s resolve to conquer Taiwan, sooner than later.
Or Biden may not prosecute a war with the PRC in Asia-Pacific, however necessary to defend America’s vital interests.
Biden appears to be compromised with the Chinese, via the influence-peddling schemes that he and his family operate. How and when Xi decides to leverage Biden’s corruption are open to Vegas-style wagering. Could Xi force Biden to stand down over Taiwan?
The border crisis is a metastasizing cancer, deliberately so. Two million illegals are anticipated to cross into the U.S. this year. Then there are the out-years, ’22, ’23, and ’24 to consider.
The manifold stresses that this diaspora will place on communities are only in their earliest stages. This represents an insidious, evolving assault on society. While Biden’s ham-handedness certainly plays a key role in the border meltdown, Democrats have long advocated for open borders. This crisis manifests a perverse and destructive fulfillment.
The four other areas -- the economy, a new round of COVID lockdowns, the 2022 midterm elections, and leftist instigated unrest -- could precipitate crises that impact and exacerbate one another.
The economy is a linchpin and crisis watchlist worthy.
Inflation worries are in the news. Economists tend to split on inflation. Is it transitory, attributable to supply chain issues arising from last year’s lockdowns, or will it persist and worsen? Some analysts claim the global supply chain crisis will abate by next summer. Or will it?
But inflation fears are attributable to more than supply. Biden’s policies and legislative goals point to stagflation, says the New York Post’s editorial board.
Consider conventional energy, which is the lifeblood of modern economies.
As of January 20, 2021 the U.S. was energy independent. Kudos, President Trump. Energy was affordable. The Biden administration signaled its hostility to conventional energy development and production from Day One, shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline (killing thousands of jobs in the process).
Pander, Biden does, to the delusional cult of environmental zealots who’ve been prophesizing climate cooling, warming, or whatever else sounds dire since the early 1970s. Earth doom is always just 10 years away.
Drivers have suffered dramatic gas price hikes since Biden assumed office. As of January 2021, the average national cost of a gallon of gas was $2.249. As of September, the cost has risen to $3.176 per gallon, on average.
Biden’s solution to greater energy demands and spiraling costs is to beg OPEC to up output, a request that has been denied to date. Evidently, ruining the earth’s climate from Saudi Arabia and other OPEC member states is okay.
The mounting cost of energy drives up the cost of everything, including food. Then there’s the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion run at big government socialism, slyly named the “Build Back Better and American Families Plan.” Infighting is waylaying the measure, but desperate Democrats aren’t giving up. They can’t. It’s pivotal to their fortunes.
This legislation’s profligacy and taxing provisions aren’t only economy-cripplers, but attacks on private enterprise, society, and liberty. The Heritage Foundation’s Tommy Binion told the Daily Signal (September 29):
I believe that the reconciliation package, which is the socialist wish list of today’s Democratic Party, [$3.5 trillion] in spending, cradle-to-grave welfare, everything they want on climate change, everything they want on immigration, all packed into one bill, is the most threatening legislation in our lifetimes.
The last three areas for possible crises -- COVID lockdowns, the 2022 midterm elections, and leftist instigated unrest may intertwine.
Democrats appear to be headed for a shellacking in the 2022 midterms. Losing control of the House and Senate -- or just the House -- would scuttle their agenda. Congressional Republicans could roadblock many Biden administration’s executive actions, provided McCarthy and/or McConnell have the stones to fight.
Election integrity remains an outsized concern. Will battleground states, in particular, have sufficient election reforms in place next year? The GOP is lawyered-up and ready to litigate and plans for stronger election monitoring challenges, reports Truthout, a vexed left-wing outlet. But the chances for Democrat election chicanery: strong.
With Democrats likely facing awful elections prospects might the Biden administration push COVID lockdowns?
Draconian blue state lockdowns led the way in crippling the national economy last year, which had as an aim hurting Trump’s reelection prospects. The lockdowns were, in part, a pretext to blast out ballots across states (so much for chain of custody and ballot security). Proof that Democrats want rigged elections in perpetuity is found in their “For the People Act of 2021.”
Democrats must be watching Australia’s slamdown of its citizens with covetous eyes. Getting away with lockdowns will be harder, but Democrats aren’t hesitant.
Lastly, Antifa and BLM stoked urban riots in blue cities last year. Unrest in 2022 would again create a national atmosphere of fear and tension. As Democrats hoped last year, they’d hope again next year: That “protests against racial injustice” would damage GOP election chances. Or, if not that, some other excuse to foment unrest.
Should a national crisis emerge, the culprits are likely a convergence of crises. When has the nation been confronted by so many threats in so many different ways simultaneously?
“These are the times that try men’s souls,” wrote Thomas Paine. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
Are we ready to stand?
J. Robert Smith can be found regularly at Gab @JRobertSmith and occasionally on Parler, again @JRobertSmith. He also blogs at Flyover.
Image: Marc Nozell
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