It wasn’t as bad as it looked. It was worse.
FILE: AP Photo/Matt Slocum
We’re coming up on 100 days since Joe Biden left office and given the stark contrast between the Biden and Trump administrations, we are coming to understand just how cosmically awful Joe Biden’s time in office really was.
It was a disaster from its first day to its last.
Even granting enormous quantities of grace, one cannot find a single Biden administration policy that made Americans safer or more prosperous. Not one. On Biden’s watch the world became more dangerous and the American middle class slipped back into the decline from which it had briefly emerged in Trump’s first term. (And please, spare me the stock market. Half of the market gain on Biden’s watch was swallowed by inflation. The rest was largely driven by the share prices of Alphabet, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla – the so called “Magnificent Seven.” The rest of the market barely budged.)
We don’t have time for an exhaustive analysis of the things that Biden got wrong. That exercise could legitimately be made into a semester-long three-hour college credit course. (Not holding my breath.)
Let’s just bear down on the two Biden administration policy failures that will have the longest lasting negative consequences.
The first – surprise, surprise – is Biden’s catastrophic border policy. We’ll never know exactly how many illegal migrants Joe Biden allowed to invade our country. Estimates range from eight to 15 million. Whatever that unknowable number, it’s horrific. No nation has ever allowed chaotic mass migration on anything close to such a scale. As a result, there is no template for what happens next.
We already know that the resulting pressure on social services, schools, hospitals and police departments has been overwhelming. There’s no practical way to get these migrants out of the country and there is no effort whatsoever to assimilate them into American culture. Their presence is a large-scale balkanizing force, the staggering social costs of which will be borne by generations yet to come.
The second cosmic disaster is Biden’s reckless spending. When taken together, his “American Rescue Plan,” the “Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act” and the ironically named, “Inflation Reduction Act” total up to $6 trillion in spending that an already deeply indebted nation can ill afford. None of these spending boondoggles accomplished any of their stated goals. They only added to an already unsustainable debt.
There are two lessons to be learned from Biden’s terrible presidency.
Lesson one is keep Democrats out of office. Today’s Democrats — as embodied in Joe Biden — will blindly promote increasing the scope of government no matter how often or to what degree government makes things demonstrably worse.
Lesson two is that today’s Democrats aren’t about effective governance anyway. Nor are they about the poor or the middle class or “hard working Americans” or any other group to which they endlessly pander.
Democrats are about Democrats. They’re about power (and the concomitant money).
Which leads to a third lesson. As bad as Biden was, given what the party has become, the next Democrat to win the White House won’t be appreciably better.
I just reread your October 22, 2015 column about Joe Biden’s decline, (manifest even back then) and the GOP chances in 2016. Of course you should have taken your friend’s bet, but we can understand why you didn’t. The Republicans were perennially feckless in messaging, while struggling with the swamp and media campaign to take Trump out with subterfuge and actual conspiracies, before these deceptions were tardily exposed to the electorate. But you were right to think we should have won that one, and thank God that we did. Also, that we lost the next one, and won the most recent election. Joe did help us with one thing: our eyes have been opened.
We’re looking at a major power shift with regard to our three branches of government. Congress is becoming more and more irrelevant as it splits along party lines into 50% communist leaning and 50% more or less free-market, and concurrently with most members of both parties focused on staying in office until they die. The real contest is not now between political parties, but rather a tug-of-war between the executive branch and the judiciary. With the legislative branch now watching from the sidelines, we see President Trump “legislating” against an untenable status quo, and an activist liberal judiciary conversely “legislating” in favor of maintaining the status quo.
We need to keep the above in mind when it comes to future presidential elections. Who we elect to Congress still matters, but more and more, it will be the president of this nation who will chart the nation’s future by Executive Orders–what amounts to legislation by way of the executive branch. That is not a good thing, but it could be our future. Should that be the case, the risks and rewards associated with presidential choice will only be compounded.
Dear People, please start trying to find out how you can break the hold the Chinese have on you and your family. Use what you have and try to stay out of W———. I have 4 (yes 4) storage buildings in my back yard. Lesson learned. No more!
I love our great country and I am responsible to do better, much better.
Well, the Left is officially terrified, if the protest crowd last week in Tyler is any indication. Right now, we have the helm. Republicans are doing what we always do when we hold the majority, though: wringing our hands and dragging our feet. This should be a legislative sprint for as long as we can hold onto a favorable balance, but Congress acts like the seven guys on the road crew watching that one guy work. How do we light a fire under the tears of our representation, Paul? We won’t enjoy this for long.
Another insightful and sobering perspective from Paul Gleiser. I am convinced that the fairy tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” was, in fact, written by a Democrat. Talk about a group of politicians, and those who have deified them, pulling the wool over the eyes of an entire nation, while much of the populous buys into their liberal madness. Lest anyone try to minimize the situation we face, the frightening truth is that we are in a civil war, and the future of our country is, at this time, on the shoulders of General Trump. Let’s hope the citizens who have seen the light, will continue to fight the good fight.
The future of this Country has forgotten the founding Fathers and the ONE thing that UNITED THEM and the LAW of the land which was laid out not by mere men. You have forgotten that these men, OUR FOREFATHERS, had a greater power working with them and guiding them. It was in the 1960’s that our decline started when GOD was left out of the equation. When the rise of LBJ and people like him, in order to stay in power worked their hardest to enslave a whole segment of society that even today rears it’s ugly head.
When our Forefathers gathered to write a document that has lasted nearing 300 years, they invited GOD in every meeting. It was by the grace of GOD we have the CONSTITUTION which the left has tried at every turn to destroy! It wasn’t an accident that in Butler, Penn President Trump survived the attempt on his life! President Trump has a mission to fulfill, like him or not, he LOVES this Country! He wants to bring this Country back to the greatness it once enjoyed. But he knows he can not do it alone and that GOD alone saved him that day in Butler, PA just as he guided General Washington during the revolutionary war!
We, in real time, have seen the lengths to which the left will go to try and stay in power! Thanks to President Trump and Elon Musk we have seen just where our tax money has been going. At no time in my time on earth has it even been attempted to find out where all our money has and is going! THANK GOD for President Trump!
A lot of talk and analysis about Biden and his policies. There needs to be more emphasis on what has put America in its horrible position! My two cents,
I came from a generation that did NOT grow up with a TV or hung onto every word on the 6 o’clock news. Today’s population all have TV Personalities! They grew up in front of a TV. It destroyed their gut instinct! Whatever the talking head says that day is all that is important, and in 24 hours, the talking heads can change the country’s mood with any emotion they want. With Trump trying to “RESTORE” American values and our Constitutional Republic, it is starting to look like the Globalists and Bureaucratic Elite have infiltrated the Judicial System so profoundly that we are living in a “police state” and we are too numb to realize it! No matter how hard Trump works to implement his policies, he is the President of a Hybrid Marxist Government with codified socialist economic policies using a state-run media that uses mainstream media to keep the masses dumbed down. While I pray President Trump can restore our Constitutional Republic, he must overcome the SCOTUS, the Court, and embedded Judges working in concert with very liberal County/District Attorneys and Sanctuary strongholds across the United States. A Judge has now ordered that President Trump cannot deport ANY illegal immigrant without “Due Process”! Think about that. Over eight billion people in the world, and all they must do is step one foot over our border, and they have ALL THE SAME RIGHTS we do! We must demand a moral America rooted in the Ten Commandments and the Moral Guidance in the Holy Bible. Remember, the Constitution says, “Freedom of Religion”, not Freedom FROM Religion! The entire population needs to be re-educated to instill the moral compass we ALL once had! Sadly, after my generation, TV Personalities must be taught that “human life is precious”! IMO, this is the most important task we all face, and Paul Gleiser has the best forum to expand on it! President Trump had best take this task on, also!
Agree with everything you laid out. Judges are supposed to interpret the law, not make it or even practice a theory. Time for the Trump Administration to pull a Biden and ignore the courts and deport as many illegals as possible come hell or high water. THE one aspect that burns me up to no end is as you stated: Any foreigner can set foot on American soil and get more rights and privileges than us, the born and raised American citizen. This MUST stop!!!! Screw the judges that say otherwise; they ARE the problem and not the solution. This is all Biden Administration and the other puppet masters doing; they set the precedent of an upside down society.