The Democrats' extensive failures provide an opening for conservatives.
January 6, 2022
ITEM #1:
The opportunities ahead in 2022
A very Happy New Year to you, friends … 2022 is here, and we hope you’re ready.
It’s a year that promises to offer lots of political opportunities for conservatives, as the ongoing failures of the Democrats running our country have voters in an increasingly anti-status-quo mood.
We were reminded of just how widespread that failure has been by a recent column from the eminent historian Victor Davis Hanson, writing at American Greatness. Hanson surveys the wreckage left not only by year one of the Biden administration, but also by the reckless behavior of Democrats generally in recent years.
Here’s a taste …
The left’s Russian-collusion hoax: “The Russian collusion hoax will go down in history as one of the most shameful examples of Washington, D.C. mass hysteria, and of a concentrated effort to destroy an elected president, in modern American political history.”
Economic disaster: “[W]e simply will go on redistributing money, inflating the economy, and hoping that the middle classes are naïve enough to believe that their inflated paychecks outpace their greater inflationary costs that, in truth, have more than wiped out all their wage gains.”
Surging crime: “Almost every statistic related to violent crime is up. Smash-and-grab has reached tony places like Union Square in San Francisco, Walnut Creek, and Carmel by the Sea. Car-jackings are endemic. Gun sales are booming — among terrified upscale white liberals.”
COVID: “We all know the administration has little clue how to deal with COVID-19. ... Now there are more dead from COVID-19 in Biden’s tenure than during Trump’s, despite well over 60 percent of the population being fully vaxxed and 2-years’ experience in treating the virus. A 2020-Biden would demand that 2021-Biden be charged with responsibility for well over 400,000 COVID-19 deaths on his watch and thus should resign.”
The examples of bad news are many indeed. But as Hanson acknowledges, that also means there’s plenty of reason for hope for the year ahead. Democrats and their media enablers will be unable to hide this extensive record of failure, try as they might. And the American people will be primed to punish them for it come November.
ITEM #2:
But wait, there’s more
Not to be outdone, The Hill’s Joe Concha offered his own assessment of the Biden administration’s first year in power, giving the President letter grades on a range of issues, from the economy to public safety to COVID and more.
Read the whole thing for yourself, but we wanted to share this passage on a topic that Hanson didn’t really delve into in his piece, but where Concha believes Biden’s performance has been particularly poor:
“More than two million migrants entered this country illegally in 2021. Kamala Harris, who was tasked with addressing the crisis, has been missing in action and almost never speaks about it. Border officials are overwhelmed. Democratic lawmakers in border states are demanding the federal government and particularly the vice president do more to stem the never-ending tide but can't even get a response. Result: The administration is consistently polling in the 20s on immigration and the border.
“2021 grade on the border/immigration: F”
A well-earned grade if ever there was one.
ITEM #3:
Sour sixteen
The tab for the left’s politicization of public safety continues to grow, with tragic results for Americans all across the country.
A few weeks ago, we shared a story that reported a dozen cities had experienced record levels of homicides this past year, amid the push among many on the left to defund law-enforcement agencies.
As the data has continued to come in, the list of cities making the wrong kind of history has only grown.
Now, Audrey Conklin of Fox News is reporting that, “At least 16 U.S. cities have set new homicide records in 2021, according to local police departments.”
These are ugly statistics, but let’s not forget that they’re much more than statistics. They represent lives needlessly and tragically ended because of a radical, dangerous agenda that prioritizes partisan pandering over the safety of our communities and our citizens.
Remember in November.
ITEM #4:
Open and shut
As thousands of schools across the nation have begun bowing to teacher-union pressure and once again closing their doors because of COVID, the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s editors have some wise advice for officials in Nevada who may be considering doing the same.
In short: Don’t.
Noting that the virus “poses only a minuscule risk to children,” the editors reference a recent New York Times piece by David Leonhardt on the disastrous impact school shutdowns have had on our nation’s kids:
“Mr. Leonhardt documents the bleak toll that this pandemic has taken on kids and teenagers as public health officials and politicians 'decided harming children was an unavoidable side effect of COVID-19.' The list is considerable in addition to the educational woes and includes an increase in suicide attempts among adolescents, particularly girls, a spike in mental health emergencies involving children and the continued disruption or elimination of 'once normal aspects of school life' that has led to increased social isolation.”
The Review-Journal editorial concludes by posing a question: “How much damage are we willing to inflict upon a generation of kids in a futile quest for zero COVID?”
The only sane answer is: Not one ounce more.
ITEM #5:
At least one Joe is popular:
After Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat from West Virginia, effectively killed Build Back Better by announcing his opposition to the legislative monstrosity, progressives warned him — threatened him, really — that he was bound to pay a hefty political price for his lack of fealty to the party line.
So much for that.
Writing for the New York Sun, Larry Kudlow reports that since his announcement, “Senator Manchin’s job approval has gone up seven points to 59%.”
Sometimes, even in politics, you can do well by doing good.
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