If history repeats itself, we may be forging full-steam-ahead on a Ron DeSantis routing of the Biden administration in 2024.
The Left would surely agree that there was something Kennedy- and Johnson-esque about the transformative but turbulent Obama years—including the civil unrest that capped them off.
For better or worse, there also was something Nixonian about the Trump years, if only for the level of venom he elicited from the media and his political adversaries.
As I noted previously, Nixon’s biggest fault was being over-eager to take the high road after having already committed to the low one. I’m sure his former adviser Roger Stone would agree.
Regardless, if cancel culture makes historical revisionism fair game, the Watergate scandal is long overdue for a reassessment in light of the the modern Left’s election-meddling. But I digress.
Trump’s determination to stand his ground through two impeachment attempts spared us from a Gerald Ford–Mike Pence comparison. Instead, we leapfrogged straight into reliving the Carter years.
Biden isn’t the next FDR he’s the next Jimmy Carter.
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 7, 2021
And boy, did we ever.
Needless to say, the national malaise is peaking, yet again, amid the barrage of ineptitude and unforced errors—and the apparent callousness with which the highly scripted and staged Biden White House, aided by a complicit, propagandist media, is brushing it off.
NICE GUY, BAD LEADER
To be certain, the 96-year-old Carter, whom I had the honor of meeting, is a genuinely decent person—unlike the thoroughly depraved Biden, who nonetheless maintains the superficial semblance of a kind-eyed, empathetic grandpa.
Carter also has the excuse of having largely been an outsider to the inner-workings of the Swamp. That fresh, earnest perspective initially drove the one-time Georgia peanut-farmer’s appeal as the country sought post-Watergate healing and reunification.
However, things quickly went downhill from there.
Much like Carter’s ascent, Biden’s was helped considerably by the unprecedented circumstances of the prior presidential term.
Yet, it’s likewise becoming clear that Biden, too, has managed to clutch defeat from the jaws of victory.
The current occupant’s reckless spending sprees—totaling more than $6 trillion within 100 days (assuming the proposals all pass via the Democrat Senate’s backdoor budgetary reconciliation)—have assured the onset of overwhelming inflation, which naturally flows from incurring a massive amount of debt and minting new money to pay for it.
Biden’s party also was the architect of the highly foreseeable jobs crisis after having insisted on paying people not to work for the past year and enabling them not to be held personally accountable for their actions in many other ways—unless of course, they happened to be touring the US Capitol on Jan. 6.
Growing instability in the Middle East—including Palestinian terrorists’ overnight launch of more than a thousand rockets into Israel this week—echoes the circumstances that led to the 1978 fundamentalist overthrow of the Iranian government, despite the Trump administration’s remarkable brokering of several historic peace accords in the region.
That brings us to the fuel shortage.
Biden and his climate czar, John Kerry, began their term with the full intention of ending America’s energy independence and driving up the cost of fossil fuels as a deterrent—if not eliminating them entirely.
Kerry even doubled down by investing in the very same oil companies that he hoped to handicap with excessive and costly regulations, knowing that they would simply jack up their prices to compensate.
The pain is now impossible to ignore as the consumer-price index skyrockets due to the rising production-end costs of operating equipment and transporting goods.
Fortunately, leftist media hacks have issued a multitude of convoluted, condescending explainers about why to blame the supply chain (i.e. Trump) and not Biden’s failed policies.
But with no gas left to power the fake-news gaslighting, democracy will die in literal darkness soon enough.
KITCHEN-TABLE TERRORISM
The hacking of the Colonial Pipeline by an Eastern European cyber-terrorist group, DarkSide, may or may not directly implicate Biden (let’s not forget that American energy shortages stand to benefit Balkans-based suppliers like Burisma).
Barring any evidence to that effect, though, we’ll give Biden the benefit of the doubt that it was a fluke and that he should be held no more responsible for the fuel shortage than, say, Trump was for the coronavirus.
Nonetheless, Biden’s kneejerk response to a pipeline shutdown that has resulted in massive gas-hoarding throughout the Southeast was to pretend that it wasn’t his problem.
Much as he punted on his self-inflicted immigration crisis, the president this week dispatched his surrogates (or handlers, as it were) to characterize the ransom situation as a mere private matter between the gas distributor and its hostage-takers.
Whatever happens, one can bet that the current crisis offers a sneak preview of the unintended—and intended—consequences of the current administration’s hostile energy policy.
The same environmental radicals who sought a silver lining in the ravaging effects of the pandemic last year will surely celebrate the shutdown of travel in states that mostly vote red.
But if there is one cardinal rule of politics, it is don’t mess with kitchen-table issues such as gas and food costs.
The real silver lining in the present crisis is the political catastrophe it poses for Democrats, whose vast overreach had already stoked talk of a major midterm reckoning.
A FULL-CIRCLE REVOLUTION
Oftentimes in politics, there is a certain degree of separation from abstract policy discussions. Tax hikes and foreign wars might elicit strong opinions, but for most people, the mundane, day-to-day grind continues.
This time, however, Biden personally impacted my vacation plans.
My now-canceled trip, to commemorate the occasion of my 40th birthday next week, dates not only me but also the last time the country recovered from such a bleak outlook.
Having been born four months into the Reagan administration, I, like roughly 54% of the US population, have been fortunate enough—despite all the other hardships we have weathered since then—never to have endured such listless and directionless leadership.
Not surprisingly, the powers that be within the leftist echo-chamber are opting to gloss over the Carter administration’s shortcomings, instead touting his post-presidency humanitarian record and hoping that those old enough to remember the Carter era are old enough to have forgotten it.
Indeed, Carter’s commitment to philanthropic public service through Habitat for Humanity and various diplomatic missions is laudable.
Unlike the preemptive Nobel Peace Prize dubiously bestowed upon Barack Obama in 2009, Carter’s 2002 lifetime-achievement award was well-earned.
But when it comes to presidential legacies, the proof’s in the pudding.
The Reagan Renaissance speaks for itself—a 1980 landslide in which the incumbent president garnered only 49 electoral votes to Reagan’s 489. Carter, tellingly, carried only six states to Reagan’s 44.
It’s easy now to notice the parallels between Reagan—a telegenic governor of a large state who had a knack for out-parrying partisan attacks—and Florida Gov. DeSantis.
The latter’s close ties to Trump don’t hurt either when it comes to garnering loyalty within the GOP base.
That said, there are ample others who could also make a case for being the rightful inheritors of the Reagan mantle.
With every indication that America is ready for another dawn to break, Biden’s gas crunch may be the best birthday gift I could wish for—provided the country can see fit to survive the long night ahead.
Follow Ben Sellers on Parler at https://parler.com/profile/Sellers.
