RUTHFULLY YOURS

After a catastrophic debate and backstage power struggle, Joseph Robinette Biden told the American people that the time has come to pass the torch. And as his anointed successor would say, that time is now, in a historic concession speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Torch is apt as a metaphor for the agenda that has been pried from Biden’s grasp and passed to Kamala Harris. As carried out under two presidents over 16 years, the Democratic Party agenda has not so much transformed America as set it ablaze.

Inflation — Financial Insecurity

Massive overspending by the Biden administration unleashed inflation that is crushing the finances of working people and middle-income families. Wages have not kept pace with prices and Americans are struggling to pay for food and gas. They have taken on debt, tapped savings and retirement accounts while living precariously from paycheck to paycheck. High interest rates designed to tame inflation have wreaked further havoc on personal finances. For many, the dream of home ownership has gone up in smoke.

Violence And Crime

In 2020, blue state officials such as Gov. Tim Walz failed to stop violent protests that caused deaths, injuries and more than $2 billion in property damage across the country. Cowed police, prosecutors and judges went easy on those who attacked residents, police, businesses and municipal buildings. Then-Sen. Kamala Harris and other congressional Democrats supported the protesters. Yielding to violent protesters before a national audience of COVID shut-ins gave license to the random street violence, mobs, looting, shoplifting, vandalism and intimidation that has been normalized in America ever since that fateful summer.

Blue counties and municipalities made crime even worse by defunding police departments and handcuffing police officers in the name of reform. Democrats, activists, media and celebrities defamed police as racist brutes. Demoralized cops facing public hostility, attacks and the risk of career ruin by unfair accusations shrunk from proactive policing. Inevitably, retention and recruitment suffered to the further detriment of public safety.

Open Borders

The Biden administration’s policy of open borders has invited migrant violence and crime as criminals, gangs, cartels and human traffickers intermingle with millions of unvetted illegal aliens streaming into America. Ideological judges and prosecutors put migrants charged with crimes back on the streets by refusing to set bail, prosecute and enforce the law.

The administration dispersed an estimated 11 million migrants across the country, straining municipal finances, hospitals, police, emergency services, schools and neighborhoods. Government has prioritized spending on migrant living expenses, health care and education over Americans in need. In many parts of the country, quality of life and public safety have deteriorated badly.

Free Speech

Under COVID, freedom of speech came under assault by the four horsemen of the disinformation complex – demonize, dox, demonetize and deplatform. The Biden administration went so far as to engage federal agencies and former government officials in monitoring, censoring and suppressing speech. Prohibited thoughts and expressions are almost exclusively on the political right, creating an Orwellian climate of fear, distrust and division in American life.

Justice

Americans have been subjected to a two-tiered system of justice that favors Democrats and their allies while punishing their opponents. Under the Biden administration, the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security and other alphabet agencies have meted out unequal treatment under the law based on politics. In many places, law enforcement gives license to politically favored individuals and groups who break the law, while cracking down when counter-protesters and innocent bystanders assert their civil rights. In a shocking Third World spectacle, the Biden administration and politically motivated prosecutors indicted a former president four times and are dragging him through the courts in an election year.

Children

Teachers, schools and school boards across the country have come between parents and their children with age-inappropriate lessons and materials, ideological and racial indoctrination as well as sexual counseling without parental notification. Americans who advocate for parental rights and educational reform have been silenced, ejected from school board meetings, arrested and treated as domestic terrorists by the FBI. Over the past 15 years, the popular culture that supports the politics of the left has increasingly turned out content and programming that sexualizes children.

Women

America is in the midst of a culture war against women. Men identifying as women compete in women’s sports – muscling them out of wins, opportunities and locker rooms. In public places, men use women’s restrooms. Democrats and their allies are erasing the definition of woman. Incidents of violence, sexual assault and harassment of women by illegal migrants often go unpunished and are even excused as cultural misunderstandings.

War

President Biden emboldened America’s enemies by pulling out of Afghanistan in a chaotic evacuation that left 13 soldiers dead and abandoned U.S. civilians, allies, military hardware and the strategic Bagram airbase to our enemies. Like night follows day, Russia invaded Ukraine and Hamas launched a terror attack on Israel, embroiling the United States in wars that are bringing the world to the brink of a global conflagration. Military age men, foreign intelligence operatives and terrorists coming across America’s open border have raised official threat levels in anticipation of attacks on the homeland.

No wonder Kamala Harris wants desperately to run on what can be, unburdened by what has been. Going into the election, a record high 73% of Americans believe the country is heading in the wrong direction and the issues that concern them most burned out of control under her guiding light.

When the house is on fire, most people will not ask the arsonist to put it out.