How Did Democrats Become So Out of Touch With the American People? | Opinion
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OpinionDemocratsDemocratic PartyEnergyClimate Change
The president of the United States, equal parts senescent and feckless, garners record-shattering low approval ratings seemingly each week. This week, a new Quinnipiac University survey found that a paltry 31% of Americans approve of the way Joe Biden is handling his job. Among political independents, that number is, somehow, considerably lower: 23% approval, compared with 67% disapproval. Overall, nearly three-quarters of Americans hope that Biden does not seek a second term in office.
It is not difficult to figure out why. The republic is not in good shape. Unforced foreign policy blunders, such as the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, embarrass America on the world stage. Our homeland territorial integrity has never been more undermined, as a wide-open southern border permits an unprecedented flow of smugglers, traffickers, and other miscreants. Homicide and other violent crime, which skyrocketed in the 2020 "summer of love" riots, continue to spike; the New York City subway is unsafe, and Chicago is a veritable war zone. Mobocracy runs amok; a sitting Supreme Court justice just faced a near-assassination attempt. Inflation, now over 9% and smacking those lower on the economic ladder, is at a four-decade high; the national average for gasoline is well over $4 per gallon.
Yet, amidst these remarkable challenges confronting the American people, the Biden administration and Democratic Party elites would rather focus on the overarching imperatives of climate change hysteria, abortion up until birth, and a faraway war in Eastern Europe that has become utterly disconnected from the American national interest. This raises the obvious, but nonetheless crucial, question: How, exactly, did modern Democrats become this out of touch with the American people?
Energy policy is perhaps the best example. Most lower- and middle-income Americans drive cars or trucks as part of their daily commutes; they cannot resort to urban rail, let alone the "work from home" that has become a post-COVID hallmark of the professional-managerial laptop class. Bank account-busting gasoline prices directly cut into stagnant wages, affecting blue-collar families' very ability to put food on the table.
But Biden, as recently as this month, still continues to deny new drilling permits in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. He failed on his recent Middle East trip to secure a durable commitment from Saudi Arabia, or OPEC more generally, to boost production. Worse, he openly flirts with declaring a "national emergency" on climate change, the ultimate upper-income "limousine liberal" hobbyhorse, notwithstanding the fact the U.S. only contributes about 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions and the obvious reality that draconian unilateral reductions to fossil fuel extraction and usage would destroy already-battered consumers. In a bit of loose-lipped candor, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, testifying this week before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, let slip his belief that "the more pain" Americans feel at the pump, "the more benefit" there is for electric vehicle owners.
Such astounding disdain and haughtiness from a Cabinet official, if it were to come under a Republican administration, would make headline-grabbing fodder for weeks. It would dominate the late-night shows, as Jimmy Kimmel poked fun at those nasty, "Gordon Gekko"-esque robber baron Republicans.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on climate change and clean energy at Brayton Point Power Station on July 20, 2022 in Somerset, Massachusetts.Scott Eisen/Getty Images
Democrats fail to appreciate that America is truly blessed to sit atop such an abundant wellspring of hydrocarbons. To not only ignore and fail to take advantage of that blessing, but to actively thwart it and instead celebrate "pain" by focusing on the alleged virtue of electric vehicle ownership, is downright evil. (Incidentally, the average electric car costs 82% of the median American household income.)
But energy policy, though a particularly acute example, is in this respect hardly unique. Current Democratic priorities have never been so far removed from the sensibilities of the median American citizen.
As the contentious issue of abortion returns to the states following the landmarkDobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organizationdecision, congressional Democrats rush to statutorily codify national abortion access right up until birth. George Soros-funded "progressive prosecutors," such as George Gascon in Los Angeles and Alvin Bragg in Manhattan, continue to fan the flames of unrest and anarchy, undeterred by last month's stunning recall of like-minded San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin. The fight for Ukraine, a deeply corrupt country whose security establishment just endured Stalin-esque "treason purges," is held up as the defining struggle for Western liberal democracy. Rewriting Title IX to encompass transgenderism—by executive fiat, no less—may imperil women's locker rooms and destroy women's sports, but is foisted upon us by the neoliberal establishment as "progress," tout court.
The priorities of the modern Democratic Party are comically out of touch with those of the American people, who simply want safe communities, stable prices, secure borders, and to be left alone by the COVID-era biomedical security state. Democrats don't talk about any of that, at best—and they outright impede those prerogatives, at worst. The transformation of the Democratic Party from a one-time working man's labor party into today's identity politics-driven woke monstrosity did not transpire overnight, but that transformation is now complete. And the result is unseemly.
The dog that is the Democratic Party is manipulated by a multifaceted tail that is a grotesque fusion of criminal adulation, Gaia worship, Malthusian radicalism, eugenicist lust, and a gender ideology downstream of the worst excesses of American academia. Maybe that will play well for certain Upper West Side and West Hollywood voting precincts this November, but it won't play very well in real America.
Josh Hammer is Newsweek opinion editor, host of "The Josh Hammer Show," a syndicated columnist and a research fellow with the Edmund Burke Foundation. Twitter: @josh_hammer.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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This is unabashed hysteria. It plays to the mindset of ignorant MAGAS who dont mind having the most unethical leader of all time.
The country is in trouble, but not because of inflation or "summer of love" riots.
You COULD call it January 7.
Except when it is used as campaign fodder no one gives a shit about this. America would have been embarrassed no matter how we pulled out.
Never before in history have humans used so much energy to accomplish so little. And liberals are leading that effort.
Oil, natural gas, and coal are not causing climate change. These fossil fuels have existed for millions of years. They are natural resources because they occur naturally.
The problem is caused by human use of fossil fuels. How and why fossil fuels are used by humans really is the central issue. And ignoring the human activities that require energy deliberately avoid addressing the central issue. It's not the fault of natural resources that humans are so very stupid.
Liberals have adopted a political belief that by switching sources of energy humans can continue to use energy stupidly. Humans are accomplishing very little of importance with energy now. Switching to alternative sources won't change that. Humans will only continue to accomplish little of importance with alternative energy. Liberals are demanding that we invest enormous amounts of public resources (including natural resources) to accomplish little of importance. And liberals are pursuing that objective because they want to deliberately avoid looking at the central issue of how and why humans are using energy.
Sounds like the 'ol "guns are inanimate objects" excuse.
But guns are inanimate objects. That's cold hard reality. Why do liberals deliberately ignore that cold hard reality?
How much of the energy consumed by humans is being used to house, feed, and clothe humans? But we're being expected to put necessary needs for energy at risk to protect unessential uses of energy. Why is that 'smart'?
There really is sufficient fossil fuels available to sustain the human population for many, many centuries. But that's not how and why humans are consuming fossil fuels.
The political climate advocacy by the Biden administration really is about protecting and encouraging human stupidity. The Biden administration has adopted a policy that dollars are more important than the environment. Dollars are so very important that it's acceptable to place our ability to sustain the human population at risk.
Have you considered that your hot air may be a contributor to global warming? And what does that hot air accomplish?
Have you ever considered Tessy is spot on about everything?
dammit that made me spew coffee on the screen ....
Please, you are too smart to believe that. It nice of you to try protect her since her typical bombast is indefensible.
I've considered it. But that would require breaking the rational laws of physics.
Oh, I realize my sense is too common to fit into groupthink political theories. Living in reality does tend to force sense into being more common.
I'll confess to having three crushes, 2Amy's and a Tessylo. Amy Poehler, Amy Schumer and you are hilarious, each are funny in their own, unique way.
So prove him wrong.
Your bullshit has gotten old, to the point where the far leftists on here don't give a shit about what you say.
OH, yea...
Stop PNing me. I already told you three times NO!!
That's fucking hilarious.
She has been spot WRONG about everything.
Josh Hammer is Newsweek opinion editor, host of "The Josh Hammer Show," a syndicated columnist and a research fellow with the Edmund Burke Foundation.