What Will the Democratic Party Destroy First: Themselves or the United States? (Part 1)

The images above of a confused President Biden are emblematic of today’s progressive Democratic Party. It is a very confused party. Other authors have noted that its primary ideology, Critical Theory, amounts to a new secular religion (See also here and here). While this new religion has nothing to do with the supernatural, it is in fact a faith that can be rebutted with empirical data. The faith of progressive Democrats is at odds with social reality. So much so, that one finds it hard to discern what the Democratic Party will destroy first: themselves or the United States of America.

Whether the national crises Democrats have created stem from their economic polices, their social culture policies, or their foreign policies, they are all destructive to the United States. They also alienate an increasing fraction of the electorate, including independents and even some Democrats. Which process will progress faster: the destruction of the United States or the Democrats’ political destruction through the alienation of the electorate?

The Economic Problems

Back in 1992 when commenting on the important issues in Bill Clinton’s run for President, James Carville famously asserted “it’s the economy stupid.” This truism appears to have been a fact at least since the beginning of the Progressive Movement in the late 19th century. A little work would almost certainly push the truth of this axiom back even earlier in time.

No matter what the political issue, answers on how to deal with it will almost always have a large economic component. Programs addressing real-life problems require the allocation of economic resources needed to support them. Should resources be allocated by government bureaucrats, or by companies and private individuals? How the country’s resources are allocated and who is to allocate them are certain to cause political conflict.

The preference of progressive Democrats, of course, is for government to be the primary agency for attacking social and economic problems. This explains their insatiable hunger for increased government control over the economy: their preferences would push the nation toward socialism. What I mean by socialism is complete government control over the economy. With this definition, there are two major forms of socialism: fascism and communism. “Democratic socialism” is a contradiction in terms. In the U.S. with private companies owning the bulk of the means of production, the form of socialism most progressive Democrats would prefer is clearly fascism. I find this fact incredibly ironic given Democrats’ constant accusation that Republicans are fascists bent on destroying democracy.

Every socialist who ever existed is led by his views to attempt violation of all the classical laws of economics: the law of supply and demand, Say’s law of markets, Menger’s law of marginal utility, and Ricardo’s law of comparative advantage. Whatever the primary goals of socialists, whether the solution of social problems or increased control over society, they are destructive to robust economic growth.

American progressives have been no exception. Their focus is firmly on the solution of social problems. They also emphasize government control over the economy. If the allocation of economic resources for social programs deprives private companies of capital needed to produce more wealth, that is an acceptable cost in the view of Democrats. In addition, progressives have never met a corporation they could not thoroughly hate. Because progressive Democrats tend to view private companies — especially corporations — as oppressors of the common people, they are not too worried if their policies hurt those companies. The denial of capital to companies through taxes, together with economic regulation to govern how companies use their capital, are regarded as necessities. Finally, Democrats do not understand the complexity of the chaotic system that is our economy. In a particular industry, each company that produces substantially the same thing faces different problems due to a variety of factors. Those factors include different locations, different local laws to observe, slight differences in product, and different availability of capital, among others. Government-imposed regulations might help some companies but hurt many others. Or those regulations could easily hurt every single one of them. Certainly, government-imposed taxes would hurt all of them. These possibilities give rise to the infamous law of unintended consequences.

Almost nothing the Biden administration has done has strengthened the U.S. economy. Most everything it has done has weakened it. Yet, the economy did surprisingly better in 2022 and the first half of 2023 than expected by most economic analysts. It was widely expected the economy would plunge into stagflation. Yet that did not happen, even though economic indicators predicted it. Why?

The values for retail sales in Q2 2023 were two orders of magnitude above the GDP. Also their annualized growth rate were two orders of magnitude above the growth rate of GDP. This can only be if a huge amount of savings accrued over the COVID pandemic had been spent.There is evidence that Americans have spent nearly all their excess savings from the pandemic. This means that retail sales must soon crater. And if retail sales collapse, so must the rest of the economy.

The Foreign Security Problems

The Biden Administration’s weakness in foreign affairs has created serious security threats This weakness is exemplified by its ill-advised and hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is further typified by its soft treatment of the People’s Republic of China as the source of COVID-19. Also, its policies toward the authoritarian regimes of Cuba and Venezuela encourage those countries to ally themselves with the autocratic regimes of Russia, China, and Iran. This alliance helps these three countries to penetrate the Americas.

The Republican Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul (R-TX) has stated,

Weakness invites aggression, so it’s no surprise the president’s weakness on the world stage has only emboldened our adversaries to become more aggressive in their rhetoric and their actions. After only one year of President Biden being in office, we have seen the complete collapse of Afghanistan and a return of the Taliban rule; Russia on the verge of war with Ukraine, in what could be the largest invasion in Europe since World War II; the rise of authoritarianism in Latin America; the failure to hold anyone accountable for the COVID-19 pandemic; and Iran’s continued build-up of its nuclear program. This is a stunning list of failures in such a short period of time and demonstrates serious flaws in the president’s foreign policy.”

House Foreign Affairs Committee Press Release, 01.19.22

The greatest ideological and military threat to the U.S. is posed by China. The depth of this threat is shown below in a 60 Minutes Australia presentation.

President Biden has repeatedly pledged to come to the defense of Taiwan if attacked by China. Such an attack appears to be a virtual certainty. If both of these statements are true, then we should be involved in an all-out shooting-war with China in the near future.

Yet, in the face of China’s threat to our existence, the Biden Administration has reduced the buying power of the Defense Department. For the coming fiscal year, they have proposed a nominal increase of $842 billion, or a 3.2% boost. However, once inflation and probable pay raises for Defense Department employees are factored in, that putative increase becomes a $5.8 billion cut. If China wanted to destroy the United States, they could have no better ally than Joseph Biden.

Yet another national security problem is all the illegal aliens streaming across our southern borders. The Biden Administration has effectively erased our borders. The ensuing, growing flood of aliens has created a number of serious problems for the U.S. The television station KUSI in San Diego, which borders Tijuana Mexico, shows the depth of the problem in the video below.

First, the financial burden of these immigrants on local and federal governments has become close to unbearable. The size of the burden is shown below in a graphic provided by Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

Second, the fentanyl smuggled into the U.S. by the Mexican cartels is killing large numbers of Americans every year. April 2021 saw a grim milestone: Fentanyl became the leading cause of death for American adults (more than 100,000 deaths) for a single year. U.S. deaths due to fentanyl have nearly quadrupled in the five years ending in May 2023. As a measure, only 2,977 people were killed in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. That infuriated Americans enough to launch a large war against Al Qaida and the Taliban. Perhaps we should launch the U.S. military against the Mexican cartels to halt their killing of our people. Done correctly, such a conflict would not become a “forever war.”

Third and finally, the illegal aliens quite often become homeless. In New York, Los Angeles, and other blue cities, many of these homeless sleep and defecate on the streets.

The comments above only begin to list the ways in which Democratic policies are destroying the United States. Also, we need to investigate how these policies affect the American electorate’s opinions about the Democratic Party. This will be done in my next post.

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