How the 2020 Elections Led To a Disastrous 2021, and How It Will Affect the 2022 Elections

   

   When Joe Biden won the election in 2020, the political divisions in the nation didn't end. In fact, the electoral outcome almost couldn't be more divisive. After the dust settled, the Republicans were a four seat minority in the House, and the Senate was tied fifty - fifty, with VP Harris breaking the tie for the Democrats. Because the House Republican candidates got significantly more votes than Pres. Trump got, and other often tenuous reasons, he declared the election fraudulent. Because of his claims of fraud, he and his surrogates discouraged Republican turnout in the two Georgia runoff Senate races, losing them both to weak Democrat candidates. This was the political atmosphere leading into the new year of 2021.

   Pres. Trump is a firebrand, not a politician. His governing style was reckless, but he had a talent for appointing people who knew how to accomplish his policy goals, most of the time. Before COVID struck, his policies were actually very successful, even as the left wing political establishment used it's unbridled power to destroy his presidency. However, his efforts to fight back ended up being fodder for his opponents to use on his way out of office.

   Joe Biden, in his over fifty years as an elected official, has never had any big accomplishments. He was never a "leader" in any sense, as a senator. He had a list of flaws and gaffes long enough to keep him off of anyone's presidential radar, until 2020. That year, he was the perfect candidate. He could be marketed to moderate Dems and independent voters as someone who was moderate, and never made waves in the status quo, unlike Pres. Trump. The pandemic restrictions were cleverly used to hide his mental degradation from the public, even as Trump's sanity was constantly questioned.

   The kicker is that all the while, the far left wing of the party was being told that Biden would be a pawn for them. This was the grand bargain, when James Clyburn had the party rally around Biden in South Carolina. Sure, they seemed to forsake all of the left wingers for Joe, but now it's apparent why. They didn't need to elect Bernie Sanders, or Elizabeth Warren to enact their agenda. Joe Biden was the perfect vessel, a "Trojan Horse" of sorts, that the moderates and independents would vote for. Suckers!

   Even before Biden assumed office, Pres. Trump's last month in office gave the Democrats some parting gifts. The aforementioned Georgia Senate races, and the Jan. 6th rally, which coincided with a riotous invasion of the Capitol building. The script was too good to pass up: Democrats could paint all Trump supporters, indeed all Republicans as domestic terrorists. The fencing around the Capitol, and National Guard stationed there for months, along with the military "stand down" to find "extremist/white supremacists" was all political theater. It was key to their legislative strategy.

   If you want to know why the Biden administration and congressional Democrats tried to govern as if they had the majorities of FDR or LBJ, look no further than they thought that they could cow Republicans with charges of being "against democracy," if they opposed any policy proposed by the Democrats. In fact, the Biden administration took this concept even farther. His Attorney General, Merrick Garland, used the Department of Justice as a wide-ranging and brazen political weapon against states and individuals that attempted to exercise their rights under the Constitution. States that passed voting integrity laws, often still more liberal than what existed before the "pandemic emergency" measures of 2020 were labeled as "Jim Crow on steroids," as if that was possible. Parents who finally got to see what their children were being taught, thanks to the "zoom" school lessons, spoke out about racial and political indoctrination, only to be labelled as potential "domestic terrorists" by Garland and Biden.

   That, my friends, was at the heart of the overreach. The Democrat leadership gave the farthest left fringe the wheel of the ship of state. These are people that don't accept half-measures, or compromise. They want to destroy the capitalist system, even though they have no idea what to replace it with. An article I read recently compared it to what happened to the GOP, when they tried to repeal Obamacare in 2017. They all wanted it gone, but they couldn't agree on how or what to replace it with, so it's still there. Welcome to governing, instead of opposing everything.

   In 2021, Pres. Biden started out his term by overturning every policy that Pres. Trump enacted, or at least all of the successful ones. The most glaring example is at the southern border, which is probably the biggest ongoing crisis that is still unacknowledged by either the administration, or most of the media. His first day in office, he cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline, followed by cancelling all licenses to drill for oil on government land. That was another glaring example of doing the opposite of something that was working, and that we are still paying for. There are many other examples, but I think we all know them. It was almost funny that he blamed the Afghanistan withdrawal disaster on it being a Trump policy that he couldn't change, after he changed the terms and timing of that policy. 

   That is just what the Biden administration has done alone. Let's look at what Speaker Pelosi's House and Majority Leader Schumer's Senate have done, in conjunction with the Biden White House, in 2021. They passed the American Rescue Plan Act ($1.9T) in March. They also passed the Infrastructure and Jobs Act ($1.2T) in November. These are actually two great achievements, if you graded them by spending alone ($3.1Trillion). However, the far left wing Dems are still in rebellion, because they couldn't pass their big wish list, known as the Build Back Better act, which they tried to say would cost NOTHING! (The actual price tag would be around $5 Trillion)

   As 2021 comes to a close, things look dire for Pres. Biden and the Democrats. He just said "Let's Go Brandon, I agree with that" live, in response to a caller poking fun at him. Congressional Democrats have put themselves out on a limb to support the furthest left wing law ever proposed, and it failed because one Democrat said "The Emperor Has No Clothes," and now they're all naked, and afraid. Majority Leader Schumer must be terrified that AOC will primary him, while moderate Dems who have been thrown under the bus are probably wishing some far left firebrand would take their place, losing to a Republican in '22. There's still a lot of time until November, but it looks as if the far left is not going to acquiesce to political common sense.

   There are a few other factors and issues that have had an impact on the current political situation, but don't directly involve national leaders. Crime, policing, the BLM movement, CRT and "antiracism', and the national political money spent to elect far left "progressive" prosecutors who don't enforce the law. During the 2020 riots by BLM and Antifa, after the murder of George Floyd, Pres. Trump offered to send in National Guard troops to quell the violence. He was rebuffed as being "authoritarian," and asserting federal power over local jurisdictions. What went unnoticed by many in the media was that these riots occurred while almost all local governments had ordered all non-essential workers and people to stay at home. Pres. Trump was trying to help enforce local laws.

   When it was brought up, officials said that these "protests" were "justified expressions" that overrode pandemic safety concerns. Well, it didn't take too long for the criminals to take advantage of that. Serial looting became a regular thing, and still is. The emptying of the jails in the name of stopping COVID continues, even as the latest variant is the weakest. These are local issues, that have become national because of one commonality: they are happening in cities and localities controlled by Democrat majorities, often for decades. This is why the Biden administration is flailing at doing something about it. Regardless of their inability to impact local crime, their political party is behind the increase.

   I doubt Pres. Biden will call George Soros into the White House for a lecture on stopping his progressive prosecutors, so he's stuck with all the baggage that the far left is hanging on him. It makes one wonder why he picked up so many of their other bags voluntarily, after making his "grand bargain" in South Carolina. He could have just sold the far left a dream after the primaries, and governed as a centrist after winning the election. This is another reason I just don't think that he's aware of what's going on.

   2022 is here, and the table is set for the Republicans. The big question is will Donald Trump do that thing he does so effortlessly, and spoil the whole dinner? I didn't think it was possible that the GOP could lose both of Georgia's Senate races, but it happened. Trump's lawyers were out there, telling Republicans not to vote. I quit smoking in September, and every time I get the urge to light one up, I imagine I'm putting a loaded gun in my mouth. This is almost how I feel about Trump, politically. Yes, I voted for him, and supported 90% of his policies as president. He is a firebrand, not a politician, as I said above, and not a great leader, by most measures. I think his influence is waning, but it still may throw a wrench into some elections next year for the GOP. I'm not too worried, though, because Biden, Pelosi and Schumer are driving the nation off of a leftward cliff that is actually worse than where the media and Democrats said we were when Trump was president. That much is apparent to everyone that is not a die-hard, far left Democrat.