Are Conservatives Fair to Joe Biden?

Every day, conservative media outlets, blogs and message boards devote incredible amounts of column inches, pixels, and air time to criticizing President(ish) Joe Biden and his administration.

They hammer Biden relentlessly for his fiscal, spending, immigration, military, social, regulatory, labor, education, and foreign policies, plus virtually any other “policy” which failed to make this list.

Is such constant denunciation reasonable? After all, everyone is human. Mr. Biden deserves a bit of slack every now and then, right?

Stop and reflect for a moment on Grey’s Law: “Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice,” and the law’s variously-attributed corollary, “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.”

I’ll wait…

Finished…?

Malice or incompetence are lousy choices. Either way, America can – must – do better. Our futures depend upon it.

Frankly, Joe Biden and national Democrats have much to answer for.

America’s economy is shrinking. Unimaginably, the national debt has skyrocketed more than $3.5 trillion in only seventeen months. The worst inflation in more than forty years is destroying the American middle class. Food and fuel prices are spiraling upward, and an expanding housing market bubble is threatening to burst – again.

To support $3.5 trillion in new deficit spending, the Federal Reserve printed astonishing amounts of money to buy back, or monetize our own debt. All that new un-backed liquidity cheapens our currency, inflates prices for commodities, food and fuel among them, and threatens hyper-inflation, even stagflation, recession or depression.

Americans’ 401-Ks are dwindling; pension funds are underfunded; our southern border is open; welfare is expanding; record numbers of Americans receive food stamps; entitlement commitments for federally mandated Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs are unsustainable, yet the administration and Congress resist reforms.

Given the $30 trillion-plus-and-counting federal debt, the chances are multiplying that the Biden administration and congressional Democrats will destroy the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, a circumstance that would mean a dramatic drop in the standard of living and quality of life for middle-class Americans.

Nevertheless, according to national Democrats, America needs more spending – that, and no accountability for Democrats, of course.

Furthermore, on the “cultural” front, the administration encourages teaching critical race theory and allowing LGBTQ+ exposure to young children in public schools. Clearly, correct pronouns are more important than affordable energy

Indeed, the Biden administration’s current border, inflation, energy, crime and social policies are comprehensive disasters.

America is in deep trouble under Joe Biden and the Democrat-controlled Congress.

Writer Victor Davis Hanson observed, “As the nation sinks inexplicably into self-created crisis after crisis, debate rages whether President Joe Biden is incompetent, mean-spirited, or an ideologue who feels the country’s mess is his success.

“A second national discussion revolves around who actually is overseeing the current national catastrophe, given Biden’s frequent bewilderment and cognitive challenges.”

Indeed, Mr. Biden’s, his staff’s and his cabinet members’ common denominators appear to be ideological rigidity, indifference, and utter incompetence.

But we cannot rule out malice.

Candidate Joe Biden professed “uniting the nation” as his most pressing priority.

But, their malice is on view every time Biden or any national Democrat opens his or her mouth. For example, Biden characterized anyone opposing the Democrats’ voting rights bill (a measure designed to ensure that Democrats always win elections) as not only a “bigot” but a seditious “domestic enemy” of the United States.

So much for unification…

Things in America are far worse than the Democrats in government will admit – worse than the Biden Administration, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer can admit during a midterm election year. Nonetheless, the economy and the attendant supply chain and record inflation problems belong to Joe Biden and congressional Democrats.

To many, perhaps most Americans, Joe Biden is no longer a sympathetic figure.  It’s not just the awkward witlessness of his public appearances that shock people, it’s his policies.  Viewed through the lens of Grey’s Law, if Biden possesses the intellect with which his handful of remaining supporters credit him, and if there is a True North from which he takes his political bearings, a reasonable case can be made for willful malice in Biden’s policy pursuits.

In applying Grey’s choices to Joe Biden, the most persuasive case includes a combination of incompetence and malice, both of which are unacceptable in the Oval Office – and on Capitol Hill.

https://www.pottsmerc.com/2022/06/20/jerry-shenk-are-conservatives-fair-to-joe-biden/