“The sun will rise tomorrow.” “This too shall pass.” “Live to fight another day.” … “No one will be talking about this next week.”
The former three sayings are commonly employed when things are uneven in life, be it an individual going through a rough stretch or a political party -- or candidate -- having endured a crushing loss, or a country sustaining through a trying crisis at home or abroad. There’s no substitute for perspective in every situation, the lessons of history and experience offering their own kind of sedative for those overly excited or distraught in the moment.
The fourth saying is primarily reserved for tabloid celebrities, public figures, athletes and/or politicians, American gymnastics sensation Simone Biles being one example. Biles withdrew from the Olympic women’s team competition the other day and the American squad ended up losing out to the Russians for the gold medal. It was a stunner for folks who’d expected Biles to perform better, since she’s dominated her sport for so long. (Is she just a wuss?) But will anyone still be talking about this after the disbelief wears off?
Likewise, the recent back-and-forth hubbub over “infrastructure” will disappear from the headlines as soon as the matter is settled with a yea or nay vote on Capitol Hill. The shiny object pursuing media will shift to something more attention-grabbing and the placid and complacent American public will turn its attention elsewhere.
Optimism and pessimism are different sides of the same coin, a glimpse into the future intricately tied to the present and past. Public opinion sways back and forth like a Kansas wheatfield in the summer breeze, but there are definite signs that Americans are starting to see their country’s outlook with a glass half-empty cynicism. This, of course, signifies bad news for president Joe Biden and the Democrat majorities in Congress.
“The majority of Americans say they feel pessimistic about the country’s future over the next 12 months, according to a new poll. In the ABC News/Ipsos poll, 55% of respondents held a negative view of the direction of the country — a nearly 20 percentage point increase since May. About 45% of respondents said they are optimistic about the future.
“When asked the same question in May, 36% of Americans were pessimistic and 64% were optimistic.
“The pessimism spans ideological lines as Americans of all stripes are growing more critical of President Biden. ‘The decline in optimism has occurred across the board among Democrats, Republicans and independents,’ wrote ABC’s Quinn Scanlan. ‘Optimism is down about 20 points among Democrats and Republicans and down 26 points among independents.’”
Whereas Simone Biles’s removing herself from one of the most important competitions of her life was hard to fathom, the notion of Americans seeing Joe Biden as a failing president was imminently predictable. Like with most (if not all) Democrat campaigns, Biden’s 2020 venture was constructed on a sandy, meritless foundation (translation: lies) and he won the party nomination only because the grassroots and the establishment couldn’t find anyone they liked better.
Biden’s poll numbers aren’t horrible, yet it’s difficult to see how the ol’ back slappin’, hair sniffin’, shoulders massagin’, nude swimmin’, Air Force One stairs stumblin’, race baitin’, words challenged political buffoon from Delaware will come back from this. There is nothing but storm clouds on the issue horizon for Joe and his fellow Democrats, and they’re plain running out of sunnier things to talk about on a daily basis.
The United States Women’s gymnastics team must have a deep bench of world-class athletes to rely on when someone like Biles underperforms. But who will pick up the slack for Democrats when Biden can’t turn himself around and get his administration pointed in the right direction? Pessimism abounds among the American people because they see societal-wide catastrophes and not much hope of combatting them.
That’s the fallacy of putting too much emphasis on government in the first place, that certain things can be “fixed” at all. The Constitution states that the federal government can raise and maintain a military and conduct trade negotiations with foreign nations, but the national authority isn’t prepared to deal with random anomalies like COVID-19 and so-called “climate change.” Freedom and local action are the best and only ways to treat these phenomena.
Face it, there are a lot of reasons to believe it won’t get better under senile Joe.
First is the man himself. Think back to a couple years ago when the Democrat presidential field began to take shape. The party powers-that-be hated Donald Trump so intensely that they were eager to put all their eggs in the basket of whomever they surmised could defeat Trump in the 2020 election. Joe Biden wasn’t seen as the next JFK -- or even the next Obama -- but his folksy demeanor lent them confidence that he at least was a viable politician.
Conservatives looked at Biden and saw an ethics challenged, plagiarizing moron with a tendency to gaffe. Democrats saw a ticket to a Trump-free world. Therein lies the problem. They got their ultimate wish but now they’re stuck with the means in which it was obtained.
Two, the COVID winds that propelled Democrats to an election win have reversed and are now blowing in the opposite direction. To their chagrin, the vaccine that Trump’s people developed hasn’t served to completely eradicate the virus. For those who’ve accepted the shots, they’re doing well, though the sickness persists. Golfer John Rahm withdrew from the Olympics because he tested positive for the second time in two months last week.
The mysterious Chinese Communist Party (CCP, or Wuhan, if you prefer) virus has endured, though there still isn’t persuasive evidence that it’s a problem for the general population outside of the already vulnerable and non-vaccinated. Those who are vaccinated shouldn’t worry. I am and I don’t. Yet mask mandates are reappearing. Imagine telling people they’re free and the coast is clear only to be ordered to drag the face thongs out of storage and start wearing them again.
Three, the economy is clearly sliding. It appears as though all the federal money from senile Joe’s treasury isn’t bringing about the sense of bliss that he claimed it would. There are millions still unemployed from COVID lockdowns but also millions of unfilled job openings. Supply shortages are everywhere, prices are way up at the pump, on supermarket shelves and consumer box stores. Does anyone speculate that prices will go down again at some point?
Sure, a roller coaster car will roll back uphill, too.
Anecdotal evidence is all around us. There are a number of houses under construction in my neighborhood, but some of them have been sitting idle for weeks because of a lack of materials -- and labor to do the work. Liberals would rather pay able-bodied men and women not to work and tolerate illegal immigration than reverse bad policy that was ill thought-through to begin with and now makes absolutely zero sense. With everything so screwed up, why should Americans be optimistic?
Lastly, liberty-loving Americans aren’t hopeful for the future because the government can’t be trusted any longer. While everyone was appalled by the images of rioting on January 6, the subsequent treatment of many of the nonviolent people who took part in the melee has brought its own kind of revulsion. The true perpetrators on that day should face their due justice, but many, many, innocent bystanders are being held on little more than trespassing charges. Their rights denied, their lives destroyed… Is this what America elected Joe Biden to do?
Who trusts federal law enforcement anymore? It was five years ago that the Obama-led Justice Department initiated the bogus Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the Trump campaign, thus opening Pandora’s Box and unleashing the evils of corruption on our country. Will the Box ever be shut again? Definitely not with Joe Biden in the White House and Nancy Pelosi and “Chucky” Schumer haunting the halls of Capitol Hill, spreading innuendo and half-truths and conducting witch hunts. The January 6 commission is the partisan joke we figured it would be.
For those in need of optimism, remember that former president Donald Trump has emerged from a months-long self-imposed sequester and is speaking out on the relevant issues of today, including endorsing candidates in Republican primaries and calling out turncoat RINO media-craving opportunists like Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. The Biden agenda is largely stalled in Congress and time’s running out for Washington’s liberals to permanently alter the Land of the Free.
There’s not much in sight these days to be happy about on the political front, and the malaise is reflected in the poll that showed a majority of Americans are pessimistic about the future. Life goes in cycles, but one senses that the discontented feelings will persist as long as government is run by dunces, fools and placeholder politicians.
January 6 Commission
poll on pessimism
optimism
Nancy Pelosi
Chuck Schumer
Donald Trump
Joe Biden administration
COVID mask mandates
inflation
2022 GOP primaries
2022 election