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Home » What’s been happening in this country and the world under Biden reminds us that the quality of American leadership is vital, both for good and for ill

What’s been happening in this country and the world under Biden reminds us that the quality of American leadership is vital, both for good and for ill

The New Neo Posted on by

How dangerous has the Biden administration been? Very. I’d be hard-pressed to decide which of his policies have been most damaging, there are so many from which to choose – and they are interlocking and synergistic.

American leadership matters. It really really matters, and not just in this country. And yet I fear that many people will not connect the dots and vote overwhelmingly against him in November of 2024 – at least overwhelmingly enough to counter whatever fraud and/or “rigging” might go on.

And even if the ship of state is righted as a result of that election, incalculable damage has been done. I hope it can be fixed without too much suffering.

Comments

What’s been happening in this country and the world under Biden reminds us that the quality of American leadership is vital, both for good and for ill — 42 Comments

  1. I have been wondering if the people running Biden are weakening the US to prepare for a Chinese takeover. Obama is hard to figure as he seems enthralled by the Muslim Brotherhood which is unlikely to interest China. Either way, we are ruled by people who do not have our good interests in mind.

    No one is so stupid as to believe that these people have our best interests in mind.

  2. My view is the Deep State and Marxists are determined to run the country to equal the leveling field.
    Still think selling out to the Chinese pay masters is top, arming the Taliban 2nd.

  3. “I hope it can be fixed . . .”

    It’s not a certainty that there are enough lampposts to do the job.

  7. More and more it seems that we are done as a Great Country (No, I am not channeling Trump). The Rot is too deep in the educational system. It has permeated into all aspects of American life. I am not one to bring up Marxism or Communism, to me they are really Red Herrings. I really don’t know what to call it.
    The world will rue the day that we collapse. China will not be a benevolent ruler.

  9. Was with a relation this weekend. Everything is great, and it’s Trump’s fault.

    Not sure reality is going to help America at the voting booth.

  10. The Western Left does not want China to take over the West. Nor do they want an Islamic takeover of the West. All three are working in a loose, temporary alliance. All three are ideologically driven.

    The left’s base consists of snowflakes. Islamists have the requisite ruthlessness but lack the industrial, technological and military prowess to ultimately prevail.

    Which leaves China, who possess an abundance of all of the above factors. However, China does not have the logistical wherewithal to militarily dominate the world. They seek regional dominance in a world that is devoid of global competitors. A world in which America cannot militarily challenge China.

    The Western Left seeks to transform America into another European Union. Equally toothless, equally hedonistic and nihilist and one dependent upon China’s industrial capacity.

  12. Related? Otherwise known as “the Joys of Democratic Party EQUITY”: Its Authoritarianism, Gross Dishonesty, INTENTIONAL Corrupting and Dismantling of Education, Skill Learning and Meritocracy, and Murder of Pride and Hope….
    (If it sounds like Communism—i.e., “Death, Slavery and the Pursuit of Power”—all masked as “Humanitarianism”, “Egality” and the “Arc of History/Way of the Future”—well then…

    Anyway, an interesting brace of articles:
    1.
    “Can A Demoralized And Lazy People Fight For Liberty?”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/can-demoralized-and-lazy-people-fight-liberty
    2.
    “Gen-Zers Meltdown Over 9-5 Jobs Amid Criticism About ‘Bidenomics’ “—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/watch-gen-zers-meltdown-about-9-5-jobs-amid-criticism-about-bidenomics

  15. A new article from City Journal by Liel Leibovitz, “American Banlieue: “We need to extinguish the fires of tribalism before they burn us all up.”

    Sample: “I’m an immigrant to this great country. I spent a handful of my most formative boyhood months crouching in a bomb shelter on the outskirts of my native Tel Aviv, watching Saddam Hussein’s Scud rockets bursting in air as American Patriot missiles intercepted them before they could wreak havoc. Seeing American soldiers fighting abroad for freedom—my freedom—moved me deeply. It inspired me, as soon as I was able, to move here, to fly a large American flag outside my apartment door, and to raise my American children to cherish this nation and its divinely inspired mandate of pursuing life, liberty, and happiness.
    The most extraordinary thing about my personal story is how ordinary it is. Bay Ridge, the charming neighborhood in the southwest corner of Brooklyn where some of the worst pro-Hamas riots erupted last week, is itself a tapestry of so many similar stories of young men and women coming to America in search of its goodness and greatness. . . . Different people, different ethnicities, different faiths, yet a shared sense of place and, more importantly, of destiny. Whatever else these immigrants believed, whatever else they carried with them from their homelands, they all had this in common: America was their home, and you don’t set your home on fire.”

    Leibovitz then tries to answer the question: What changed?

    Article archived at https://archive.ph/jyVug

  16. Mike K said: “No one is so stupid as to believe that these people have our best interests in mind.”

    I personally know numbers of people who are indeed that stupid.

    Sad but true.

  17. Wow PA+Cat, thank you for the post. I was in the middle of composing one of my own and stopped – can’t compete with yours. I’ve mentioned here before that I used to teach English as a Second Language (ESL) – for three years. I had dozens of students, and all of them were very pro-American, including those from the Middle East. In fact, there was a cadre who all hung out together from Syria. Their nickname for their home country, once they’d learned the requisite English, was “the shit hole”. Two of them were from Hama. Anyone who doesn’t get the meaning should just google “Hama massacre”. They were children when that occurred.

    They loved the joke, often told in their country, “Yankee go home! And take me with you.”

    While I of course understand the need to control illegal immigration, I will never succumb to any kind of anti-immigration faction. The ones I got to know – lots – were all far superior to the leftist natives with which we are forced to contend.

  18. No one is so stupid as to believe that these people have our best interests in mind.

    I guess Mike K. meant “no one with any sense.”

    Unfortunately, something like half the country believes that, or at least that “these people” are better than Twump and those wascally, wacist Wepublicans!

  19. Speaking of leadership, here’s a no-holds-barred takedown of “Biden” golden goofball, Jake “The-Middle-East-is-quieter-today-than-it-has-been-in-two-decades” Sullivan….

    “The George Kennan Who Wasn’t;
    “A startling string of policy failures shows the hollowness of the U.S. foreign policy establishment and its servile wunderkind, Jake Sullivan”—
    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/george-kennan-who-wasnt-jake-sullivan
    H/T Powerline blog.

    The author is not especially kind, in fact he’s scathing…but fortunately for Sullivan, does not delve into the sinister role the latter played in Russiagate. Perhaps due to a time or space constraint…(or maybe he merely reached his own personal threshold of disgust)….

  20. Mike Plaiss–

    You’re more than welcome– but Liel Leibovitz is the writer who should take a bow.

  21. More on tribalism run amok: the statue of Robert E. Lee that was taken down in Charlottesville in 2021 was melted down in secret “somewhere in the South” this week:

    “A statue of Robert E. Lee that stoked much controversy in Charlottesville, Virginia, is no longer a statue. As the Washington Post and NPR reveal, the monument to the Confederate general has been melted down. The plan now is for the resulting bronze ingots to be turned into an as-yet unspecified work of art to be displayed in the city, under the direction of the Swords Into Plowshares project. The melting was done in secret, and the Post link has video of the process.

    Neither outlet is revealing the locale of where all this took place—NPR refers only to an ‘out-of-state foundry’ and the Post dateline on the story reads ‘Somewhere in the US South.’ One reason is the volatile politics over the decision to destroy the monument.”

    Typical leftist behavior: destroy something of symbolic or historical value, but not in the open where you might be stopped. Do it in secret and then boast of your “bravery.”

    News report here: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/robert-e-lee-statue-meets-its-fate/ar-AA1iUQw4

    As for the “unspecified work of art” to be fashioned from the melted bronze, rumor has it that the replacement artwork will be a statue of George Floyd.

  22. We can’t vote our way out of this.

    We’re so lost as a nation, a culture, a civilization on so many levels and I don’t see any way back home.

  23. Whether one turns to the Old Testament or the New, there is no mention of America. There IS mention of many nations that might range from Russia to China to Spain to Libya and those in between.

    What do you make of that? An adult fairy tale? A worthless argument from silence? Or is the loss of leadership a preview of coming attractions?

  24. “As for the “unspecified work of art” to be fashioned from the melted bronze, rumor has it that the replacement artwork will be a statue of George Floyd.”
    What a perfect summary of what we’ve become, if true.

  25. I don’t see quality leadership for America anytime soon. Getting Biden and Democrats out would definately be an improvement.

    To PA+Cat’s point, Trump is an accelerant to tribalism. Frankly, he’s just created a tribe on the right to oppose the array of tribes on the left. Should he be elected again next year, which I still doubt, his policies will be better than the Biden administration because the right’s philosophical point-of-view is a lot closer to reality than that of the left – especially since the left has gone over an ideological cliff in the past decade and a half or so. (And – and one would have to try very hard to be worse than Biden.)

    But competence? Don’t count on it. A durable solution to our fiscal problems? Trump’s promise to ignore Social Security and Medicare makes that impossible. A new coalition capable of shifting American politics away from the lunatic left and towards saner and more durable policies? Dream on. That’s just not something in Trump’s skill set. He’s a bull in a china shop.

    And the there is the state of the world. The world is on fire now. What do you really think is going to happen if we add another four years of Trumpian chaos? What if, God forbid, we have to fight a major power war with Trump in the White House? I have serious doubts about whether the republic would survive, let alone win the war.

    There’s nothing good on the horizon. It’s either four more years of Biden/Harris/Newsome and the insane left or another four year interregnum of chaos and increasing tribalism, most likely followed by President Gretchen Whitmer or the like. And at some point, our fiscal situation is going to collapse, all while we teeter on the edge of a major power war.

    We certainly live in interesting times.

  26. this is where orange man bad thinking leads, Russia, Iran, even North Korea were held in check, there was some semblance of peace on the horizon, but then they stole this election, and like Pandoras box, all the horrors streamed out,

    we spent 150 billion on some pissant Caucasus thing, while failing to shore up the primary safety net for half the population, we seem to have imported some of Europe’s banlieu culture of disintegration,

  27. Trump was a blunt object it took the deliberate release of a engineered pathogen, it took a insurrection on our streets, conceived of by a terrorist (this is not metaphorical) and mark elias lawfare games, to force him from power,
    the first served as a check against any Court review or redress of their crime,

  28. So now the overnight news is that US warplanes attacked 2 sites in eastern Syria, in response to previous rocket launching that caused “minor injuries” to >20 US military folks. No doubt goaded into it by Jacqui Heinrichs’ challenging the manhood of the Biden administration in her exchange with John Kirby that sdferr referred to above.

    Gradually, then suddenly.

    I certainly hope that our response was proportionate, and that humanitarian aid corridors will be established throughout eastern Syria.

    To any and all who are crying for a cease fire, my response is:
    There was a cease fire. It ended on October 7th.

  29. subsequently we have robert malley, who orchestrated the khashoggi funeral dirge
    for his qatari and iranian allies, seed the government with fellow travellers, or active agents like bitar tatabatai, ali, to turn our security services against us

  31. Mike K said: “No one is so stupid as to believe that these people have our best interests in mind.”

    I personally know numbers of people who are indeed that stupid.

    Sad but true.

    My wife is a very intelligent, educated (not just credentialed) woman and a leader in her field.

    To this day, she believes that Andrew Cuomo meant well; he just made some mistakes.

  32. As for the “unspecified work of art” to be fashioned from the melted bronze, rumor has it that the replacement artwork will be a statue of George Floyd.

    Of course. That would be much better than taking the melted bronze and fashioning it into something or things that could be fired at Hamas.

  33. he made every single one, what are the odds,

    Robert E Lee was an honorable man, in a dishonorable cause, granted, but with the hindsight of six years, we know what this hub bub was really about,

  34. And the there is the state of the world. The world is on fire now. What do you really think is going to happen if we add another four years of Trumpian chaos? What if, God forbid, we have to fight a major power war with Trump in the White House? I have serious doubts about whether the republic would survive, let alone win the war.

    I have serious questions if this is a parody. “With Trump in the White House” we had no war ! Peace and prosperity with gas less than $2 a gallon. The Middle East was settling down. All lost since the Big Steal.

  35. I have Douglas Freeman’s biography of Lee and I have “Lee’s Lieutenants.” I will keep them safe from those who would destroy our history. Lee was a son of Virginia when that mean something. We may be returning to a situation where what state you live in may be more important than the country as a whole.

  36. I think a lot of our problems come from Biden wanting to be a global leader (or from his administration’s desire for Biden and America to play the global leader). If Biden had kept things as Trump had left them we might not be having all the problems we’re having now, but Joe wanted to play more of a role on the world stage. He thought concessions could bring Russia, Iran, the Taliban, and Hamas around to moderation. It didn’t work.

    Joe plays the leader of the united West now. If we are more united with Europe, one big reason is that NATO and the West have to deal with crises that Biden had a hand in making. Another reason is that Biden stopped talking about Europe’s low defense expenditures. To become a leader of the West is to cave in to what other Western countries want — “I am their leader, so I must follow them” — for we don’t have the strength and confidence to actually point the way. Playing the leader also means taking up relatively unimportant causes, like trans issues and net zero, to achieve the appearance of unity and determination at a time when the West is uncertain about what it wants, what it deserves, and where it is going.

    Much really constructive diplomacy happens behind the scenes. You don’t have to have everyone on stage talking about how they are united and moving forward. Sometimes you need that kind of public display, but most of the work goes on in private among adults.

  37. Mike K – What, exactly, do you think is going to happen if Trump is reelected? Is Putin going to withdraw from Ukraine? Will the Arabs suddenly abandon the Palestinians? Will Iran dismantle its nukes? Is Xi going to back down from Taiwan just because of the sheer force of Donald Trump?

    Is inflation going to drop just because Trump takes the oath of office? You might say that we have to control spending. Yes, we do. When has Donald Trump ever shown any inclination to do that, let alone the skill to shepard any significant spending reduction through congress?

    And if we do end up in a war with China, Russia, or both, do you really think that the country is going to unite behind Donald Trump? (And such a war may well begin or become inevitable before January of 2025.)

    Also remember that Trump has alienated just about every competent underling he had during his first term, down to his own daugher and son-in-law. He will not be working with the A team.

  38. When the Concerned Conservative™ hat goes on parody inevitably follows.

    The past under Trump accentuating the bad as a starting point to forecast a future under Trump which will shirley be absolutely worse.

    All while ignoring the present under Brandon which is an abomination. Or passing by a different abomination to come under Brandon or Gov. Hair Gel.

    A parody ensues when OMB breaks out.

  40. Here in MT the R party took complete control for the first time decades–that was 2020. Since then the Democrats have forced the redesign of territories such that the Republicans in the most popular area will never one again. The Dems have forced a total redesign of our election system–all technology–no in person voting and they really make you feel bad if you don’t post your ballot at least two weeks before the deadline. They have brought in 20 million dollars to lay over the rural areas “Inflation Reduction Act”. I dunno do you really think that the R party will hold on to it’s advantage in 2024? This year our liberal senator from the D party will run again–he’s been in office a very long time. The last time he ran the outsiders brought in about 6 million dollars to support his campaign. Locals raised about 1 million for his opponent. What do you think will happen this time around? In case you don’t know all of our judges are outright liberals, we even have proof that one of them ran a corrupt campaign, but still even with both houses and the governor’s office these judges run this state. AND NOW, ladies and gentlemen we have a horrendous influx of people moving in from Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, California, etc. all very liberal states. How do you think they will vote in 2024–to protect this beautiful new state they have just arrived in, or save our country?

  41. Anne:

    I certainly don’t know the answer. I have a tendency towards pessimism.

    Were the judges elected or appointed? How did the judiciary become so liberal there? As for the new arrivals, the jury is out on how they will vote, I think. In some states, at least, it seems they are voting more conservatively than one would expect.

  42. Biden is the Anti-Trump. He worked very hard to reverse every policy Trump had in place.
    Chaos followed.

    Open border. High energy prices from Biden’s war on fossil fuels. Government overspending. Ruinous inflation as a result. Incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan. Weakness towards Putin’s’ drawn out threat of invasion of Ukraine. Inexplainable diplomatic outreach to Iran. Failure to enforce sanctions against Iran’s oil sales. An emphasis on climate change reductions that have alienated and drawn the BRIC nations (Brazil/Russia/India/China) closer together, while further beggaring NATO and the U.S. Frosty relations with the Saudis and Israelis, partially suffocating the Abraham Accords. Cozying up to Venezuela for more oil. Emptying our strategic oil reserve for political purposes. Politicizing our DOJ. Indicting his main political rival. Pursuing Trump supporters and parents who protest at school board meetings as domestic terrorists. Ignoring the economic pain his policies (Bidenomics) are inflicting on U.S. citizens. Weak and inept diplomacy following Oct. 7th attack on Israel by Hamas. Weak response to Iran’s provocations in the ME.

    Those are just the most obvious dumb, inept, evil things Biden has managed to do. Yet, he and his staff think they’re doing great work because they’re reversing all those awful things that Trump did and doing more “great” things in addition.

    Some don’t think Trump would be a good choice for 2024. Well, he’s not my first choice because I’m afraid all the legal challenges place too heavy a burden on his electability. Still, if he wins the nomination, I will vote for him gladly. If he can just “drill baby, drill” it would be a huge improvement over Biden.

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