OPINION:
Make way for the czars. A Joe Biden White House, as media report is in the works, will bring more czars, more issuance of regulation, more Barack Obama-like pen and phone governance than any kind of duly passed laws and order.
And with the coronavirus as a backdrop, 2021 looms as a time of tyranny at the wheel — the Constitution in the back seat.
“The regulatory agenda [of a Biden administration] is going to be critical — and that has to be an agenda that is aggressive and swift enough to meet the moment,” Amit Narang, a regulatory policy wonk with the left-leaning Public Citizen, told The Hill.
You don’t say.
Out with the Donald Trump “America First” guiding compass. In with the Democratic Party “government first” agenda.
“Biden campaign mulls possible ’climate czar’ position,” Politico reported back in October.
“Biden picks former EPA chief Gina McCarthy as White House climate czar,” The Washington Post reported in mid-December.
“Biden ’czars’ spark GOP fears of unchecked climate agenda,” The Washington Examiner reported in late December.
These czars are go-arounds for the normal Senate confirmation process.
They don’t have to go the constitutional route to federal power; they don’t have to undergo the regular rough-and-tumble of political scrutiny.
They just get named — then they go and issue orders. A la Democrat governors drunk with executive order powers on coronavirus.
There’s McCarthy. There’s John Kerry, the abysmally failed secretary of state under Obama — the one who couldn’t stop blaming Israel for all the Palestinian people’s problems, and who is now being considered as Biden’s special climate envoy on the, get this, National Security Council.
There are all those so-called public health specialists who’ve been whispered and discussed and even named as members of the Biden White House task force on the coronavirus. And no doubt, there are the many more to come — the many more czars and special envoys and specially created slots that could come, that would come, if Georgia’s Senate races result in Republican wins, over Democrats.
By hook or by crook.
By executive order or by regulation.
If Biden can’t pass his far-left agenda the law-making way — which he won’t, if Republicans hang on to the majority in the Senate — then he’ll surely use regulatory clamp-downs and czar-issued orders to ram it into American politics and policy.
“The problem with having these powerful White House czars,” said Myron Ebell, a climate policy expert at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in The Washington Examiner, “is they’re not very accountable to Congress.”
Nor to the people.
Nor to the voters.
Nor to the very American citizens they ultimately control and regulate and rule.
So what’s a freedom-loving patriot to do? Who knows any more. The Constitution today means whatever those in power choose for it to mean. But here’s one sure solution to stop the tyranny: Quit voting Democrat. A vote for Democrat — for today’s batch of Democrats — is a vote for tyranny, a vote for socialism, a vote for collectivism and an end of individualism.
And if that sounds hyperbolic, wait a bit. Team Biden’s first 100 days will put an end to any doubt.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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