OPINION:
A year into office, President Joe Biden has shown us that what he lacks in leadership, he makes up for in incompetence. This is the result of voters so committed to voting against Donald Trump, that they supported a candidate who, on a good day, is ill-informed, ill-prepared, ill-motivated to lead the nation. By just about every conceivable measure, the President lacks the capacity and competence to shepherd America through the challenges we face as a nation in these troubled times. Consider them for a moment.
Our borders are so porous that any person from anywhere can cross unimpeded into America in contravention of all of our laws and for whatever reason, they conjure up. Since March of this year, 160,000 illegal aliens—many unvaccinated—have been released into our country, since Joe Biden knowingly flung open the gates, stopped construction of a wall, and totally ignored our immigration laws. At this point, there is utterly no prospect that any of those who have entered illegally will be held to account.
Indeed, the president—when pressed by a Fox News reporter—confessed that his administration is considering paying illegal aliens hundreds of thousands of dollars in reparations for illegally entering the nation! Think about it. If a soldier dies on a distant battlefield defending America, his or her family received $450,000. The very idea of making payments to illegal aliens because they encountered difficulty in illegally entering our country is akin to paying a bank robber interest on the money he stole. Beyond the idiocy of such a plan, it should enrage any American who holds dear the service of those who would lay down their lives for our freedom.
Meanwhile, Americans have seen gasoline prices skyrocket in the wake of Mr. Biden’s ill-conceived energy policy that took America from being a net exporter of energy to depending on other nations around the globe for our supply of oil. As of 25 October, retail gas prices nationally averaged $3.38 per gallon. That’s a 50 percent hike that exceeds pre-pandemic levels. If you want to see what a middle-class tax hike looks like, you need to look no further than when Mr. Biden upended our energy independence in his first week in office.
And it’s getting worse. Having blown up the XL pipeline deal, which would not only have continued American dominance in the oil market but made the movement of oil across the nation safer in a pipeline versus a truck, now Biden may close a second major gas pipeline, Line 5 in Michigan. White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre publicly admitted that the Biden administration is exploring the potential impact of shutting it down amid a global energy crisis. Trusting Mr. Biden with America’s energy policy is like trusting a consortium of Russians, Chinese, and Saudis to look after American economic interests.
And of course, there’s the national debt. Neither Democrats nor Republicans have covered themselves in glory when it comes to controlling profligate spending. But the Democrats and Mr. Biden could qualify for the Nobel Prize in financial irresponsibility. When Mr. Biden came to office, our national debt was $27.8 trillion. Just 11 months later it registers at $29.9 trillion with Democrats just passing another $1.2 trillion this week and poised to pass another that will be close to $4 trillion. This is economic insanity.
Inflation is out of control, government growth is bourgeoning, and Mr. Biden’s approval numbers have plummeted to 38 percent as American’s recoil in disgust. Now his disapproval numbers top 50 percent with over 70 percent of the nation declaring we’re on the wrong track. And the results?
The gubernatorial elections in Virginia saw voters soundly reject Mr. Biden’s pick, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, and elect Governor-Elect Glenn Youngkin who—with a robust parental coalition—crushed the lurch to the left in Virginia and signaled a similar fate for Democrats nationally. Voters have simultaneously rejected the Biden agenda of incompetence. Virginians—having taken measure of “woke” policies and Mr. Biden’s ineptitude—have become politically “quickened,” giving new life to commonsense conservatism. When Glenn Youngkin successfully emphasized freedom, free enterprise, and constitutional governance he created the “quickening” movement as an answer to far-left “wokism”.
There’s an important lesson in this. First, we must advance the fortunes of candidates for public office who are competent and focused on sustaining our republic, not flaunting our laws, destroying our economy, and spending us into irredeemable debt. Second, in 2020, the far-left media influenced many voters to reject President Donald Trump for Joe Biden. In doing so they acted as pied pipers, leading voters like lemmings over a cliff into a crevasse of incompetence. Fortunately, there are the Glenn Youngkin’s of the world who are exceedingly wise and civic-minded enough to throw them a lifeline. Let’s take hold of it.
• L. Scott Lingamfelter is a retired U.S. Army Colonel and combat veteran who served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 2002 to 2018. He is the author of Desert Redleg: Artillery Warfare in the First Gulf War (University Press of Kentucky).
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