By GianCarlo Canaparo | The Daily Signal
The Washington Post on March 7 published a column in which E.J. Dionne Jr. contended that President Joe Biden is “rolling back the politics of culture wars.”
If you’ve read even a fraction of Biden’s executive orders, memoranda, and proclamations, Dionne’s assertion will strike you as bizarrely divorced from reality.
If you expected Dionne, a Georgetown professor and Brookings Institution fellow, to address Biden’s unilateral actions and explain how they do not, in fact, advance the culture wars, you would be disappointed.
Dionne doesn’t mention a single one.
Wherever you see “equity,” you’ll see Lady Justice without her blindfold and a government denying the people equal treatment under the law. You’ll see “equity” a lot in President Joe Biden’s executive actions.
So, let’s go through them all and see whether Dionne’s premise holds. Is Biden, in fact, rolling back the culture wars?
Biden’s first executive order directs the entire federal government to adopt an “equity agenda” and to “embed equity principles, policies, and approaches across the Federal Government.”
Equity is a nice-sounding word, but it’s actually a masquerade for government-mandated inequality, and it’s on the frontlines of the culture wars.
Wherever you see “equity,” you’ll see Lady Justice without her blindfold and a government denying the people equal treatment under the law.
You’ll see “equity” a lot in Biden’s executive actions.
Besides requiring the entire government to commit to an “equity agenda,” Biden has further inflamed the culture wars in more than two dozen other executive actions. And we’re less than two months into his presidency.
One executive order directs all administrative agencies to apply the Supreme Court’s Bostock decision to all laws under their purview. In Bostock, the Supreme Court reinterpreted Title VII, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex, to include transgender status and sexual orientation.
Under Biden’s order, the government will apply this new definition to all federal laws and regulations.
That includes Title IX, which covers education, meaning that schools receiving federal funds will be forced, among other things, to allow biological males who “identify” as female to play on girls sports teams.
And just to make it extra clear that sex-specific sports teams and bathrooms are not permissible, Biden issued a separate order about Title IX, just in case anyone might have missed it.
Biden also has made the government’s COVID-19 response a key culture war battleground.
One executive order makes “racial and ethnic disparities” the government’s first priority in responding to COVID-19.
Another expands on that point, creating a Health Equity Task Force to address how the government can use its COVID-19 response to combat “systemic and structural racism,” calling it “a moral imperative.”
Yet another order requires the government to expand “equitable” access to COVID-19 testing.
Still another directs the Department of Labor to direct its Occupation Safety and Health Administration enforcement efforts, in the context of COVID-19, to “ensure equity.”
That order also directs the Labor Department to “place a special emphasis on communities hardest hit by the pandemic”— in other words, racial and ethnic minorities.
An order that ostensibly encourages the reopening of schools directs the Department of Education to report on COVID-19’s “disparate impacts” on racial minorities and requires that all data gathered by the Institute of Education Sciences be “disaggregated by student demographics, including race, ethnicity, disability, English-language learner status” and more.
Two more pandemic-related actions direct agencies to limit travel into the country, and to ban travel from certain specific countries while, at the same time, Biden allows illegal immigrants to stream across the southern border despite the risk of increased transmission of COVID-19.
And on the subject of the border, despite a mounting crisis, Biden issued a proclamation declaring a formal end to the emergency there.
Getting tired? We’re only halfway through Biden’s executive actions issued to date.
One executive order bemoans that the government has failed to “advance environmental justice” and directs the government to adopt a climate policy that focuses on “intergenerational equity.”
Another order blocks the Department of Commerce from asking whether respondents to the decennial census are citizens and maintains that congressional apportionment should include illegal aliens.
Yet another makes sanctuary cities eligible for federal grants. And another calls Trump’s travel ban “a moral blight” and “a stain on our national conscience,” and rescinds it without any substantive discussion of national security.
Still another directs the government—without any outreach to or input from Congress—to “fortify” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Moving on, one of Biden’s executive orders directs the military to allow transgender individuals to serve openly and allows people to change genders while in the military on the military’s dime.
Biden also issued a memorandum complaining that the federal government has “played a role” in furthering “xenophobic rhetoric” that puts Asian Americans at risk by, for example, referring to the fact that COVID-19 originated in China. Those statements, Biden asserts—without evidence—have led to hate crimes against Asian Americans.
The memo also directs the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force to “consider issuing guidance describing best practices for advancing cultural competency” in the context of the government’s pandemic response.
Another order directs the departments of State and Homeland Security to consider eliminating “barriers” to the naturalization process, such as “fingerprinting, background and security checks, interviews, civics and English language tests, and the oath of allegiance.”
Biden, it seems, thinks that studying American history, learning about our Constitution, or pledging their allegiance are obstacles to new citizens.
Another memo directs the State Department to resume funding nongovernmental organizations that provide or lobby for abortions in foreign countries.
Having gone several days without focusing the government on “equity,” Biden issued a memo directing the newly created Task Force on Scientific Integrity to publish a report on “scientific integrity of diversity, equity, and inclusion practices” in the federal scientific and engineering workforce.
It also directs heads of agencies to support their “evidence-based policies” with “scientific-integrity policies.”
Biden has created a bunch of new councils and task forces to push equity initiatives.
Another executive order creates a Council of Advisors on Science and Technology that will advise Biden about, among other things, “racial equity.”
Similarly, another order creates an Environmental Justice Advisory Council that will provide Biden with recommendations to deal with “historic environmental justice.” That order creates a separate Office of Climate Change and Health Equity, along with a National Climate Task Force to coordinate the whole government’s equity-based response to climate issues.
Another panel, the Gender Policy Council is built on the premise that “gender equity” is “a matter of human rights, justice, and fairness.”
Returning now to Biden’s regularly scheduled culture-war programming:
One memo directs the government to redress “systemic racism” in housing, while another directs all executive agencies to focus on LGBTQI issues in foreign relations and policy.
Meanwhile, Biden issued a proclamation for Black History Month lamenting that “[w]e have never fully lived up to the founding principles of this Nation” because “systemic racism” continues to “plague” the country.
Finally, one of Biden’s latest executive orders dismissively says that election-integrity measures are discriminatory against black voters.
All of this Biden has done in less than two months in office.
Two takeaways from all of this: First, contrary to Dionne’s claim, Biden is not “rolling back” the culture wars; to the contrary, he has poured gasoline on the fire. And second, if Georgetown and Brookings are paying Dionne to do research, they’re not getting their money’s worth.
If, however, they’re paying him to ignore inconvenient facts in order to spin a narrative, then he deserves a raise and a promotion.
Beware! “The Camalot Plot”.
Do you mean ‘Project Camelot’ – yes?
Something to ponder: A Funeral Director playing President
By: Stanley Ralph
March 13, 2021
I struggled through the Biden Eulogy on America last night. I could not muster anger, because I was so sad. Here we had a feeble old man shuffling down a hall to tell us that everything was bad until he arrived. He didn’t have the courage to state the obvious that Trump had left office with 3 vaccines and millions of doses ready for injection, that treatments from Regeneron and Eli Lily were cutting hospitalizations and deaths by 87%, that China was an evil state actor doing “gain of function” virus research with funding approved by NIH and Fauci, that the CCP spread the virus more or less deliberately, that masks were discouraged (Fauci again) primarily because China had bought a billion masks (essentially the world’s supply) before the WHO declared a pandemic, that the Permanent Deep State Bureaucracy fought Warp Speed all the way, that Pfizer held announcement of effectivity until after the election (no doubt to get even for Favored Nation Status on drugs). I could go on, but it sickens me.
Wearing a dark suit and funereal tie, Biden played the perfect role of the greeter at a wake. In oh so somber tones, he played to the emotions of families across the nation who lost loved ones. I could almost smell the carnations and lilies. I am deeply saddened too, but against this awful enemy, we must curly up in a ball. We are the home of the Brave, and we need to show it.
Disgusting as all of this was, I was frightened by how completely out of touch he is with Americans and the American spirit. Americans, real Americans, can get slapped down, but we get up, fight and overcome. He just ordered us to stay down, stay isolated, wait for government handouts and help, and get used to dependency. Maybe, just maybe, we can have a hot dog on July 4th with our family, but only if we stay in our holes until then. And only if the Central Government says it’s OK.
His idea of unity is universal suppression until he allows us even to sit upright. When their time is right they will loosen their grip slightly, and we will feel liberated. Such is the new definition of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Such is the new Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.
The giant giveaway just passed and signed is hailed as a great achievement. Claiming it will raise people out of poverty, like LBJ’s Great Society, it’s a grand welfare giveaway, reinstituting the Great Dependency State on a scale this country has never seen. Once a class is given a “living income”, why work ever again? And how do you convince a person that work is noble and good? Even right now when there are 6.9 million jobs available and unfilled? The “regime” is further dividing us into those who work and those who don’t, those who prosper from work, and those who don’t care as long as the smartphone is free. And, by the way, racism has nothing to do with it. Laziness and sloth are universal human traits.
My wife and I watched this trash speech on Fox with a thumb view of Tucker Carlson at the lower right; his expression was more entertaining than watching Biden’s darkness. Tucker was aghast; so were we. You should be too. Finally, the producers put a caption on the screen “Biden speech almost over”, worrying that eyeballs might tune out. And yet, the liberal fan club was gushing with tearful praise and relief.
At the end, Biden shuffled off into the distance where two Praetorian Guards escorted him to bed. Day 51 at the White House and all is quiet.
Such a pathetic old man being played for his dementia. His wife prancing around as first nurses aid should be charged with elderly abuse. Harris is behind the curtain cackling like the idiot she is and her handlers won’t allow her to be out in public due to the fact that people will dislike her more than the hair smeller in chief.
Meanwhile, back at the capitol of the free world the people’s house is boarded up in steel fencing and razor wire to keep the owners out, the American people. The National Guard is being used as a personal security force for crazy Nancy and her useful idiots who follow her around like little ducklings afraid of the old quack. However, They say we will be saved by the latest government handout of $1,400.00 they profess. The people get the crumbs and every American is put further in debt for the bill of $17,000.00 each. The remainder will go to all of the loyal criminals who aided in stealing the last election.
The best part of the horrific events playing out is that Americans will not live in Joe and the deep state’s dystopian world. We see the fallacy for what it is and the demo-rats for who they really are. This will be the beginning of the end for the despots currently wrecking our country. Their power grab and authoritarian vision for us little people is not sitting well with the masses. In the near future we will see the reaction to this new scourge. The giant is being awoken slowly. We are all yawning and tired of the never-ending darkness, the theft of our happiness and freedom. The media is beginning to fail, the tech giants will be taken down, the government will not take our guns and we will defeat this evil.
We are all here for this moment in history. There is no one left to turn to for help. We have the numbers and we are armed to the teeth. As a country, we have become lazy and have taken our freedoms for granted. That time has passed, this is our present and there is nowhere else to go. We hope this evil will die on its own. We will try the last avenues left to legally end this nightmare and it may end that way. However, if it doesn’t end that way, we will make it happen because we are Americans and we don’t lose to evil. We will face it and defeat it. In the meantime, let the enemy expose itself. Let them destroy each other and their minions. They are afraid of us and will make many more mistakes. We will be watching and waiting for the right moment. We are hoping for a peaceful way to end the madness and authoritarian administration that does not respect our constitutional rights. Our states and our country is being invaded by illegals and encouraged by the administration. Where is the impeachment crowd now?
I’m not rationalizing or excusing Leftist, collectivist, behavior. It’s real. It’s every bit as draconian as Willem and Peter explain. Socialism/Collectivism is the governance of cowards. It’s designed to eliminate personal achievement, and accountability and responsibility.
Socialists (i.e. collectivists/Leftists) are fearful souls. They don’t know how things work or how to manage. And I think they know they don’t have this knowledge or skill. Nonetheless, they are compelled to be relevant, to feign expertise in order to earn a standard of living they otherwise would not deserve in a meritocracy. They corrupt the concept of ‘equal access’ to mean ‘equal outcome’. It is narcissistic hubris to the extreme.
This is why Leftists insist on operating in the group. When things breakdown, when management fails (as they clearly believe will be the case because they don’t know how anything really works), they can hide in the background of the chaos they’ve created.
What I’m trying to explain to you is, however, that Leftists display the same Darwinian tendencies toward natural selection the rest of us exhibit – survival of the fittest. It’s the bassist of human traits. They are, by definition, either for you or against you. To them, everything is Black or White, Good or Evil, Friend or Foe. Because they don’t know how things work, because they can’t manage, they don’t recognize what compromise and collaboration really are.
Take Trump, for example. I know people who know the man personally. They don’t particularly care for him for a variety of personal reasons. But they recognize the expertise he brings to the table. They compromise their personal feelings for mutual benefit. Everyone benefits.
How many of you, for example, have bosses with whom you prefer not to socialize? How many of you have employees or customers you wouldn’t spend the weekend socializing with if you didn’t have to do so? As an employer for the last 50 years, I work with all sorts of people I don’t particularly care for. But I recognize a mutual benefit, as do they, when its apparent.
To Leftists, because they really don’t know how things work (primarily because they were poorly educated by other Leftists), the benefits of these collaborations elude their psyches. They don’t know how to collaborate. To the Leftist the Marxist axiom of the proletariat against the bourgeois is inevitable. Now, those of us who recognize this phase in our existence must cope with the reality. Knowing how and why we arrived here is important. But how we cope is now the more important task at hand.
Chingachgook told me, “Don’t try to understand them; and don’t try to make them understand you. For they are a breed apart and make no sense.” Last of The Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper, 1826
Jay,
The word is ENVY
Many folks in government have no idea how to start a private company, and successfully run one, and then pass it on to well-educated, well-trained, experienced children or others.
That whole process is considered abhorrent/evil capitalism, but that same capitalism pays them their SALARIES AND BENEFITS, ETC.
They hate the successes of Musk’s Tesla and Bozos’ Amazon, and Job’s Apple, and would like to regulate and tax them out of existence, to be replaced by something like the Dem/Prog-controlled “efficient” US Postal Service, which came in mighty handy during the past election.
Being not good at business, they take up and hype “causes”, such as environment, sustainable living, global warning, BLM, civil rights, i.e., all sorts of pseudo, money-wasting activities to get attention, actualize themselves
A whole new language of psycho babble is required to describe it all.
Children are indoctrinated with psycho-babble ideas, which often confuse their parents: “Is that what they are teaching you in school?”
As a result of a scandalous/third-world election, those folks are in full swing, aided and abetted with “free”, federal COVID money
“The many ways Biden has kicked culture wars into overdrive”
Oh no, no, no, for Saint Peter’s sake!!!
Biden-with-a-pen is not doing anything!!!
He could not even orchestrate a Sunday school picnic.
Abstract thinking?
All is chewed into little bits for him, so he can digest it, or read it on a teleprompter.
He is an in-the-basement, behind-the-desk, regular-kinda-guy, big smile, ready for one photo-op after another.
His anonymous/behind-the-scene handlers are keeping him there.
His handlers, Pelosi, Schumer and their left-leaning posses, are deciding EVERYTHING.
It is no wonder CULTURE WARS are in over-drive.
Why is Biden not going to the southern border to observe the chaos his left-leaning handlers have created?
Oops, I forgot. His handlers forbid it!
Such a trip might show, on mass media, a border area without any wall, or a “big, beautiful”/effective wall.
Californians (and other states) would face poor economic prospects, while loaded down with at least 15 million unverified, unhealthy, uneducated, unskilled, undocumented, non-English-speaking, illegal immigrants.
Several hundred thousand, may be a million in 2021, more next year, will be on their way to the border, to start sucking on government programs, run by Dem/Prog operatives.
The undocumented illegals are not stupid.
They pay to be transported by experienced handlers/traffickers/smugglers/drug dealers, etc., to cross at the places with no border wall, en masse.
Now we are finding out ELECTIONS MATTER BIG-TIME, especially fraudulent ones.
The Dem/Progs are going wild in Washington, with trillion $dollar “COVID packages” to bail out Dem/Prog-run cities.
Table it COVID, or Global Warming and it will pass.
Dem/Prog shenanigans are adversely affecting all states in all matters; energy, healthcare, education, immigration, etc.
The Dem/Prog laundry list of “government initiatives” is a mile long, financed with $trillions of federal COVID money
Post script:
“There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better.” ― Tom Robbins, American Novelist
To those who believe there are two kinds of people, everything is Black or White, Good or Evil, Friend or Foe. To others, not so much.
To those who believe they are Black or White, Good or Evil, everyone who believes there are two kinds of people are Friends, while those who are smart enough to know better are their Foe.
To those who believe there are two kinds of people, they have but two choices: Defend or submit. Those smart enough to know better have more options and, therefore, have the advantage, if and when they choose to take it.
It’s inevitable!
Make no mistake. The Leftist constituency Mr. Biden represents is hateful. Why? I’m not sure. Something in their past must be having a profound effect on their collective psyche. Perhaps, for some reason, they hate themselves. They seem to me, anyway, to be clinically depressed and self-destructive.
In the latest VT Digger, the notoriously repugnant Danziger cartoonist is now attacking Floridians, ostensibly because they and their Governor have followed independent and, apparently, successful societal initiatives that make the hateful Left even more resentful of their relative failures. One thing is certain. The Biden Leftist constituency differs significantly from the Trump ‘deplorables’ in one profound way.
The ‘deplorables’ want nothing more than to be left alone to their own devices.
Biden’s ‘Leftists’, on the other hand, can’t accept anyone’s individual independence because it threatens the collective. We are, as they are want to say, all in this together.
While the ‘deplorables’ could care less what the collectivists do of their own accord, as long as the collectivists don’t infringe on the ‘deplorables’ independent way of life, of course, the ‘deplorables’ say to the Left, go ahead, suit yourself.
But Leftists can’t risk leaving anyone alone to their own devices. Because, if the individual succeeds of his or her own accord, the mere demonstration of a reasonable alternative to the collective mindset threatens its legitimacy. To the collectivist, not only can individual success not be permitted to occur, when it surfaces, the collectivist redefines the parameters of success, describing it as oppression and tyranny. As a result, the Left attempts to change the rule of law. Individual success becomes not just unethical but illegal. Individualism, to the Left, is a crime against humanity (i.e. it’s racism, or fascism).
It becomes the Left’s moral obligation to do whatever they must to save the ‘deplorables’ from themselves. They attack the enemy in their own self-defense, against the proverbial ‘strawman’ their logic has created. Compromise is not an option for the Left.
Unfortunately, if ‘deplorables’ can’t reason with the Left, they are confronted with the same inevitable choice – submit to the tyranny or defend themselves. Meanwhile, the Left uses the same logic… simply reversing the nomenclature.
Say what you will – it is a difficult choice all of us must now make. It’s a choice history has witnessed many times. In fact, the circumstance appears to be cyclical. God Speed to you all.
Speaking of Jeff Danziger, how is it that he hasn’t been a target of the woke Cancel Culture or the content checkers at the VTDigger who have repeatedly spiked Vermonters comments for the slightest indication of what they perceive as gratuitously negative comments.
We all know the distain Danziger has for Trump, Republicans, bankers and white people on the right……All fair targets some would say……But has anyone noticed his ugly charactures of Arabs, poor white southern people or others that traditionally haven’t held “woke” points of view?
By today’s Cancel Culture standards, Danziger ugliness makes Dr. Seuss look like a choir boy, yet he is bullet proof when it comes to being cancelled by the woke.