Stolen election? No.
There may have been some fraud, but not enough to make a difference in the critical states. Unsolicited mail-in ballots doubtless invited fraud, and changing of voting rules in those states in reaction to Covid-19 gives cover to those who claim fraud. It is unfortunate that the, now former, President pushed that narrative too far.
Biden did not beat Donald Trump. The now former President actually beat himself with help from Covid-19. His acerbic personality on constant display turned off many who would have voted for him for his stance on the issues and accomplishments. A lot of voters cannot see beyond personality. Many vote against their interests because they do not like the messenger. Trump’s persona in many of his tweets was that of, to be blunt, a jerk. This is not to absolve his far-left opponents, who were usually worse in that regard.
But what now?
Donald Trump lost won, but he did not lose by a landslide. Despite what the New York Times and Dallas Morning News writers opine, the last election was hardly a Republican debacle. Quite the contrary, Biden did not have any coattails to pull other Democrat candidates for Congress and statehouses, quite the contrary. And he doesn’t have a mandate for widespread structural change, as many on his side would like. Pushing a radical agenda through the Congress will be difficult. For every Democrat who lost his/her seat in the House, there is one whose winning margin was close. And Bill Clinton and Obama both lost Congress in their first midterm. If this history is lost on Biden, it is not on the Representatives and Senators facing their constituents in 2022.
Even so, there’s a lot of mischief Biden can do, and has done, with his “pen and phone”quickly.
Unless Biden can persuade the Democrats’ leadership in Congress to halt the Trump impeachment, there is no way he is going to unify the country. Attempting to “remove” a President who the voters have already removed makes no sense, and amounts to political masturbation (in which our politicians engage on a daily basis — in their case it makes you wonder if it’s really only a myth that it makes one go blind). To the extent that Senate conviction would bar Trump from further office, that could work in favor of the Republicans by removing a candidate with a large following from consideration in 2024 in favor of one with similar policies, but who is less acerbic. Anyway, it is doubtful that Trump, or Biden for that matter, will run again next time. Age itself might not be an objective disqualification, but there is pressure from younger candidates and their constituents. (As an aside, the only incumbent who lost and later won a second term was Grover Cleveland in 1892.)
Biden’s executive orders cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline permit is sheer lunacy. Forget that transmission of crude petroleum is much safer in pipelines than by rail or truck (which are more dependent than pipelines on the stuff they are carrying). It is going to put tens of thousands out of work. That will be a big issue, and the workers who still remain Democrat voters won’t forget in 2022. Other environmental and climate-change paranoid policies could drive gasoline prices sky high. Perhaps Biden, who famously commuted on Amtrak between Delaware and the Capital and who has lived in the D.C. bubble for over four decades, doesn’t realize how much non woke Americans are in love with their cars. High prices and filling station lines doomed Jimmy Carter in 1980. In my city, gasoline prices have already jumped.
The promise of “Green New Deal” jobs is pure fantasy. If such jobs materialize, it will be years until they do. Workers have to pay their bills and feed their families today. All of this said, the only viable option for the production of the energy that modern life requires is nuclear, which Biden’s core supporters oppose as much as they do fossil fuels. Wind power is Fifth Century (B.C.) technology with Twenty-first Century lip-gloss. Sun power will be sufficient only if the Sahara Desert is carpeted with solar panels and an efficient method of long-range transmission is developed. Not ruling that out, but it is as remote as cold fusion.
One wonders if the woke crowd, living in their gated subdivisions where all the houses have black lives matter signs on the outside and white persons on the inside, or those residing in climate controlled condos, really want to revert to a hunter-gatherer society they romanticize. Perhaps so, if their could still have their smartphones and sushi.
That bunch, based on their malevolent Twitter feeds and contributions to the comments sections of Washington Post articles, are the remaining jerks.
As for the future, all that can be said is — we will see.
