Twilight of the Democrats

By newseditors // 2023-09-13

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During the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, the Democrats were the party of the future. They were the party of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who were sworn in as presidents at the ages of 46 and 47, respectively. (Article by Alex Gutentag, Leighton Woodhouse, And Michael Shellenberger republished from Public.Substack.com) Today, that seems like a very long time ago. Consider the new CNN poll. Three-quarters fear Biden’s age could affect his ability to finish another term. Nearly half of registered voters say any Republican presidential nominee would be a better option than Joe Biden in 2024. If Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee, 47% of voters would vote for him, and 46% would vote for Biden. While this difference is within the margin of error, CNN noted that they did not have a single poll in 2020 that showed Trump leading against Biden. Democrats were quick to defend Biden’s record. “He’s not getting credit for what I think is a fairly substantial list of achievements,” said David Axelrod, former senior advisor to President Barack Obama. Yet no matter how much Democrats try to convince the public that “Bidenomics” are working, 58% of Americans still believe that Biden’s policies have worsened economic conditions. Only 30% of Americans say things are going well in the country. It may be true that, on paper, Biden revived the economy, but the reality most voters experience is different. Prices are up 16.9% since Biden took office, real wages are down 3%, mortgage rates are at their highest in 22 years, and credit card debt has reached a new peak. It’s likely that the constant flow of money to Ukraine only worsens Americans’ fears that the president is mishandling the economy. With hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars going overseas, 500,000 Russian and Ukrainian troops killed or wounded, and no end in sight, the conflict has become the kind of nightmarish “forever war” that voters once associated with Republicans. For many years, Democrats insisted that they were the party of diplomatic solutions; today, they are eagerly sending depleted uranium rounds and internationally banned cluster munitions to Ukraine. Biden’s poor approval ratings are likely also influenced by the brewing scandal around his son. Over half of voters believe that the president’s actions related to the Hunter Biden probe are inappropriate, and 61% say they think the president was involved in his son’s business dealings. Indeed, there is mounting evidence that Biden’s Department of Justice is criminalizing the political activity of his enemies while shielding his son from real prosecution. When Biden took office, he vowed that his administration would put an end to the division of the Trump years and would restore unity. Yet, on several occasions, Biden has made highly charged and antagonistic remarks about ordinary American citizens. Despite the media’s efforts to portray him as a wise and grandfatherly figure, Biden often appears to be angry and confused, lashing out at us unpredictably. Due to the president’s age and obvious cognitive decline, it is unclear who is actually running the country and calling the shots. Biden, a corrupt and disoriented old man controlled by shadowy figures behind the scenes, is emblematic of what the Democratic Party has become. The old vibrancy and inspiring messages of “hope” and “change” are gone, and all that remains is a cynical and desperate thirst for power. Like its figurehead, the Democratic Party operates through secrecy and can barely conceal its contempt for large swathes of the country. It has become a party of censorship, war, elitism, and dishonesty. There is only so long that Democrats can keep pretending Biden is a competent leader, and the latest CNN poll has provided a chance for many to finally state the obvious. Said Van Jones on CNN, “A lot of Democrats look at these numbers and say, ‘The whispers are finally showing up in this data’... People are scared to come out and say anything about it, but I think it’s important for us to have this conversation now.” And yet Biden has shown no sign of throwing in the towel. Rumors periodically fly that he is about to announce he won’t run for a second term. Many thought it would happen in August. The problem for Democrats is that they might have no one who can replace him. Kamala Harris is even less popular than Biden, and San Francisco is Gavin Newsom’s albatross. This is perhaps what is most damning about the current state of the Democrats: Biden may really be the best they have to offer. — AG

Big Wind Killed Faith The Whale

Government scientists insist that the wind industry isn’t killing whales off the East Coast. It’s some other factor, maybe global warming, that’s been causing the “unusual mortality event” among cetaceans since 2016. Independent researchers have data revealed in our documentary, “Thrown to the Wind,” which debunks that. Not only have the researchers correlated the increased wind deaths to new wind industry boat traffic in previously untrafficked areas, they also document illegally high sound levels from sonar coming from wind industry boats. There are always other factors. There are other boats on the East Coast, including ones for fishing and lobstering. Climate change is real and may be playing some role. But climate change has, at best, an indirect effect, and the evidence suggests the whales have adapted to existing boat traffic and are being killed as boats enter new areas. The loud sonar is also likely driving whales into harm’s way. As if to drive home the threat, a dead whale named “Faith” was found floating right next to a wind turbine base, which can be seen in the above photo. She is the 71st whale killed since last December.

This is not normal. Deaths of whales have spiked since 2017. The only significant change that occurred in this period has been the introduction of high-decibel sonar and new boat traffic in previously untrafficked areas, both from the development of offshore wind. At this rate, the US government and the wind industry are going to make the North Atlantic right whale extinct. The government has corrupted and/or covered up the science. Congress must investigate immediately. The people who claimed the wind industry wasn't killing whales were lying, and we caught them. The problem for the people who pushed this project is that this is a hard science problem, and the science is against them. —MS

A Golden Bridge for Liberals Mugged By Reality

Sathanandan, the Second Vice Chairwoman of the Minnesota Democratic Party, in her own driveway and in front of her two children. Her account, which she posted to Facebook, is harrowing. She describes four armed young men beating her on the head and breaking her leg while her kids screamed in terror. Naturally, Sathanandan was outraged. “We need to get illegal guns off of our streets, catch these young people who are running wild and creating chaos across our city, and HOLD THEM IN CUSTODY AND PROSECUTE THEM,” she seethed. “These criminals will not win. We need to take back our city,” she continued, channeling Batman. But just a few years ago, Sathanandan sounded less like the Dark Knight and more like Antifa. After Minneapolis police officer Derek Chavin killed George Floyd, Sathanandan called to “DISMANTLE ??The ??Minneapolis ??Police ??Department.” “MPD has systematically failed the Black Community. They have failed ALL OF US,” she wrote on Facebook. Sathanandan isn’t the first politician to flip-flop on the idea that crime is fine and police are evil, but she may be the first to land the triple axel in the sport. Nevertheless, while responding with “You made your bed, now sleep in it” is totally understandable, it’s not particularly productive. What Sathanandan and her children suffered was deadly serious — the kind of event that actually deserves the grossly overused word “traumatic.” Changing one’s mind on the need for sensible criminal laws and robust enforcement of them is what we should expect of a victim of such a horrifying confrontation with reality. Imagine if she had gone through this ordeal and then stuck with the defund agenda. As the crime wave advances, there will be more erstwhile police abolitionists who will learn the hard way why we need law enforcement. We should offer them compassion and welcome them to the fold of those who see the world as it really is. —LW

New York, Border Town

On Wednesday night, in a town hall meeting on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, New York City Mayor Eric Adams sounded a lot like a border state governor. “We’re getting no support on this national crisis,” the Mayor said of the federal government. New York, the Mayor complained, is receiving 10,000 new migrants a month. And it’s not just Venezuelans anymore, he told his audience. Now, it’s Ecuadorians, Russian-speaking immigrants, and West Africans, too. Adams warned that the costs of providing services to the influx of new arrivals would end up coming out of the budgets of city agencies across the board. “This issue will destroy New York City,” Mayor Adams intoned. Progressives responded to Adams with the usual refrains, calling him a xenophobic bigot and accusing him of stoking violence against immigrants. But New Yorkers seem to agree with the Mayor. A Siena poll found that 82% of New Yorkers see the influx of migrants as a serious problem, and nearly 60% believe it’s time to stem the flow. At least some of the migrants themselves also seem to agree. “In a certain way, it is true that we are a burden to the city, but we don’t want to be that,” a Venezuelan migrant told The New York Times. Asylum seekers are not allowed to work for six months after arriving in the United States. They’re thus forced to become a drain on their host cities, even if they’re eager to work. “I think many of us made a mistake coming to New York because we cannot work here,” one Nicaraguan told the Times. “Without work permits, we can’t contribute.” Until recently, immigration has been a highly partisan issue, with Republican politicians calling for more deportations and more surveillance and militarization of the border and Democrats accusing them of heartlessness. But now that Democratic-run big cities like New York are being overrun with migrants, in part — but only in small part — as a result of a cynical but effective strategy of Republicans like Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis of bussing migrants to them, the issue is blurring partisan lines. Mayor Adams, who visited the border in January, has been publicly critical of President Biden’s handling of the immigration crisis — so much so that he was dropped from the President’s campaign advisory board before it was announced last May. “The President and the White House have failed this city,” he said back in April. Adams’ noisiness may be paying off. New York could find a bit of relief from a plan the Biden administration is floating to force refugees to remain in Texas as they await their asylum screenings. The plan would do nothing to solve the bigger problem, of course; it would merely shift the burden back, once again, on a border state run by Republicans. Immigration policy in the United States is an endless game of hot potato, with Republicans blaming Democrats, Democrats chastising Republicans, mayors and governors blaming the federal government, the President blaming Congress and Congress blaming the President. There is the crisis at the border, but then there’s the other, more fundamental crisis: that of American political dysfunction. Immigration is just a stress test, and we’re failing badly. —LW

Deep (Sadly Accurate) Fake Of The Week

Wind turbines make the horizon more beautiful, say advocates for the technology. But the above is a visualization of what the East Coast beaches will look like if wind energy giant Ørsted gets its way. It’s a deep fake but an accurate one. “Those renderings are legally defensible in every way possible,” their creator, Dan Ginolfi, told us. The media today tend to only speak of the downsides of deepfakes. But Ginolfi’s images show the value of digital manipulation in helping people see what they’re being sold. “They were created using photographs taken this summer on a typical day with typical visibility,” Ginolfi explained. “Then, a 3D model of all of the proposed wind farms was overlaid on top of the images.” Few people on X/Twitter agreed that they make America’s Eastern horizon more beautiful. Read more at: Public.Substack.com