Instead of fighting inflation and dealing with problems with the economy, President Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress would rather promote leftist ideological projects concerning race, gender and sexual minorities, supporting illegal immigration or new climate policies. They concentrate on issues of interest to the elites, not so much so to the man on the street. The Democrats are definitely losing the “culture war.” Polls indicate that voters will punish them in the elections on November 8, 2022, after which the Republicans will most likely take control of both houses of Congress.

A newer, better Trump

Monday, March 28, 2022. Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, signs a law prohibiting classroom discussions in state schools (from kindergarten to third grade) about sexual orientation or gender identity. “We will do everything so that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination,” said the governor, emphasizing that this is about protecting kids from 5-8 years old from premature sexualization.

The law was a response to the growing concern of parents in the entire country about what their kids are learning in elementary school. These emotions contributed to the surprising victory of Republican Glenn Youngkin in the Virginia governor’s race last fall. At the same time, they sparked protests from the LGBTQ community, who considered the measure to be intimidating and aimed at sexual minorities.

In order to facilitate the battle against the new law, activists christened it the: “Don’t Say Gay” law, which was an obvious distortion. The regulations were immediately criticized by important Democrats: President Joe Biden stated that the law promotes “hate,” and Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, said that it’s “the latest shameful, extremist culture war targeting the LGBTQ+ community.” and he used billboards to encourage LGBTQ people to move from Florida to his city.

The Disney Corporation even joined the protests – the largest private employer in the state (it employs 70,000 people in Walt Disney World in Orlando, attracting 20 million tourists there annually). After protests by LGBTQ employees, the CEO of the company, despite initial hesitation, condemned the law, expressing the hope that it would be repealed by the legislature or “struck down by the courts.”

Governor DeSantis wasn’t especially concerned by the protests. – “For me, this opposition is a badge of honor. I don’t care what corporate media outlets say, I don’t care what Hollywood says, I don’t care what big corporations say,” he stated as he signed the law. He suggested that Disney would certainly support a law preventing Florida’s children from being informed about the persecution of the Uighurs in China, for example. Alluding to what large corporations – passing themselves off as “socially conscious” in America – are willing to accept in order to make a fortune in the Chinese market.

As polls indicate, the governor of Florida, as a younger and better (since he lacks most of the flaws of the 45th president of the United States) version of Donald Trump, will be elected to a second term in November with up to 60 percent support. The law to protect Florida’s children from early sexual education is the latest battle in the culture war being carried out against leftist “Woke Culture” by DeSantis. And it looks like another battle won for the politician who will almost certainly be a candidate for president in 2024. It’s also not a surprise, since the issue was analyzed earlier: polls indicate that most Americans (61 percent) support the ”Don’t Say Gay” law, including 70 percent of Republicans, but also... 55 percent of Democrats.

Locked in a Twitter bubble

The Florida law demonstrates the problem affecting President Biden and the Democrats: they’ve become hostages to the left-wing of the party. The revolutionary ideas of the Democrat Party radicals are not checked by the fact that the country is divided into two, practically evenly-sized political halves, and a legislative majority in Washington is possible – with an even division of votes in the Senate – on the balance-tipping vote of the Vice-President, who presides over the chamber, giving the Democrats a majority. They continue to fantasize about radically changing the country under the slogans of fighting climate change, allowing basically unlimited immigration and gauranteeing rights to essentially every possible minority. On top of this, virtually unlimited spending, which, despite declarations to not raise taxes for “ordinary Americans,” must lead to a tightening of fiscal policy.

It looks like Biden and the Democrats can’t break themselves away from the enchanted pull of the information bubble. As if reality was only created by politicians, activists and commentors on Twitter, or those filling the rosters of popular shows on CNN and MSNBC and the pages of the New York Times and Washington Post. The so-called echo chamber leads to the loudest voices breaking through, meaning the domination of an increasingly radical (since someone to my left is always louder...) minority.

For people like this it’s no problem to collide with reality and contradiction, like with the decision made in first day (!) of the Biden presidency to stop the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, guaranteeing cheap oil supplies from Canada (in order to please eco-radicals), with today’s appeals to Canada to... increase oil exports to the US. It’s no problem to carry out foreign policy against Saudi Arabia (including the attempt to make a deal with Iran at any cost) while requesting that the Sheiks increase oil production. There is no inconsistency between Biden calling Putin a “war criminal” responsible for “genocide” today, and him having given the green light, just several months ago, to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline...

As the expert observe of American politics, Josh Kraushaar, noticed: “The great divide in America doesn’t run between workers and owners of capital, but between Americans with diplomas who work in education, corporations and government institutions, and regular Americans who work in smaller companies and live paycheck to paycheck.” Amen. And it’s increasingly clear that this divide transfers over into politics: Democrats represent the elites, and the Republicans – “working people.” And what’s most surprising is the finale of the great role change, with “Reagan Democrats” beginning the trend in the 1980s, and voting for a Republican for the first time in their lives...

Putin good for everything?

An excellent illustration of how Biden and the Democrats are detached from reality is the issue of inflation. Despite the idea that they’ve pushed for months, that the biggest problem facing America are the “crimes” committed against democracy by Donald Trump (especially his behavior during the mob attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021) or combatting the climate crisis, Americans are rightfully recognizing the greatest problem... galloping inflation. Not police brutality, persecution of minorities or even the war in Ukraine, but precisely inflation, the de facto tax levied on everyone, but especially salaried workers and the middle class.

The statistics published on April 12, 2022 are a real nail in the coffin for the Democrats governing in Washington: so-called base inflation (not factoring in food and energy) is 6.5 percent, while after adding those two items, it’s 8.5 percent. It’s the highest it has been in 41 years, so since the beginning of the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who inherited it from the person considered to be one of the weakest contemporary presidents, Jimmy Carter.

These are official statistics, “massaged” by the government for PR purposes, but the average American seems to realize that inflation must in fact be in the double digits, since the prices of basic products – counted from year to year – have risen dramatically: gas by 48 percent, electricity by 11 percent, meat by 13.8 percent, eggs by 11.2 percent, coffee by 11.2 percent, and used cars (35.3 percent) forget about them...

The situation that Biden and the Democrats are in is becoming dramatic, given the fact that their political rivals don’t have to spend much on political ads: every trip to the gas station or supermarket reminds voters of rising living costs and that the Democrats have absolute power (both the presidency and Congress) in DC.

The government’s response looks similar to those on cultural issues: an attempt to create a justification which is light, easy and pleasant to the modern ear, namely social media, and especially to the political information bubble on Twitter. And that’s how “Putin’s price hike” came about, as a reply to inflation. The phrase, used many times by President Biden himself, like one tweet on April 12: “Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has raised gas and food prices across the world. 70 percent of the surge in prices in March is the effect of rising prices caused by Putin. I am doing everything in my power to lower prices and deal with the rise in prices caused by Putin.” And then, repeated ad nauseum by the White House press office (“The inflation indicator in March will be up significantly as a result of the rise in prices caused by Putin,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at a Monday conference), the entire executive administration and the mainstream media.

The problem is that voters don’t seem to be buying the government’s explanations. First, inflation was supposed to be “transitory,” an effect of battling the Coronavirus pandemic, then it was supposed to be something positive (since it indicated wage growth), until it turned out that it was a result of Putin’s aggression. Everything else was the culprit except the failed policies of the Biden Administration. Everything else had their attention, various cultural battles, spending billions of dollars on policies close to the heart of the leftist fringe of the Democratic Party, on fighting with the fossil fuel industry, just not on confronting inflation and the consequences of supply chain disruptions. It even led to the Democrats in Congress finding new scapegoats for high gas prices and calling them in for public questioning: they were – of course – gas company speculators and gas station owners (they usually earn 1-2 cents per gallon of gas sold). Though it’s enough to look at the charts to see that inflation has been growing systematically since January 2021, the beginning of Biden’s administration and the Democrats coming to power in Congress, and so... it started a year before Russia invaded Ukraine.

Only now, while President Biden’s approval rating has been hovering below 40 percent for a while (and his hard line against Russia hasn’t helped much), and polls indicate a coming democratic rout in the mid-term elections, the economic crisis has finally broken into the consciousness of the ruling class. But it might be too late, since, as Bloomberg reports, inflation will lead every American household to spend $5,200 more to support themselves this year than last year. $433 per month, over $10 a day – everyday, their wallets will remind voters that political decisions have consequences.

– Jeremi Zaborowski in Chicago
–Translated by Nicolas Siekierski