In this installment of Weekend Conversations, PF Whalen of The Blue State Conservative and Parker Beauregard of The Last Best Hope explore the consequences of a Biden/Harris victory on Election Day and examine what effects a Biden Administration might have on our county.
PF: It’s a scary thought, frankly, but one that we have to confront, I suppose; and depending on which polls we believe, a fairly likely scenario. A lot of what happens with a Biden administration will depend on who controls Congress. If Republicans can retain 51 Senate seats, then Mitch McConnell will remain Senate Majority Leader and all of the Committee Chairpersons will be Republicans, meaning they will control the agendas and be able to limit Biden’s damage. Hopefully, if Biden wins, that will be the situation.
I think the most troubling aspect of a Biden Administration is the impact it could have on our governmental/institutional norms. Democrats have floated the idea of eliminating the filibuster, packing the courts, and granting Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. statehood. If any of those were to actually happen, I fear the consequences could be catastrophic, with potential violence spilling into streets and a disastrous domino effect after future elections. It is for that reason that I think cooler heads will prevail.
If Democrats win 50 Senate seats, and if Biden is president, Kamala Harris as Vice-President will be President of the Senate and will thereby be the tiebreaker in any 50-50 votes. But I suspect moderate Democratic Senators such as Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) might recognize those perils and vote no if those bills come to the senate floor. I think, and hope, that is what is most likely to happen on the more controversial Democrat initiatives if that is how the balance of power ends up.
Parker: For me, one of the biggest questions of a Biden victory is what role will Joe Biden actually have in his administration? To his everlasting credit, President Trump stressed this point in the debate when he referenced Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Harris as all further-left-than-Joe influences. You could tell it flustered Joe because he made some adamant statement about how he’s the candidate because he beat all the other guys. I still have major concerns about a Beto O’Rourke gun czar position or any position for Elizabeth Warren. These people are downright clueless, self-serving, and terrifying. This all assumes Biden sticks around for a while.
I have seen questions come up about what happens in the interim of the election and inauguration. If something happened to Joe or he stepped down, does Harris assume the mantle; or, since Democrats chose as their candidate and Americans as elected as their next president Biden, is there another step in between? If he does make it to inauguration, how long will he be commander-in-chief? There is room for speculation that Pelosi crafted her 25thamendment bill to make a transition from Biden to Harris even more seamless. I assume the American electorate see this as a very real possibility. If and when Biden steps aside – or is removed – it will be a very backhanded way to celebrate our first female president.
PF: Last week we were discussing what Trump’s cabinet might look like if he’s reelected, and it was fun to speculate. Doing the same for a hypothetical Biden administration is downright painful. Regarding your point about him stepping down or otherwise being removed, I think it’s a legitimate possibility. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the more sinister players in the Democratic Party actively seek his removal by joining the push on this current scandal involving Hunter once the election is over. I could absolutely see them throwing Sleepy Joe under the bus to get Harris in power, someone we all know they would prefer.
The American culture could be the biggest casualty of a Biden presidency. The anti-American BLM and Antifa crowds will view such an election as validation and will result in them accelerating their agenda and approach. Biden will look the other way and publicly virtue-signal, and a Vice-President Harris would openly applaud them as their de facto leader.
Regarding actual domestic policy, he’s already said he’s going to repeal Trump’s tax cuts – which as VP Pence correctly pointed out is synonymous with a tax increase. We’ll see all kinds of increased federal regulations and an extremely hostile posture by the Federal government towards every industry except for Hollywood and renewable energy. A Biden administration could devastate our economy.
Parker: That’s an interesting angle on the Biden scandal. At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past Democrat power players to turn the current non-scandal into a major one. If that did transpire, would the American people know, care, or react? Unfortunately, my hunch is that it would go over the heads of most politically-illiterate voters.
It is critical to point out that just how a Trump victory would repudiate, to the extent possible, the violence and terroristic tactics displayed in our streets and our media by Antifa, BLM, and Big Tech, a Biden victory would congruently both validate and embolden each group. Culturally speaking, there is a lot more at play than is being discussed. Yes, domestic and international policy will face drastic repercussions, but to borrow a phrase from the late Andrew Breitbart: “Politics is downstream from culture.” There is no sign of this energy waning, and the response to anything that happens to the disliking of the left now manifests in dangerous and destructive actions against life and property.
As an aside, prior to 2020, I had never owned or considered owning a firearm. In the past six months, I have purchased both a handgun and a shotgun. I am not alone; national databases record that over five million first-time gun owners petitioned for background checks and purchased a firearm this year. In total, more than twelve million background checks have been processed. Like most of those, I did so in case tighter restrictions came about (as I think they eventually will) and also because I refuse to be a defenseless victim in the event violence breaks out near me or my family. A scary parallel to all of this is the severe shortage in ammunition. Not only were gun sales difficult in the sense of limited stock, but it is next to impossible to find ammo. Picture the shelves in March with toilet paper; now, picture shelves where ammunition once inhabited them in abundance. A friend of mine observed that the second amendment doesn’t need to be repealed, they just need to prevent mass production of shells moving forward. Interesting take.
I’ll toss it back to you, but this story parallels my greatest concerns with a Biden victory: The elimination of founding principles laid out in the Constitution. The second amendment is clearly in their proverbial sights. The first amendment is equally under attack, as are other basic rights. PF: Their sights are set on the first and second amendments, no doubt, and I would add the twelfth amendment (the Electoral College) and probably non-amendment aspects of the Constitution as well. The Left hates our Constitution, clearly. I’m going to continue to hope that cool-headed, moderate Democrats in the Senate will prevent or inhibit much of the attack you mention, but the prospect of them capitulating is a scary thought.
What a Biden Administration might do with matters of foreign affairs is equally chilling. They’ve already signaled their plan to reinstate the Iran Nuclear Deal, which could unravel much of the progress Trump has made in the Middle East. They would talk tough on Russia, and then look the other way if/when Russia tries to pillage a country like Ukraine as they did with Crimea under Obama. But perhaps the worst impact Biden would have internationally would be regarding China.
In spite of 47 years in Washington, Biden is woefully ill-prepared to handle President Xi Jinping; I fear Xi would eat Biden’s lunch. Biden and the Left recognize neither the severity of the threats from China nor the value of Trump’s tough approach with them. Combined with the likelihood of Democrats slashing our defense budget, and Biden’s dealings with China could be catastrophic.
Parker: It has become a cliché of sorts, but it seems pretty obvious that the Biden family is compromised with China. Forget the dirt, and therefore leverage, they have with Hunter; what explicit information do they have on Joe? I am not sure Joe Biden loves this country anyways, and I have no doubt he would sell it out every time to make sure bad press or bad photos are not released. The same goes with Iran, Russia, Ukraine, and goodness knows wherever else the family has traded on the half century of Biden’s political and economic connections.
It infuriates me that everything – literally everything – that the media and Democrats project on Trump is part and parcel an aspect of being a high-profile Democrat. Think back to the third debate, when Moderator Welker (who did fine as far as I am concerned) asked Trump about a publicly known bank account in China from 2013 and 2015. She knew the answers Trump would give: It was open before he was a politician and before he had decided to run, and then it was closed when he did run. A quintessential non-issue. But she asked anyways.
At the same time, where were the questions about the legitimate Biden dealings with the Communists? A) We don’t know anything about it (unlike the Trump bank account), B) It is much more relevant that the Bidens involved themselves with China during his time in office (again, unlike Trump), and C) How does this all pertain to the extent of leverage the CCP now has over one candidate but not the other? I am not recreating the wheel, but the same can be said of Ukraine. One is impeached, and the other is ignored. This, despite the fact that the former did nothing wrong and the latter openly admitted to doing wrong and the available timeline is way too convenient. I hope shenanigans like this are a wake-up call to many independent and liberal thinkers. This shouldn’t be a matter of Democrat and Republican, it should be a matter of fairness. Conservatives just want a fair and honest shake.
To close this out, these last few paragraphs are touching on where I see Pravda becoming a reality here. They will still be called the New York Times, Washington Post, and what have you, but somehow our free society will produce a totalitarian flow of information. Big Tech is not shy about shutting down the flow of information. Will Democrats in office pursue that? I don’t even think they see it as a problem. With major censorship allowed and encouraged, the battle for truth will become infinitely more difficult. We can weather four years of a turbulent Biden/Harris storm much more easily than the selection, creation, and suppression of truth.
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