Joe Biden Is Bringing Normalcy Back And It Sucks
Biden is showing us that "normal bad" is still terrible
Joe Biden is bringing back normalcy to the White House. No more unhinged 2 A.M. tweets. No more outlandish lies from official podiums. No more name-calling and drama.
So far, it’s working out okay for President Biden. His first-week approval ratings are better than former President Donald Trump’s at any time. Although it should be noted that Biden’s approval ratings are lower than previous presidents during their “honeymoon periods.”
We’re learning that normal pretty much sucked and it led to a large portion of American voters turning to Trump on the right and to a lesser extent Bernie Sanders on the left. For starters, Biden has ushered in a wave of executive orders. Many, if not most, of Biden’s executive orders are pure meaningless political theatre.
But some Biden executive orders are genuinely terrible. Take for example the war on America’s energy sector that he has unleashed. I live in Louisiana and Biden’s moratorium on oil and gas in federal waters and lands will devastate this state.
My heart goes out to all the Keystone XL pipeline workers who had their livelihoods destroyed by a stroke of the pen. People like Neal Crabtree had to layoff his union workers because of Joe Biden and went to his truck and cried afterward. “Normal bad” means some people won’t be able to put food on their table tonight or pay their mortgage.
What is the Biden administration’s response to these hard-working people losing their jobs? Climate change czar John Kerry says they should build solar panels. At least it wasn’t something like “let them eat cake” or “learn to code.” We’re back to “normal” snobbery from the powerful to working-class Americans.
Instead of telling audacious lies from the White House press podium, we have normal press conferences. As a part of those normal press conferences, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki wants to see reporters’ questions in advance. Because God-forbid the thin-skinned Psaki should actually take a tough question that she can’t “circle back” to.
We’re back to normal, which now includes political purges done on behalf of partisan special interests. When Biden took office, one of his first acts to fire the National Labor Relations Board general counsel Peter Robb, despite the fact his four-year term did not expire until November 2021. This was an unprecedented and potentially unlawful move that was done to appease labor unions. The Biden administration has even gone so far as to revoke previously approved parental leave benefits to former Trump administration appointees who had children before the inauguration.
All of this adds up to a “normal” politics that was not working for millions of Americans. Next time, let’s try to do better than “normal bad.” Let’s actually elect someone who actually, “you know the thing”, makes politics better.