Here’s an interesting exercise: plug the search term “Trump destroying norms” into Google and see what happens. Or you can just trust me: you’ll get story after story, some dating back to 2015, about how Donald Trump, with his quick tongue, profligate use of social media, and derision for the press, was sure to destroy American norms and the republic as a consequence.
Now, three months into the Biden administration, those precious norms that are definitely still around post-Trump are being seriously and actually threatened from all sides by the same progressive legislators who worked with their fans in the media to sell the idea that Trump was going to undo the fabric of American life.
Talk about demolishing norms. Two of those are right in the Constitution. And the other — a nine-justice Supreme Court — has been around since 1869.
But the Democrats under a Joe Biden executive office don’t care about that, apparently. Probably because, much like with their efforts to push the PRO Act and H.R.1 — both of which would override state laws related to right-to-work and elections, respectively — they need to upend the regular order so they can find ways to win that don’t rely on their having better, successful policy ideas. All five of these efforts are intended to change the system to clear a path for a permanent progressive majority.
Then of course there’s the norm with the biggest target on its back: individualism. An exchange between Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Dr. Anthony Fauci in a hearing Thursday got to the heart of the matter using the question of COVID restrictions. Jordan tried to wrangle an answer out of the scientist as to when Americans can move on from the lockdown.
Explicit in this exchange is the fact that Fauci has no intention of providing a metric that Americans can use to begin to make decisions for themselves about assumption of risk as it relates to COVID infection.
He simply will not provide enough information to allow rational decision-making. He would prefer, it would seem, to continue having government move the goal posts and hand down warnings and edicts about how to do little more than continue the lockdown. Withholding easily understandable information keeps Americans from making data-based decisions as free-thinking individuals.
The Trump years were a cacophony of hazy but hysterical warnings that traditional American life was in danger from the callous man in the Oval Office. The Biden years lack the constant screaming from the press and activists, but the threat to the concepts and laws that have always been the bedrock of American free society have gotten much more solid.