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March 29th, 2024

Insight

The 2021 Election and the Leave-Us-Alone-Movement

Don Feder

By Don Feder

Published November 15, 2021

The 2021 Election and the Leave-Us-Alone-Movement LA Times/TNS


There are any number of ways to look at the last election: parents versus politicians, revulsion with Biden's far-left agenda and gross incompetence, outsiders versus insiders and the horror of creeping socialism.

But there's a simpler way to describe the dynamic at work this year, one that encompasses all of the above. Instead of the Tea Party Movement or a Parents Movement, we have a Go-Away-And-Leave-Us-Alone Movement.

Democrats are control freaks. They get off on pushing people around: telling us what we can't do and what we must do: stay at home, wear a face mask, get a shot, go green, fight racism, defund the police, fight "transphobia," give us an increasing share of your income, and so on.

And it's all for own good. That's how much they care about us.

The 2021 election saw a political upheaval comparable to the Gingrich Revolution of 1994 (when Republicans gained 54 seats in the House) and 2016, when Trump was elected.

For a brief overview, Virginia elected its first Republican governor in 12 years. Republicans also took the offices of Lt. Governor and AG and control of the lower house of the state legislature.

In deep-blue New Jersey, the Republican candidate came within a hair (less than 1%) of defeating the incumbent governor. In my favorite race of 2021: a GOP truck driver spent less than $5,000 to defeat the Democratic president of the New Jersey Senate.

The people are again asserting control over their lives as they did in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence.

The motto of the Biden Democrats should be "Shut-Up And Do As You're Told." It saturates their jackbooted agenda:

Critical Race Theory — Democrats believe whites must be made to acknowledge and atone for the sins of others of their race. Their children must be brainwashed into accepting this absurdity. For parents to oppose this is "white fragility" or, even worse, "white supremacy." It's about indoctrination, not education.

Transgenderism — A boy chases a girl until he decides he is a girl, and you must affirm his/her "choice," no matter the consequences. The extreme is boys who say they're girls being allowed to use girls' bathrooms. In Virginia, a boy in a skirt raped a 15-year-old girl and the local school committee tried to cover it up to protect its transgender policy. The elite is saying the safety of your daughters matters less than their ideology.

Open Borders — Come one, come all! By year's end more than 1 million illegals will have infiltrated our borders, often with the direct support of the Biden administration. (So far, 70 undocumented flights in the Biden airlift from the border to the interior of the United States.) Democrats reap the benefits of increased political clout and new dependents to care for, necessitating increases in their beloved social spending. The public pays the price, in growing crime, drug over-doses social spending and national disintegration. Within days of the election, the administration doubled down, announcing cash payments for families previously "separated at the border." The families of police killed in the line of duty get less.

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Public Safety — Crime has become our only growth industry. Murders rose 25% in 2020. But all categories of violent crime are up, including rapes and assaults. Non-violent crime is also on the rise. Cities like San Francisco have become a shoplifter's paradise.

In 2020, the elite stood by while their goons set the cities on fire. Despite their protestations, Democrats own defund the police. People of all races want their lives and property protected. Like everything else, Democrats see this through the lens of race. There's something exquisitely ironic about people who live in condos with 24-hour security telling ordinary urban dwellers that they should care more about "racial justice" than self-preservation.

Cancel Culture — Democrats are abolishing the First Amendment piecemeal. Led by Big Tech and academia (both subsidiaries of Biden's party), increasingly, there are things we can't say. Opinions aside, even acknowledging reality is risky, like affirming that a man who thinks/feels he's a woman remains what he was at birth.

Go Green — Democrats demand sacrifice — sacrifice for "racial justice," sacrifice for the gender-confused, sacrifice for "income parity" — and sacrifice for the environment. The latter results in pain at the pump, pain when you pay your utilities bills this winter and pain in rising prices (everything you buy has to be transported by land, sea or air). But your family's finances don't matter. All that matters is mythical man-made climate change — about which your opinion doesn't matter.

Mandatory vaccinations — Whatever happened to my body, my choice? Silly you; that only applies to abortion. Cities will lose up to 15% of their first responders over mandates. Biden wants to force businesses with more than 100 employees to compel their workers to get the jab. Now that there's a COVID vaccine for children 5 to 11, how long will it be before Johnny and Suzy must put down their toys and roll up their sleeves? This despite the fact that more children have been shot in Chicago this year than died of COVID-19 nationwide.

It's individual autonomy versus rules, regulations, taxes and mandates — free speech versus censorship — my money/my life versus Creepy Old Joe whispering "Pay your fair share" -- and those who believe in God versus those who think they are G od.

One stanza of "My Country Tis of Thee" goes, "Our fathers' G od to Thee, author of liberty." This reflects the thinking of the founders that it was G od who ordained freedom. The Declaration of Independence says men are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."

Biden's meeting with the Pope notwithstanding, the Democrats don't believe in G od. They see themselves as shaping human destiny.

It's said that in the 18th century, a French finance minister asked a group of businessmen how the Crown could help them. Their spokesman unhesitatingly replied, "Laissez-nous faire" — sometimes translated as "Leave them alone."

Old King Joe would sooner give up ice cream and hair-sniffing than take that advice.

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