Briefly Noted: Economics, Politics, The Family

Another short post before I head out.

We’ve all been hearing about “supply chain” problems, and we’ve all seen—to one extent or another—the empty shelves and “no longer in stock” notices on web sites. Rather than get into the technicalities of that—others more qualified are doing that—I want to reproduce some comments Tucker Carlson made last night. In the course of a much longer monologue about the supply chain problems and how that fits in with our dependence upon Chinese factories, Tucker also spoke about the confluence of economics—especially shortages—and politics.

Supply chain struggles could spell bad news for Democrats

America's dependence on China has had disastrous effects, but Americans won't put up with it for long

…

… it won't work here, because domestic economics is not like foreign policy. People notice when their own lives change, when you can't buy Christmas presents for your children or manage to keep your house warm in January. These are not symbolic problems. These are measurable declines in your family's standard of living, and they have consequences.

If economic decline continues, and it seems likely to continue, you will see a profound political reset in this country. And here's why: The only reason Americans have put up with the endless woke garbage that the left turns out by the gallon is because they can afford to put up with it. For generations, this has been a very rich country, and affluence covers a multitude of sins. People will tolerate a lot of things they disagree with, as long as gas is cheap and the Amazon, deliveries keep coming.

But when a society becomes poorer, people's attitudes change and they change fast. For one thing, they become much less patient when they're mistreated. You're firing me right before Christmas because I won't take your shot? No, I'm resisting that. You're telling me my son can't get a job because he's the wrong skin color? No, that's wrong, and I'm going to fight it, etc. etc.

Politics will look very different in a country with permanent shortages. And this may be an unpleasant surprise for the Democratic Party. The Progressive left's entire program is built on the presumption of endless, boundless affluence. Of course, we can afford that. We're rich. People like Nancy Pelosi and Sandy Cortez and Rashida Talib truly believe that, and they believe it as a matter of faith. They talk about economics, but they have no idea how the actual economy works. They don't know anything about the great American affluence machine. They've never really had jobs.

The one thing they know for certain—dead certain—is that every good thing must be free. It has to be. But that's not how life works. Certainly not in countries that don't hold the world's reserve currency. There's a reason they don't have drag queen story hour in Mexico. People in Michoacan are worried about tortilla prices and cartel shootings. They don't have time for that kind of nonsense.

We're about to become a lot more like Mexico. It turns out our economy was much more fragile than we thought it was. And if we'd known that earlier, we might not have elected an economic illiterate like Joe Biden as president. Here's Joe Biden explaining to CNN anchors that actually printing trillions of new dollars for wasteful government social programs will reduce inflation: …

Now, compare what Tucker was saying last night to what Monica Showalter is writing about today at American Thinker:

Bad news for Joe Biden: Public has soured on his big government expansion

Joe Biden -- a politician with a long history as a liar, prevaricator, plagiarist, machine pol, pocket-liner, political weather vane, election cheat, and general f***-up -- has one idea and one idea alone now that he's president: To expand big government. For him, there's nothing that can't be solved with money. He denies there are costs.

Zhou is another politician like the ones Tucker was talking about last night. He’s never had a real job—look it up. He never even applied for that lumber mill job in Idaho. He’s been in federal legislative office since he got out of law school—by the skin of his teeth. I guess that’s what Showalter means …

There's news for him, from CNN's Chris Cillizza, of all people:

Biden's policy agenda -- from the $1 trillion "hard" infrastructure bill to the as-yet-unpriced social safety net package -- would, if passed, fundamentally alter the relationship we have with government.

In short: The era of small government (such as it ever existed) would be over. The era of expansive government would begin.

Except that a majority of Americans don't want more government in their lives, according to new data from Gallup.

In the poll, just 43% said they wanted government to "do more to solve the country's problems," while 54% said they thought that government "is doing too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses."

That's a MAJOR shift in public opinion from where we were just one year ago, when 54% -- a record high in Gallup polling -- said they wanted government to do more to solve the country's problems.

So basically, Joe Biden's bet the farm  -- his presidential legacy -- on something of which the public has had a bellyful.

And what's more, it's a sharp shift, closely related to all the public has seen of Biden in action, which is evident enough in his collapsing poll numbers. The more they see of  Biden, the less they like what he's pushing.

Showalter also picks up on an item that appeared at The Federalist, but I’m citing Showalter to quote her remarks as well. It goes to what Tucker was talking about with regard to “woke nonsense”. However, just because you may never have heard of the National Council on Family Relations, that doesn’t mean they have no influence in our politics. They’re almost guaranteed to be government funded through one device or another—grants for this or that. That’s how the Left funds their political “grass roots”.

Leftist thought leaders declare intact families effectively racist

As if wokester madness has yet to peak, leftists have come up with a new idiocy: Declaring intact two-parent intact families 'racism':

Get a load of this from Kendall Quall, writing at The Federalist:

A leftist group is pushing the theory that the two-parent home represents ‘family privilege’ and creates barriers to equal opportunity, when in reality such families are proven to be better for kids.

Despite its name, the National Council on Family Relations is looking to destroy American families. It claims that the nuclear family – consisting of father, mother, and children – is merely an extension of white supremacy. NCFR has joined with critical race theorists and Black Lives Matter in this outright attack on the foundational values and norms of American culture.

It's lunacy. For years the left has been trying to say that one form of "family" is just as good for kids as another.

All that’s true, but it goes deeper. The Left has always wanted to destroy the family—remember Pavlik Morozov, the Young Pioneer who denounced his own father to the Bolsheviks, who executed him? The Bolsheviks made this creepy anti-family kid into a Soviet cult hero, a martyr. The point of the Left campaign to enable “alternative” “families”—to make them “equal” to real families—is not about “equity”, despite what the moronic people with “=” bumper stickers may thick. It’s just one more way to destroy real families with real family ties, and the goal is to replace the family with the federal government. Again, think back to Hillary’s: It Takes A Village. The village is the federal government. What we’re seeing now is not NewThink—it’s just more out in the open because they think they’ve won.

Hopefully there will be a sort of reverse Cloward-Pivens—the kind Tucker is talking about. Shortages will lead to resentment of the Leftists who brought us to this point. It’s not a given, however. It takes people with a commitment to normality. A conscious commitment to human nature and a conscious rejection of anti-human ideological constructs.