Transition

Today, we make a transition from the chaos that swirled around Donald Trump and the GOP to an as yet unknown atmosphere that will envelope Joe Biden and the Democrats. But some things are certain.

The significant achievements of the Trump administration (and yes, there were significant economic, domestic and foreign policy achievements) will be relegated to a memory hole, soon to be forgotten or co-opted by the incoming Biden administration.

Hysterical claims (by the Democrats and the media) of ongoing "insurrection, sedition, and/or a coup" will fade quickly as relatively few protests of any magnitude have been evidenced at mid-afternoon on Inauguration Day. The nation's Capitol is quiet as are state capitols, making the hysterics look a little foolish, but still allowing their newfound "fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD)" strategy, honed during the months of the virus, to be used yet again to political advantage. 

The denizens of the "swamp" will breath a sigh of relief as business-as-usual returns. Government will grow and become even more intrusive. The authoritarian lessons learned during the COVID period will be translated to other things—more centralized control, more loss of personal freedoms, all enabled by normalizing hysteria.

The notion that opposing views are healthy will transition to ubiquitous cancel culture. Anyone who opposes the preferred Democrat narrative will be considered persona non grata and therefore dismissed from polite company. Self-censorship will inevitably result, as citizens fear for their livelihoods and their freedoms. Ominous calls for "re-education" for those who remain opposed to the preferred narrative will become louder.

The media will transition from aggressor to protector, but its primary purpose—propaganda intended to advance one and only one political narrative—will remain the same. It will ignore any news that will reflect badly on its chosen political party while trying to keep Trump front and center (even as a private citizen) so that the Democrats' political opponents can continue to be demonized.

Actions that made economic life better for the middle class and for minority populations will be replaced by words and then, more words. Those words will encourage broad classes of people to view themselves as victims and further suggest that they become increasingly dependent of government.

Trade policy will return to the status quo pre-Trump, re-instituting a playing field that disadvantages the United States but enriches those members of the swamp who are only too happy to work with our trade competitors. Foreign policy will again return to the feckless approach used during the Obama years.

Life will begin to return to normal, post-Covid, but it won't be the same "normal" that we encountered from 2017 to very early 2020. That normal encompassed significant employment opportunities and wage growth for those who hadn't seen any in a decade or more. Bidens promise of higher taxes, more regulation, and an anti-business stance will all ensure that.

The transition is now here. I just hope that its managers look back on their failures during the time of the virus (e.g., blue state lockdowns, school closures, business chaos) and remember that above all—do no harm.