I was sitting in the dark and cold. A cold front pushed south to the Gulf of Mexico. Temperatures dropped below freezing. The power is out and we’re huddled around a fireplace to keep warm. It is a good time to think. I was both counting my blessings and thinking about the deliberate lies I’ve heard from the news media. I was thinking about President Trump and what he accomplished.
Trump deregulated our economy. He knew the incredible burden the regulatory-state put on businesses. Our legislators had allowed executive branch agencies to write their own regulations that implemented legislation. The resulting regulations were not carefully reviewed to see if they delivered the original legislative intent. In practice, the bureaucrats could write their own ticket. Rather than ensuring a free and fair market, the bureaucrats wrote themselves into the economy. Nothing happened without their approval and control.
Trump “reinterpreted” that legislation. He proposed a minimalist rather than an expansive view of government control. Predictably, the economy roared back to life. That threatened the existing political structure and the Deep State.
The reason is obvious. Young black men in our inner cities went back to work. It wasn’t a government funded welfare program that gave them jobs, but rather the deliberate removal of impediments that had kept young black men in our inner cities unemployed. Young black men, and then young black women, didn’t need a welfare state once they had a job and were in control of their future.
Everything changed for them. They could accumulate wealth. They could buy a car and a house. They could form families. Trump did what others had promised for decades. He delivered on the well-worn political promise of improving the lives of the poor. That was politically dangerous. The most dangerous thing was that young minority men and women had choices. Now, they could move to other cities and states that offered them a brighter future.
That terrified both Democrat politicians and the government unions that controlled them. Trump had to be stopped at all costs or he would topple the political status quo. Big government democrats were going to lose wealth and political power once people could simply walk away from them and rebuild their lives. Fortunately for the Socialists, Covid restrictions slammed urban minorities back into poverty.
President Trump did something even worse. Trump “reinterpreted” energy regulations. Domestic energy supplies expanded and prices fell. That both slashed our dependence on foreign oil, and we went “green”. The United States was the only major industrial country to reduce its footprint of greenhouse gasses. The political elites were shocked that we did that with a growing economy rather than by shrinking our civilization and reducing our population. We substituted natural gas for coal and oil. That frightened a number of political factions.
The greens were afraid that people would recognize success. Despite what we’ve been told, we could both reduce our environmental impact and have a vibrant economy. The greens feared that we would reject they keystone beliefs of deindustrialization and population control. A lot of politicians depended on political donations and in-kind campaign contributions from the environmental lobby to stay in office. If you doubt, then please consider that one of Biden’s first executive orders was to freeze energy development on federal lands and to put a regulatory freeze on fracking. Progress was first frozen and then rolled back. The status quo was reassured.
I was thinking about that while I sat in the dark. Windmills and solar panels are frozen in ice. Millions of my neighbors are without power. Many are without water. Stores are empty and closed. Fires rage out of control because the fire department doesn’t have water to fight the flames.
Be careful what you wish for. I know civilization is fragile. I know that rules matter. I also know that life is good, and can be better.
Be skeptical of someone who tells you otherwise.
~_~_
I gave you 600 words. Share them with a friend who needs them. RM
