By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

Pat Buchanan—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and a former GOP presidential aspirant himself—has written an article entitled "Virginia Secedes From Biden's Party:  

"I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach."

With this remark — arrogant, dismissive, contemptuous — in his debate with Glenn Youngkin, Terry McAuliffe committed a historic gaffe.

From that debate forward, his poll numbers steadily sank until McAuliffe lost his lead, and with it, the election.

And going down to defeat, McAuliffe dragged with him his fellow Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general and watched Virginia's House of Delegates revert to Republican rule.

What was McAuliffe saying, and what were Virginians hearing, in his remark? McAuliffe was saying that, in deciding what should be taught in its public schools, Virginia parents should just sit down and shut up.

Thus, a year after Joe Biden won Virginia by 10 points did McAuliffe lose the state by three, a 13-point turnaround. In New Jersey, which Biden had won by 16, the popular Democratic governor barely survived a cliffhanger.

These dramatic shifts in voter behavior testify to a serious misreading by Democrats of the presidential election returns of 2020.

Biden's total of 81 million votes, with a 7-million vote margin over former President Donald Trump, had been hailed as testament that his time had come and that the American people had both rejected Trumpism and embraced the liberal policies and politics of good old Uncle Joe.

But the 2020 election was in reality a referendum on a single simple question: Do you want four more years of Trump? Yes or no?

Some 74 million people came out and voted to keep Trump in the White House, the largest number of voters ever won by a president.

However, an even larger number of voters were saying, "Enough!"

As moderate Democrats, desperate to halt the progress of Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primaries, had voted for Biden to prevent a socialist from winning their nomination, voters who wanted an end to the Trump era cast their votes for the other name on the ballot, which was also Biden.

In 2020, Biden lit no fires in the primaries and spent most of the general election sheltering in the basement of his Wilmington, Delaware, home.

A vote for Biden was a mandate to replace Trump, not to overturn Trump's signature policies of no more wars, secure the border, cut taxes, rebuild the manufacturing base, reduce trade deficits, deregulate the economy and unleash the power of the U.S. free market system.

The Biden victory was a rejection of Trump, not a mandate for the agenda of Biden's party, which, with its left-wing core dominant, is outside the mainstream of America.

When the American people voted for Biden, they were voting for competence and an end to the daily conflict and chaos, not a Second Great Society.

They were not voting for $6 trillion or $3.5 trillion for cradle-to-grave socialism. They were not voting to "Defund the Police!" or tear down statues of Christopher Columbus and Confederate soldiers, or rename schools carrying the names of George Washington, Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and Robert E. Lee.

They were certainly not voting to abandon Trump's wall and throw open the nation's borders to anyone who can make it through Mexico to the Rio Grande — or to give $450,000 in reparations for migrant families who were separated from their children after breaching our border.

They were not voting to have their children taught in public schools that the country they love is shot through with "systemic racism," and most children in America are born into "white privilege" and belong to an oppressor class whose victims are children of color.

The message to the Democratic Party Virginia sent was this:

"You can indulge the crazies in your party, but if the American people come to believe you share their ideas and intend to implement them, we are going to relieve you of control of Congress in 2022 and of the White House in 2024. Rely upon it."

Biden, who is today 10 points down from where he began his presidency, is facing some seemingly insurmountable problems.

More than 1 million people have illegally crossed the U.S. border into our country since he took office. The debacle of the early days of our withdrawal from Afghanistan are indelibly fixed in the public mind and identified with him.

Prices of food and gas and other necessities have risen even more rapidly than the 4-5% inflation that shows no sign of abating.

Supply chains for U.S. goods from abroad, from autos to appliances, are clogged, with container ships backed up in the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors. And Biden is himself a portrait in confusion and contradiction.

Daily he loses his train of thought in public fora, forgetting places and names. While shutting down pipelines from Canada into our country to save the planet from the scourge of fossil fuels, Biden is calling on the Saudis to pump more oil to cut gasoline prices at the pump in the USA.

Having lost Virginia, Biden and his party look today like they are beginning to lose America.[2]  

What Pat Buchanan has written in this article is true.  And yes, a fair question to ask is: "Where Does One Begin, When Describing The Collapse Of America?"[3]  

As Buchanan stated, one might discuss the notion of paying illegal aliens a half million dollars for their "injuries," while vast numbers of our fellow American citizens are struggling to make ends meet and to avoid—or deal with—chronic homelessness. Or we might discuss how our already-blighted, crime-ridden and dangerous cities are becoming even more lawless as police officers and firefighters are sent home because they refuse to be vaccinated.

For many years now, the thugs, slugs, hoods and mongrels of "Black Lives Matter," Antifa and other far-Left groups have burned our cities; killed or hurt innocent Americans including our police; and destroyed black and other businesses. Yet, thugs like George Floyd are lionized, and treated as heroes. And Leftists describe themselves as "Progressives," which is the farthest thing from the truth.

Or one might discuss how mothers and fathers of young children are petrified at the thought of them being vaccinated because of the risks involved. Many are seriously considering the idea of homeschooling their kids for the first time. Or how little kids are being taught things that the parents find abhorrent, and the parents are told to "butt out" of their kids' educations.

Or we might discuss how oil and other prices have soared as the Keystone Pipeline was scrapped and thousands of American jobs were lost; and our realistic goal of energy independence is trashed, and we are dependent on oil from the volatile Middle East again.

Or how the lots of auto dealerships are bare because of the shortage of chips and other parts that are essential to new state-of-the-art vehicles. And how ports on our west and east coasts have been crowded with ships offshore because of the shortage of workers to unload them and truckers to transport their contents. 

Or we might discuss how China unleashed the deadly Coronavirus, which has killed or hurt millions globally. Yet that Communist-run country has not paid any reparations for doing so, much less trillions of dollars. And how China's goal of global domination by the end of this decade is not a pipe dream anymore.

As I concluded in an article that I wrote about the Coronavirus:

This is a bizarre new Orwellian world in which we are living—as if in a dream (or nightmare), or straight out of a horror movie—surreal. But it is real, and each of us is living in it.[4]

 

© 2021, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate's Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass).  See, e.g., Timothy D. Naegele Resume-21-8-6  and https://naegeleknol.wordpress.com/accomplishments/  He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University.  He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Law, and Who's Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/articles/ and https://naegeleknol.wordpress.com/articles/), and studied photography with Ansel Adams.  He can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com   

[2] See https://buchanan.org/blog/virginia-secedes-from-bidens-party-158712 ("Virginia Secedes From Biden's Party")

[3] See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2021/09/14/who-and-what-is-tearing-the-us-apart/ ("Who and What Is Tearing the US Apart?") and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/30/the-taliban-are-victorious/ ("The Taliban Are Victorious") and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/27/censorship-at-dia-no-wonder-we-lost-afghanistan/ ("Censorship At DIA, No Wonder We Lost Afghanistan") and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/20/afghanistan-the-future-looks-grim-for-those-left-behind/ ("Afghanistan, The Future Looks Grim For Those Left Behind") and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/15/the-tragedy-of-afghanistan/ ("The Tragedy Of Afghanistan") and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/12/is-america-becoming-a-failed-state/ ("Is America Becoming a Failed State?") and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2021/07/26/will-the-coronavirus-mutations-cripple-america-when-it-is-becoming-clear-to-the-world-that-joe-biden-is-not-fit-to-serve-as-president/ ("Will The Coronavirus’ Mutations Cripple America When It Is Becoming Clear To The World That Joe Biden Is Not Fit To Serve As President?") and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2021/03/12/war-with-china/ ("War With China?") and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2021/01/13/the-day-america-died/ ("The Day America Died?") and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/12/22/2020-annus-horribilis/ ("2020 Annus Horribilis") and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/08/08/biden-is-brain-dead/ ("Biden Is Brain Dead") and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/08/04/chinas-goal-is-global-domination-and-it-must-suffer-the-soviet-unions-fate/ ("China’s Goal Is Global Domination, And It Must Suffer The Soviet Union’s Fate") (see also the comments beneath each of these articles)

[4] See https://naegeleblog.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/timothy-d.-naegele.pdf (Timothy D. Naegele, "The Coronavirus and Similar Global Issues: How to Address Them"), p. 305.