As a myriad of investigations and legal actions look to unravel the web of reports of violations, aberrant voter turnout statistics, duplicate ballots, and an answer to who legally won the 2020 election, what is evident from the sentiment on the left is that a great deal of the Biden/Harris vote came from personal animus toward President Trump, and not for a clear preference toward a stated policy objective.
Fueled by nearly constant negative media coverage, social identity politics and reckless rhetoric regarding the Trump administration's response to the global coronavirus pandemic, pundits on the left and protesters in the streets have sounded off on their support for Joe Biden out of visceral spite in wanting President Trump out of the White House.
The problem with a media supporting a mass movement to elect a president based on social politics and personal opinion is that it fails to take into consideration the physical dangers presented when an incoming administration fails to recognize the progress of the prior administration it doesn't agree with.
If the Trump legal team fails to bring the physical evidence needed to invalidate the votes gleaned in suspicious, late-night, mail-in ballot drops in cities like Philadelphia, Atlanta, Milwaukee and Detroit, the nation may face the realities of an incoming administration that "throws the baby out with the bathwater" by overturning the extremely positive economic, foreign policy, criminal justice reform and national defense gains of the Trump administration.
Signs of these potential harms are projected in the Cabinet picks and policy goals of the Biden transition team. In the last week, despite surging COVID-19 infections gripping the nation, Biden announced that Xavier Becerra, Kamala Harris' successor as California attorney general, who has no healthcare experience, will be his next Secretary of Health & Human Services.
The week before, Biden announced that John Kerry will become his "Climate Czar" and Obama Citizenship and Immigration Services chief Alejandro Mayorkas as Homeland Security Secretary. Biden's picks sent a clear message to the nation, especially the 74 million Trump voters who cast their ballots on Election Day, Obamacare, the Paris Climate Accords, Open Immigration Policies and the Iran Nuclear Deal will be almost immediately back in effect if/when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris move into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.
The problem is, when Joe Biden left the vice president's office four years ago, he was firmly in the criticism-proof bubble that was the Obama administration. In left-wing circles, the United States championed the Paris climate accord because we thought of ourselves as the world's greatest polluter, the Iran nuclear deal was justified because peace between Sunnis and Israel was unheard of, and their proposed solution to limit China's abusive economic tactics was a 12-nation-trade pact that would grow manufacturing in developing Asian countries, instead of bringing manufacturing back to North America.
While the Biden campaign tactically distracted American voters with the coronavirus pandemic and claims of racism and homophobia that were completely debunked by Trump administration policies, the Biden campaign remained silent on a myriad of daunting foreign policy and domestic justice challenges, in where strides were made in middle east peace, criminal justice reform, and a surging market under President Trump's "America First" policies.
"As much as there are a lot of people who just want to say, 'We're back,' you can't erase the last four years. And we've been heading in this direction for a long time," said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, a global risk assessment firm to the Los Angeles Times. "Everything Trump represents is symptomatic of something deeper in the American body politic."
While Biden, as a member of the Obama regime considered the Iran nuclear deal an actual achievement, renewed Trump administration sanctions on Iran have opened the door to Arab nations recognizing Israel's legitimacy as a nation, which is a foreign policy achievement more than 50-years in the making.
Meanwhile, Trump tariffs on China remain in place, making it hard for Biden to "mend fences" with our key adversary amid the global damage caused through poor public health controls that caused the global coronavirus pandemic. Furthermore, Trump's troop drawdown in Afghanistan and the fact that he is the first president in 40 years to not send troops to a new military conflict has led much of the world to rely less on America as their "global police force."
Even at home, Biden's choice of John Kerry to lead international efforts on climate change marks a return to the Paris Accords which placed onerous regulations on American industry, while giving more egregious polluters like China, India and Brazil decades-long reprieves to the same restrictions. In contrast, the Trump administration removed a myriad of government environmental regulations, which resulted in free market competition that showed an increase in electric vehicle and clean energy solutions. As a result, U.S. pollution has declined while domestic manufacturing increased over the last four years.
Most alarmingly, the Biden/Harris campaign ran on a criminal justice reform agenda focused on further restrictions to law enforcement. This has given credibility to unlawful protests from the Black Lives Matter movement and the election of radical progressive local prosecutors who seek to limit enforcement of those already in a dangerous cycle of criminality.
By legitimizing this dereliction of duty by local prosecutors and appointed police chiefs, this move by an incoming Biden/Harris administration may further result in a shocking rise of violent crime throughout America's cities. If this were to happen, the progress made in the Trump administration's efforts to end politicized prosecutions and the systemic criminal justice inequalities instituted by Biden's passage of the 1994 crime bill (which was heavily enforced by prosecutor Kamala Harris) – and President Trump's proactive use of pardons to create an appetite for "Record Reform" may be jeopardized by a nation's fear of rising crime.
Thus, it is vital for America, regardless of who emerges as president in 2021, to be mature enough not to set dangerous policies that effect their personal safety, freedom and economic health out of spite or personality differences. This is why social policy has always taken a back seat to solid economic, foreign and criminal justice policy.
A. Benjamin Mannes, MA, CPP, CESP, is a Subject Matter Expert in Security & Criminal Justice Reform based on his two and a half decade career on both sides the criminal justice system. Mannes served in both federal and municipal law enforcement in though the 9/11 attacks, D.C.-area sniper task force, homeland security exercises and natural disasters. Mannes' work in D.C. led to personal encounters with the D.C.'s unlawful personnel actions, unconstitutional gun laws and criminal justice inequalities, which led him to become an advocate for public integrity. Thereafter, Mannes served for nearly nine years as the Director, Office of Investigations for North America's largest medical board, as a Chief Compliance Officer, consultant, expert witness, nonprofit board member and political adviser. Read A. Benjamin Mannes' Reports — More Here.
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