The U.S. Supreme Court in the 1968 case of Terry v. Ohio granted police officers the limited right to stop and ask questions of someone engaged in unusual behavior and reasonably believed to be armed and presently dangerous. If the answers given do not dispel an officer&#8217;s reasonable concern for safety, he may inspect the outer garments of the individual for weapons. Commonly called Terry stops or &#8220;stop-and-frisk,&#8221; these became routine in New York City in the &#8217;90s. Now Democrats intend to deploy them to your bank account. We are all suspects now.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg argued New York&#8217;s stop-and-frisk policy directly cut down on crime. At a 2015 Aspen Institute event, Bloomberg defended the program, saying, &#8220;Ninety-five percent of murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16-25. That&#8217;s true in New York. That&#8217;s true in virtually every city. And that&#8217;s where the real crime is. You&#8217;ve got to get the guns out of the hands of people that are getting killed. So you want to spend the money on a lot of cops in the streets. Put those cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods. So one of the unintended consequences is people say, &#8216;Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.&#8217; Yes, that&#8217;s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes, that&#8217;s true. Why do we do it? Because that&#8217;s where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of the kids&#8217; hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them.&#8221;
Members of Congress, the president and the Internal Revenue Service are increasingly concerned that you are now committing tax fraud against the federal government, and they want your banks to throw you against the wall and frisk you. A lot of Americans deal in cash or with apps that digitally transfer funds between people. They then deposit the funds into bank accounts. From hairdressers to housekeepers and from drivers to plumbers, everyone is now a suspected tax cheat. Like stop-and-frisk, this will disproportionately impact minorities and white blue-collar workers, all of whom participate more significantly in the gig economy than college-educated white voters.
In a letter to Congress, the Biden administration stated it wants to, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, &#8220;require banks to report annual inflows and outflows from bank accounts with at least $600 or at least $600 worth of transactions.&#8221; The requirement would also apply to services like Venmo, Cash App, and Apple Pay — services used by individuals to pay each other. It amounts to a financial stop-and-frisk program where every American is a suspect, but the little guy is the chief suspect.
Last month, House Democrats pulled the measure from their reconciliation plan, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the measure is still on the table. She defended the proposal last week, saying, &#8220;Yes, there are concerns that some people have, but if people are breaking the law and not paying their taxes, one way to track them is through the banking measure.&#8221;
While Democrats have pitched the plan as a way to target the rich, it very clearly goes after gig economy workers. They would not include services like Venmo if it did not. The Democrats and the IRS are convinced middle class Americans are not paying their fair share of taxes. Because they are convinced you are lying, they want your financial institutions to stop-and-frisk your finances on the government&#8217;s behalf.
There are undoubtedly people not fessing up to their revenue. But Congress has assured us no one who makes less than $400,000 a year will be burdened by their plans. That has already been proven to be a lie, but this latest intrusion and invasion of privacy into our lives shows just how pervasive the Democrats want government to be and how much Democrats do not really trust the American people.
The views expressed in this piece are the author&#8217;s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Security camera

ERICKSON: Financial ‘Stop-And-Frisk’ Is Coming Soon

Democrats

Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

More Americans have died from COVID-19 during the Biden administration than during the Trump administration. That is not the good news for President Joe Biden.
Former President Donald Trump initiated Operation Warp Speed. We had Democrats casting aspersions on the efficacy of a would-be and supposedly rushed vaccine. We finally got the vaccine at the end of the Trump administration. The moment Biden became president, Trump voters cast aspersions on the vaccine and the Democrats bullied anyone skeptical of it.
People still died. The delta variant has upended lives and taken loved ones; it has sent progressives cowering in fear of a microbe and upped their loathing of their fellow man. &#8220;Love your neighbor,&#8221; which has no caveats, carve-outs or exceptions in Scripture, now comes with an &#8220;except for the unvaccinated&#8221; disclaimer for the Left.
Americans are still stranded in Afghanistan. That too is not the good news for Biden. Officials of San Juan Unified School District in California announced the district has 41 students still trapped in Afghanistan. Josh Youssef of Help The Persecuted, a Christian nonprofit in Atlanta, reported he has 600 Christian refugees trying to flee Kabul. His organization had chartered planes and drafted a letter to the Taliban asserting his organization&#8217;s ability to evacuate, but the Biden administration continues to be an impediment.
Fifteen thousand Haitian refugees have made it into the United States at Del Rio, Texas. Most of them have been allowed to stay, pending court dates. Many of them have COVID-19 and are unvaccinated. The government has already lost track of many of them. Now, more than 30,000 more refugees are walking through Mexico headed north. Panama&#8217;s foreign minister arrived in the United States to raise awareness of the coming humanitarian crisis. Her warnings fell on deaf ears. That is not the good news for Biden.
All of this comes as Democrats are squabbling over the price tag for a reconciliation package in Congress. The individual items allegedly show public support, but the public collectively is not smart and does not really understand the things Congress offers. The public is worried about costs, inflation, fuel prices and grocery store bills.
Gas prices continue to rise. The Biden administration took over in January and set about hurting oil producers. They refused pipelines, rolled back access to federal lands and made it otherwise more complicated to drill. All of this was by design to drive up fuel costs, thereby forcing Americans to use less or move to alternatives in the name of climate change. As it had the perfectly foreseeable consequences of driving up gas prices and thereby driving up the prices of everything else, the Biden administration begged OPEC to save the president from his policies. OPEC has refused.
None of these things are the good news for Biden. The cumulative effect of these things is to drag down Biden&#8217;s polling. The just-released Quinnipiac poll is disastrous for Biden. Quinnipiac historically has a slight bias in favor of the Democrats. Even with that bias, the president&#8217;s approval is at 38%. Only 23% of the public supports his handling of the border issue. Thirty-four percent approve of his handling of foreign policy. Thirty-seven percent approve of his handling of taxes. Thirty-nine percent approve of his handling of the economy.
More damning, 55% say that &#8220;the Biden administration is not competent in running the government,&#8221; while 56% say Biden does not have &#8220;good leadership skills.&#8221; Tim Malloy, Quinnipiac&#8217;s polling analyst, noted, &#8220;President Biden is being hammered on all sides as his approval rating continues its downward slide to a number not seen since the tough scrutiny of the Trump administration.&#8221;
So, what is the good news for the Biden administration? The good news is that it is October of 2021 and not October of 2022. Things can turn around. Unfortunately, even as the bad headlines have receded, Biden&#8217;s polling has not turned around. Likewise, the Virginia gubernatorial race, which should be a Democratic blowout, is coming down to a nail-biter. It all suggests a voter backlash has begun in earnest.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Joe Biden

ERICKSON: Good News For Joe Biden

2022 Election

Pity progressives. In 2018, a progressive wave swept into Congress led by the so-called Squad. They have never known what it is like to be in the minority. They are surrounded by a young, left-leaning press and celebrity bubble that tells them they are not only right, but in the majority. They now have sympathetic Democrats in charge of the House, the Senate and the presidency. They decided to go for broke.
The result? The For the People Act died in the Senate. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act died in the Senate. Amnesty died in the Senate. Corporate tax increases died in the Senate. The Equality Act died in the Senate. Filibuster reform died in the Senate. The Green New Deal died in the Senate. Reconciliation died in the Senate. Now the progressives will kill the bipartisan infrastructure plan, which included some of what they wanted, because it is not enough. They will take no wins unless they can have all the wins. Zealots always prefer to live in hell if they can&#8217;t get Heaven exactly as they want it.
Progressives demanded reconciliation be their vehicle to fundamentally transform America. While the nation excoriated Republicans in 2018, in 2020, the GOP bounced back. Contrary to even polling, Republicans did well in 2020 except for the presidency and their own willingness to lose the Senate. Democrats expected a blue wave to expand their House majority. Instead, they nearly lost their majority and now have a single-digit majority with a 50-50 Senate. They have no mandate, but progressives know it is now or never to fundamentally transform America.
Consequently, the House and Senate have pursued a reckless spending package in the form of reconciliation. Under the rules of the Senate, reconciliation cannot add to the deficit and cannot fundamentally change public policy. As a result, Democrats must raise taxes to pay for each of their wishes and those wishes must only expand current public policy, not create new policy.
The result is an assorted grab bag of $3.5 trillion in spending that Democrats claim will cost nothing because the federal government will not be out the money — only taxpayers. Smokers of tobacco, who are disproportionately poor and middle class, will see their taxes go up almost $100 billion combined. The rich will be penalized for success, but rich people in blue states will get a massive tax cut by being able to deduct all their state taxes on their federal taxes. The middle class will see increased prices as corporations pass on tax increases by raising the costs of their products.
In exchange, progressives would redistribute wealth even to people making upwards of a quarter million dollars a year. They would expand social welfare programs to the extent most Americans would be paid a universal basic income (without calling it that.) The Left would drive up prices on agricultural products in the name of fighting climate change. They would drive up fuel costs, which would impact the poor and middle class disproportionately. But they overshot.
Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona are two Senate Democrats who are not on board with the progressive conquest of America. They structured a bipartisan infrastructure plan that gives progressives some of what they want; however, they have blocked the reconciliation package that would give progressives the rest of what they want.
Manchin is opposed to the total $5 trillion spending binge. Sinema is opposed to the massive tax increases. Progressives believe their $3.5 trillion reconciliation package is a compromise because they compromised with themselves to reduce reconciliation from $5 trillion already. But even with the $3.5 trillion package, the bipartisan infrastructure plan is $1.5 trillion, and Congress has already spent several trillion dollars on COVID-19 relief.
Reconciliation will eventually happen. Democrats have to raise the debt ceiling to pay for all their spending. Republicans will give no votes. Reconciliation is the only way to raise the debt ceiling. But progressives will have to get nothing and like it to make that happen. The true believers have had their bubble burst. Zealots do outlandish things when outside forces temper their zeal. The intra-Democratic feud will be fun to watch.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Sens. Sinema and Manchin

ERICKSON: Reconciliation Will Happen, Just Not Now

Infrastructure

Joe Manchin

Kyrsten Sinema

spending

Recent data from the Cooperative Election Study shows 20% of atheists have participated in a march or protest, compared with 6% of white evangelicals. Forty percent of atheists have contacted a public official, compared with 24% of white evangelicals. Fifty-two percent of atheists have donated to political candidates, compared with just 26% of white evangelicals. Pull back further, and the divide between progressives and conservative evangelicals shows the former, not the latter, more actively involved in protest and politics.
As progressivism secularizes, politics becomes religion. Virtue signaling replaces a Christian ichthus fish on the back of a car. Outrage becomes a signal for identifying heretics. If one is not outraged, one just might be a heretic to secular, progressive zealots.
This past weekend, college students took to stadiums across America to experience the joy of fellowship and football. Across television networks and social media, progressives decried the activity as unsafe. Outdoor festivities again became superspreader events in ways mass protests and ransacking small businesses did not during the riots and protests surrounding George Floyd&#8217;s death in summer 2020.
The Supreme Court let a Texas law stay in place because the plaintiffs in the case sued the wrong people. The Supreme Court refused to halt the law because the Court does not stop laws. The Court only stops people from enforcing the laws. When the wrong people are sued, the Court has no power to stop them. Progressives insisted, despite the dereliction of duty by the plaintiffs, that the Court should stop the law anyway. While four justices would have done so, they would have deviated from legal precedent.
Undeterred, instead of blaming the plaintiffs for their collective screw-up, progressives assailed the Supreme Court, Texas, former President Donald Trump, conservatives, and babies. They fixated on the worst-case scenario — rape. According to progressives, women who are victims of rape will have to carry their babies to term and face untold psychological trauma. They patently ignored that Texas cannot stop a woman from traveling to another state to terminate her child. Nor did they care to point out that rape accounts for, at most, 1% of abortions. To listen to the commentary on television, one would think rape and pregnancies therefrom happen constantly. Meanwhile, one doctor admitted to killing dozens of children in the run-up to the law taking effect, none because of rape, but rather because of the mothers&#8217; convenience.
As the remains of a hurricane went up the East Coast, sending flooding with it, progressives freaked out about climate change. Never letting a crisis go to waste, politicians and supposed experts paraded onto television screens across America demanding Americans give up their way of life to stop storms. Storms will not be stopped by a battery-powered car. One would be hard-pressed to realize that from the media coverage.
Podcaster Joe Rogan received ivermectin from his doctor. The inventors of the drug received a Nobel Prize for ivermectin&#8217;s contribution to human progress. The drug has saved billions of people from blindness and parasitic infestation. It is also used in livestock, and a few people have tried to ingest dosages meant for horses. Rogan, however, got it from his doctor. Some doctors believe the well-documented anti-inflammatory properties of ivermectin can help prevent or combat the so-called cytokine storm whereby COVID-19 triggers a release of inflammatory proteins called cytokines into the bloodstream. The Food and Drug Administration has discouraged ivermectin prescriptions pending further study.
Progressives freaked out about Rogan and his doctor while assailing Texas for getting between a woman and her doctor. All of the freaking out is theater. In the postmodern age, one demonstrates one&#8217;s commitment to a particular truth or cause through performance. The screaming and wailing on social media and television is performance designed to both signal one&#8217;s commitment to a supposed truth and identify the heretics who choose not to perform.
As progressives continue making secularism a religion, the ritualistic outrage will get more intense, but this will also help discredit the progressive cause. Most people don&#8217;t have time for outrage these days as they struggle to get by thanks to progressives closing schools and causing inflation with massive spending binges.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Protest

ERICKSON: The Progressive Freakout

Progressivism

The American media tends to consist of highly educated individuals, many of whom went to elite academic institutions. They tend to congregate in large urban environments surrounded by like-minded people who have similar interests and worldviews. The result is a media that is urban, coastal, secular and progressive.
Good reporters tend to be mindful of their biases. Most reporters do not. In ways large and small, from what the press chooses to cover, chooses not to cover and chooses to use as narrative constructs for stories, the secular, urban, progressive worldview is pervasive. Many reporters are not well-traveled outside other urban enclaves. Much of America is more foreign to them than European cities. Too many political reporters only venture out into the heartland of flyover country during presidential campaign season.
Nowhere is progressive bias in the media more prevalent than in coverage of abortion. Anchors and reporters are almost all in favor of killing children. They may personally have not killed their own child, but they will support a woman&#8217;s right to have a child&#8217;s brain injected with a solution designed to kill her and then have her scrapped, torn or vacuumed from a uterus. If this is all appalling to read, note how these reporters, anchors and pundits avoid discussing what they euphemistically call a &#8216;right to choose.&#8217;
The entire abortion discussion on television is designed to advocate for abortion. I know this firsthand. Over several years at CNN, whenever the issue arose, I was asked to be the man who would confront the pro-abortion rights anchor and the pro-abortion rights, expressly female guest opposite me. When I could, I would decline and suggest a long list of female anti-abortion advocates in Washington, D.C., who were readily available. Rarely were they asked. Almost to a network, television producers and anchors want the optics of a man advocating against abortion being challenged by a woman who can talk about her body and her choice. One would think female advocates against abortion did not exist despite virtually every anti-abortion organization in Washington being helmed by a woman.
Conservative talk radio is actually not much better. I have been in conservative talk radio for a decade. I regularly talk about my faith, social conservatism, socially conservative policies and the anti-abortion cause. In July of this year, I was the only host who had stepped into the void left by Rush Limbaugh to rate No. 1 in a top 10 radio market. In Atlanta, I was the No. 1 radio show across formats, music and talk. In six months of nationally syndicated radio, I have already charted as the 26th most listened to host nationwide. One might think I know something about radio. But corporate owners of radio networks have more than once insisted I not discuss religion, faith or socially conservative issues. They too prefer an &#8220;us versus them&#8221; coverage of daily politics. I politely ignore them.
The bias is so pervasive, you have undoubtedly heard Texas has, in the words of one CNN news anchor, unleashed a anti-abortion law with &#8220;dark dystopian undertones.&#8221; News networks, led by progressive female anchors, have declared the Supreme Court abandoned Roe v Wade and effectively rendered abortion unconstitutional. I could only wish that were the case.
In Texas, the legislature passed a law that allows citizens a private right to sue to stop abortion. The Supreme Court let the law stay in effect, pending litigation, because the pro-abortion advocates who sued filed suit against state officials who cannot, under that law, enforce it. Courts cannot stop laws. They can only stop people from enforcing laws and the people stopped must be the ones sued. Abortion advocates would have you believe abortion is now banned. The American media, with its bias, is amplifying that talking point. The reality is the plaintiffs sued the wrong people.
Sadly, Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land. The claims of dystopia are fiction from a biased, insular press that is in favor of killing children. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will overturn Roe. But that has not happened and probably won&#8217;t. The apocalypse will have to wait for Jesus.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">member</a>.

Abortion rally

ERICKSON: Apocalypse Not

Abortion

Roe v. Wade

Texas

For four years, Democrats and much of the media demanded former President Donald Trump resign or the 25th Amendment be deployed to remove him from office. The complaints largely stemmed from grievance over the 2016 election but magnified as Trump&#8217;s behavior got more combative and meanwhile in office. Now, having defeated Trump, President Joe Biden has reached a point where those who demanded Trump&#8217;s resignation should be calling for Biden&#8217;s, unless it was all just partisan bellyaching.
Months ago, Biden said he intended to withdraw Americans from Afghanistan. It is one of the only issues on which he chose not to reverse Trump. He just dragged out the timeline. According to press reports and now leaks from inside the Biden administration, Biden was so insistent on having the symbolism of 9/11 coincide with the departure he ignored everyone&#8217;s advice.
Afghanistan has a fighting season. In late autumn, the Taliban go to the fields and oversee harvesting poppies for the opium drug trade. In winter, they retreat through mountain passes into northern Pakistan. The winters in Afghanistan are rough and frigid. In the early spring, after the snow melts, the Taliban return to Afghanistan and plant poppies. Then they fight. This is a well-known and well-documented cycle.
When Trump announced a withdrawal, he insisted on withdrawing while the Taliban were in the fields planting poppies. They would be preoccupied and unable to sweep down into the cities. For 18 months, with only 2,500 troops, Trump&#8217;s military held the nation of Afghanistan together with zero American casualties.
Biden, so insistent on having 9/11 as a symbol, overrode his military commanders and diplomats and insisted on a withdrawal in the middle of the fighting season. Six weeks ago, Biden assured the American public and international community that there would be no fall of Afghanistan, the Taliban would not sweep in and there would be no rooftop embassy evacuations like what happened in Vietnam.
Just six weeks later, the withdrawal is a disastrous evacuation. The world was shocked to see men falling from the sky, having lost the strength to hang on to the exterior of airplanes. Women and children scrambled to flee the Taliban only to be caught and beaten. Americans are stranded and the American military is under orders not to even try to rescue them. Instead, the military is held to the whim of the Taliban.
Biden went into hiding as the Taliban swept back into power. Only international and press outrage forced him out of hiding and to a microphone. There, he made matters worse by claiming to accept responsibility but then blaming everyone else from Trump to the Afghans. But Biden, in ordering America out of Afghanistan, took from the Afghan army their intelligence and air support and even the mechanics to fix their helicopters. An army designed to fight alongside us was, by design, incapable of continuing a fight without us. Biden ensured their collapse.
Instead of admitting his mistakes, he doubled down pridefully, blamed others, then retreated back to Camp David. A few days later, he returned to the White House, attacked Republicans for COVID-19, and again refused questions except from George Stephanopoulos. His interview was a disaster.
When asked about the men falling from the sky trying to escape the Taliban, Biden claimed it was four days earlier, when it was more recent than that. He had no answers and no empathy. The man the press assured us was full of empathy showed no concern at all for the dead falling from the sky and barely any concern for Americans stranded due to his botched plans.
Our military publicly is defending their commander in chief, but in the background tells the world he ignored them and that this was all avoidable and foreseeable. Thousands of Americans are stuck in Afghanistan, the Taliban has captured our armaments and our air base and Biden has gone on an extended vacation in Delaware for rest.
The president should resign. If Trump were president, the Democrats and press would demand no less. They should not lower their standards for the man who surrendered America to the Taliban on the eve of 9/11.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

ERICKSON: Resign

Afghanistan

Contrarianism has run amok in the United States. It is a byproduct of moving into postmodernism. Instead of focusing on what is true, we now all focus on our personal truths with no regard to actual truth. If we believe it is true, then by God in heaven it is true!
Combine that with our increasing divisions as a society, and many people&#8217;s truth is now based on being exactly opposite their opposing tribe. Everyone prides themselves on their individual thought when really their thoughts are not individual but based on tribal consent. No one sees it that way, but it is that way. People gauge what they think is true based on what everyone else in their tribe says is true and decide they too have, independently and uniquely, arrived at the exact same conclusion.
Each person, a master of his own destiny, does not even realize he is in a herd. One could reasonably conclude that if buffaloes or lemmings could speak, each one would claim it chose to go in that direction all by itself — the direction in which literally every member of the herd is going. There is, after all, safety in numbers and if everyone else in the herd is headed in a direction, you will probably head that way too.
The United States is now fairly evenly divided, and no one trusts institutions. The media has destroyed its own credibility. The bureaucracy can be bullied by special interests. People are too cynical to trust politicians. So, they trust their friends and the communities that they have increasingly built, online or through political interaction, to look and think just like themselves. The result is now a handful of groups that claim independent thought, expert input and political power at different levels, but remarkably stake out positions exactly opposite the other groups.
The actual independent thinker tends to be increasingly isolated and, as everyone wants to belong to a community, often must make compromises to fit in. But most people do not want to ride in turbulent seas, so they go along to get along within their tribe. That is an important distinction because there are those, on both sides of the political aisle, who rock the boat. If your tribe is committed to rocking the boat, calm seas are your turbulence.
Unfortunately for the country, this has left us largely without good ideas and sound public policy. Each tribe wishes to be contrary to the other tribe. Not too long ago, if one of America&#8217;s political tribes staked out position X, the other tribe most assuredly would stake out X plus 1 or Y. In other words, they would call for something more fully than the other side or different from the other side, claiming their different way was a better way.
Now, each side has chosen to be an opposite. Instead of pushing Y to challenge X, the opposing tribe pushes minus X, the exact opposite. One side has embraced vaccines, so the other side refuses to get them. When former President Donald Trump was in office, Democrats cast doubt and aspersions on the vaccine and Operation Warp Speed. As soon as President Joe Biden was elected, Trump supporters became the loudest skeptics of the vaccine.
As Republicans showed sound science that children are not the spreaders of the coronavirus and should be able to go to school without masks, Democrats rushed to do the exact opposite and insist on masks for children, even outdoors. What one side advocates, the other side must repudiate. There can be no nuance and damn the person who charts a middle or alternate path.
This will not last. X plus minus X equals X minus X, which equals zero. Both sides cancel each other out. It is basic math. The side that ultimately wins is going to be the side that charts a different path, not a contrary path. We need some alternatives now. Both sides seem to be out of any ideas except: Whatever one side is for, the other is against. That provides no path forward for any of us.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Red and blue brains

ERICKSON: The United States Of Contrarianism

COVID-19 Vaccine

Face Masks

Republicans

The delta variant is here. The delta plus variant is spreading. The lambda variant has been detected. In a few years, my kid will be pledging the omicron variant in college. Some people want masks back. Some people want lockdowns. Others want vaccine passports.
Many conservatives are convinced the resurgence of COVID-19 is all about expanding government power. The vaccine passports, vaccine mandates, mask mandates, etc., are all part of some sinister plot for federal control.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and the Democrats went to sleep on June 29, 2021, when the Supreme Court decided the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had no authority to continue an eviction moratorium past its July 31, 2021, end date. Only on July 31, 2021, as landlords prepped for evictions did the Democrats wake up. First, Biden said he did not have the authority to extend the moratorium. The CDC said it did not have the power either. Then, on Aug. 3, 2021, Biden extended the moratorium while declaring he really had no power to extend the moratorium.
The totality of the reality is that our government has &#8216;electile&#8217; dysfunction. Our government is inept, incompetent and incapable of doing its basic functions.
Around the country, mask mandates are being met with eye rolls. In Washington, D.C., the mayor of the city violated her own mask mandate at an indoor wedding reception. Here in Atlanta, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms&#8217; mask mandate has been ignored even by the police.
The COVID-19 resurgence is not being used by the government to take control of our lives. The government cannot even control a microscopic organism that we have a highly effective vaccine to fight. The government cannot control the people refusing the vaccine. The government cannot control the people refusing to wear masks. The government cannot control its various bureaucrats, who go on television and contradict each other in a cacophony of confusion. What we have is theater, increasingly of the absurd, by the federal government in a vain effort to distract us from its incompetence.
Every time Dr. Anthony Fauci gets on television now, he confuses the situation. Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, went on television and advised parents to mask up at home in front of their children. Then he said he misspoke. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the CDC, cannot get her organization to make any sense or convey any sense of competence.
Our government has let its public health leaders, who have never faced a global pandemic, suddenly rush to be in charge. They seemingly had no media coaching beforehand and are stepping over one another in turf wars for control of messaging and funding. It is rather embarrassing. We are seeing how much the public health officials have longed for the opportunity to direct our behavior, how bad at it they are and how inept at enforcement they are.
Frankly, Americans should accept and embrace the incompetence as a feature, not a bug. The strains in the federal electile dysfunction were preprogrammed by the founders. Without congressional action, the bureaucracy eventually implodes, and in any event, the states are supposed to provide a robust response, which most are doing.
Our government is not good at distributing budget appropriations to tenants or landlords; delivering the mail; or fighting a virus. Unfortunately, it looks more and more to be incompetent at preparing for and fighting wars, too. A lot of that incompetence has led to a collapse of trust in our institutions. Now the government, with ever more gusto, is trying to compensate for its electile dysfunction with more bureaucracy, more demands and more inefficiency. Perhaps, instead of trying harder and getting even less, the federal government should step back, prune itself, restructure and require Congress to lead rather than consign its role to unelected and out-of-touch-bureaucrats.
The very simple rule should be that if Congress cannot reach a consensus, the matter at hand should be left to each of the 50 states, not federal bureaucrats, to find their own workable solutions. The only cure for the federal government&#8217;s electile dysfunction is less nationalization and more federalism.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

White House

ERICKSON: Electile Dysfunction

Congress

COVID-19

This is the first time I can remember an Olympic Games with so little media conversation around it. With the exception of the Simone Biles incident, people seem less inclined to pay attention. Advertisers are fretting as well that attention has declined and viewership is down.
One of the natures of a monopoly is there is very little incentive to provide a great product at a low price. It is a reason government-run entities tend to come in overbudget with a worse product than private sector entities. With no competition, there is no reason to innovate, improve or seek efficiencies.
Much of the blame for our national lack of attention should be with NBC. Yes, an Olympics halfway around the world and already a day ahead of us is harder to cover, but NBC has made it even harder. A television network owned by a cable company that has a monopoly on coverage is probably destined to provide cable-company-quality service.
My friends and I have tried watching. But where do we go? The games are spread across multiple channels, and we are cord cutters. To watch, one must get the NBC app, the NBC Sports app and the terrible-to-use-and-navigate Peacock app. I have an Apple TV, and Apple has made it really easy with its TV app interface to see what sports are on. NBC&#8217;s apps have made it extremely difficult to get into those apps to watch the sports.
Inevitably, I find myself having to quit the app, go back to the Apple TV interface and then jump back in. The NBC Sports app is the worst; I knew its bugs were pronounced before the Olympics, having had to use it to watch the Stanley Cup. ESPN and Disney have a much better product, but then Disney does not have the monopoly on coverage of the Olympics.
NBC has done a disservice to its viewers and the athletes with its schizophrenic approach that takes the worst of a cable company and layers it over what is supposed to be the best of America. When one is actually able to watch a sport, NBC would rather one hear its commentators and see its prepared biography specials than actually watch the sport. In an era of mass employment needs, NBC would be OK axing all parties responsible. They&#8217;d surely be able to get jobs elsewhere to screw up something other than the Olympics.
As for the Olympics themselves, I am not sure why everyone feels the need to have an opinion on Simone Biles, but everyone does. My first reaction was that it was terrible for her to abandon her team before the finals. But, upon a review of the data, I had to change my mind.
Based on her scores headed into the finals, had Biles stuck around, she probably would have cost the Americans their silver medal and most likely would have dragged them into no-medal territory. Being a leader requires knowing when to step aside for others. She appears to grasp that.
Unfortunately, in the era of hot takes and with the anti-American pollution of the Team USA women&#8217;s soccer team, a lot of people immediately denounced Biles as something less than an American. Unlike the women&#8217;s soccer team, she has never taken a position that might cast shame or blame on the United States.
The politicization of American sports has been a real disappointment. That it has spilled over into the Olympics makes it even worse. That people feel compelled to offer up opinions about it all on social media, often without data or a full picture, just exacerbates all the problems.
On top of it all, the media is desperate to turn our athletes into real-life heroes with hagiographic profiles amplified by NBC&#8217;s programming decisions. Biles is a phenomenal athlete. Had this happened a decade ago, it probably would have gone without much commentary. Now, everyone feels compelled to weigh in.
Maybe, instead of weighing in on Biles, we should wonder why three athletes have dropped out due to mental health and wonder, after Larry Nasser, what Team USA and the NBC coverage have done.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
 The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Tokyo Olympics

ERICKSON: The Olympics Monopoly

Olympics

On September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key penned &#8220;The Star-Spangled Banner.&#8221; Set to the British tune &#8220;To Anacreon in Heaven,&#8221; &#8220;The Star-Spangled Banner&#8221; is inarguably one of the most difficult national anthems to sing.
The backdrop of the song was the British attack on Baltimore during the War of 1812. Key had been sent to negotiate a prisoner release and boarded the British flagship HMS Tonnant. During the negotiations with British Vice Adm. Alexander Cochrane, Key overheard the war plans. Consequently, the British held Key captive until after the assault on Fort McHenry, forcing him to stay on the HMS Surprise until the attack had been completed on September 14.
Through the night, Key watched the British bombard Fort McHenry and, as the sun rose, he saw the American flag still flying over the fort. In fact, the Americans had replaced a smaller flag with a much larger one. As the smoke cleared overnight from the fort, there flying at sunrise was Old Glory — then 15 stars and 15 stripes.
Key was moved to pen his poem, which he first named &#8220;Defence of Fort M&#8217;Henry.&#8221; It was later called &#8220;The Star-Spangled Banner&#8221; and became immensely popular in the new republic. It began to be played regularly at Independence Day celebrations. In 1899, the U.S. Navy began playing it, and President Woodrow Wilson, in 1916, ordered it regularly played by the military. In 1918, during the first World Series, the anthem became a fixture of baseball. In 1930, the Veterans of Foreign Wars started a petition to recognize it as our national anthem. It became just that on March 4, 1931. In 1956, Congress embraced the fourth verse of Key&#8217;s poem and adopted &#8220;In God We Trust&#8221; as our national motto.
Only recently have revisionists began to claim &#8220;The Star-Spangled Banner&#8221; is racist. The third verse includes the lines, &#8220;No refuge could save the hireling and slave / From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave / And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave, / O&#8217;er the land of the free and the home of the brave.&#8221;
Gwen Berry, an American athlete and activist, turned her back last week when the anthem was played. She said in an interview that the national anthem has &#8220;a paragraph&#8221; that speaks to slavery. She means American chattel slavery. Her statement is born of revisionist ignorance.
Key&#8217;s poem is about the attack on Baltimore and the battle at Fort McHenry. He was not alluding to or mentioning African slaves in the United States. At the time, the American Navy and military prided itself on being a volunteer service. The founders of the country were fearful of a standing army and embraced the concept of a volunteer service. Key stood on the deck of the HMS Surprise, a captive of the British, and watched the volunteer Americans fight off the fiercest empire on the planet.
The British Navy, at the enlisted level, consisted of hired mercenaries and sailors impressed against their will and forced to fight in service of the British. Those impressed sailors are the slaves Key referenced. Modern progressive historians have twisted the truth. The fact and actual truth — not my truth or your truth, but the actual truth — is that Francis Scott Key&#8217;s entire third verse is about the British Navy.
It is common now to hear claims that Key referenced slaves and that the reference is about chattel slavery. It is foolish anti-American revisionism and ignorance to make that claim. It is devoid of both the historic context and actual truth. Key&#8217;s poem stands the test of time and concludes beautifully with a fourth verse.
&#8220;O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand / Between their loved homes and the war&#8217;s desolation. / Blest with vict&#8217;ry and peace, may the Heav&#8217;n rescued land / Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! / Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, / And this be our motto: &#8216;In God is our trust.&#8217; / And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave / O&#8217;er the land of the free and the home of the brave!&#8221;
Have a wonderful Independence Day.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

Flag and sparklers

ERICKSON: Star-Spangled Facts

4th of July

National Anthem

H.R. 1, the For the People Act, was a messaging piece of legislation that was never meant to be passed. But Democrats are increasingly held hostage by the wing of the party that believes Twitter is real life. Now, the same forces seem intent on dismantling the Biden Administration.
First, the Twitter activists of the Left bought into the For the People Act rhetoric. The progressive base fully believes the GOP is dismantling democracy. News anchors roared that the GOP couldn&#8217;t even debate saving democracy or protecting the right to vote.
Most Americans do not care. They support needing a photo ID to vote, but the Democrats insisted that hurts Black people even though Black people support the use of photo ID. White Democrats in Washington and progressive enclaves do not.
The Democrats&#8217; hardcore base of Twitterati forgot or never knew that H.R. 1 was not supposed to get passed into law, but they made its passage a hill to die on. They died. Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema, two Democrats, refused to kill the filibuster, saving other Democrats from a vote they did not want.
The base, demoralized by that defeat, then saw Republicans take over the infrastructure plan and, in so doing, gut its Green New Deal framework, which deemed that anything and everything could be infrastructure.
So, what&#8217;s the next step?
Apparently, it is gun control to solve the crime problem. Democrats have convinced themselves, again largely due to the Twitterati, that the solution to the crime wave is to call it &#8220;gun violence&#8221; and make it even harder to buy guns while they continue to defund the police.
A record number of Americans are buying guns. Non-white citizens and women are rushing to protect themselves because police are leaving their jobs. A crime wave is upon us, and Democrats keep gutting police budgets while saying they are not gutting those budgets.
Having President Biden declare gun violence the problem and propose a gun control solution that will die in the Senate like everything else may rally the progressive base, but it will demoralize that base, too, when it fails. Maybe it will get progressives enraged enough to overwhelm elections with sustained, angry momentum. But I doubt it. I doubt it because it signals a tone-deafness that will provoke a backlash from Americans who are not hyperpartisan.
In the last forty eight hours, news anchors have started talking about gun violence as the President rolls out his agenda to combat it. It is striking how quickly the press gravitated to the talking point. It is also striking they think anyone with half a brain will really believe guns are the problem right now instead of a crime wave that people like Keisha Lance Bottoms, Mayor of Atlanta, are blaming on Republican governors for reopening America too soon.
Only a party captured by Twitter could be so out of touch with reality. Americans are buying guns at record rates not to commit a crime, but to protect themselves from criminals. Saying there is a gun violence problem instead of a crime problem deflects from the sticky questions of which party&#8217;s policies sparked it. But it also is disconnected from reality.
It is destined to go nowhere in the Senate and mobilize a slew of new gun owners against the Democrats. After all, it is hard to still claim people buy guns without background checks when literally millions of voters just bought their first guns and were required to have gun background checks.
Oh, did I mention the whole plan will die in the Senate while the Democrat base, like they did with the For the People Act, goes hysterical about it on and offline, alienating more Americans? This is not a smart move. It is a move best explained by a Democratic Party that is captured by an out of touch elite that thinks Twitter is reality.
It also probably explains why Joe Biden finally wants Kamala Harris to go to the border. It&#8217;s better to have another Kamala Harris-fueled PR disaster than have people focus on the impotence of the Biden presidency.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Twitter

ERICKSON: Twitter Is Not Reality

H.R. 1

Voting Rights

If QAnon is a right-wing conspiracy theory, the Democrats&#8217; allegations that Republicans are killing democracy is the Left’s conspiracy. They have convinced themselves that the Jan. 6, 2021, incursion into the Capitol was the worst event since the Civil War.
We&#8217;ve recently gone through a week that included discussions about the Tulsa Race Massacre, which was arguably a far worse post-Civil War attack on our democracy. Likewise, more people died on United Airlines Flight 93 to keep terrorists from flying a plane into the Capitol. Two planes brought down the World Trade Center that same day, and another slammed into the Pentagon.
In 1954, Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire inside the United States House of Representatives. There were also various bombings by the domestic terrorist group Weather Underground, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert. Those are all arguably worse than what happened on Jan. 6.
But it has become dogma of the Left and many members of the press that the Jan. 6 incursion is the worst. I do think it was bad and in the top 10, but I would put it lower than the Tulsa Race Massacre, the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the gunfire in the House of Representatives, the Kennedy assassination, and the Weather Underground bombings. Congress very literally got back to work the afternoon of Jan. 6.
Coupled with the outrage over Jan. 6 is outrage over Sen. Joe Manchin preserving the filibuster. Democrats have turned on the one man keeping them in charge of the Senate. Now Machin has done something else. He has penned a new op-ed in which he declares his opposition to H.R.1/S.1: the massive progressive voting reform package. Various Democrats, members of the press, Hollywood stars, and progressive activists across the country have all declared our democracy would die if the legislation is not passed.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, Manchin makes one really good point that spectacularly discredits the Democrats&#8217; talking points. He asked: &#8220;Are the very Republican senators who voted to impeach Trump because of actions that led to an attack on our democracy unwilling to support actions to strengthen our democracy? Are these same senators, whom many in my party applauded for their courage, now threats to the very democracy we seek to protect?&#8221;
Manchin just killed the Democrats&#8217; voting reform package. Unfortunately for Democrats who have believed the GOP is dying, their party appears to have some serious problems beyond an inability to get anything done in Washington.
White people don&#8217;t see themselves as an identity group. Critical theorists on the Left say that is a form of privilege. But therein lies a problem for Democrats: The more white people vote as an identity group, the less they will vote for the party that tells them they are oppressors who must pay reparations.
Do you really think the rich, suburban, secular soccer mom is going to go along with punishing her family and, in particular, her kids because of the color of her skin or because someone she&#8217;s related to did something 200 years ago? Really?
Likewise, Hispanic voters and Asian voters do not see themselves as a racial group. To an extent, Hispanic voters do; they trend toward viewing themselves as white. Add them to the voter pool of white people, and Democrats lose even more.
Asian voters are from a plethora of countries. Korean voters tend to be Christian. Indian subcontinent voters are trending Republican because of people like Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley. Japanese and Chinese descendants lean Democrat. Hispanic or Latino voters are Cuban, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Columbian, Argentinian, etc. In Florida, they&#8217;ve all tended to vote with the GOP while Democrats double down on identity politics, and Republicans treat them as voters who want jobs and safety.
For years, Democrats and a great many political pundits in the press have told us demography is destiny and we&#8217;re going to wind up with a Republican Party marginalized like it is in California. The real world data suggests Texas and Florida are more likely the trajectory of the country&#8217;s politics than California, and that trend hurts Democrats. Democrats&#8217; constant hysteria on democracy and identity are undermining their ability to maintain a majority coalition.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Menu

Erick Erickson