America's Future

The following sections are included:

• Dedication
• Foreword
• Preface
• About the Authors
• Executive Summary
• Contents

Joe Biden is now President of the United States. What kind of man is he?

“… Joe Biden is both an ordinary and an extraordinary man. He’s decent, friendly, empathetic and approachable, while at the same time brilliant of mind, with deep-seated convictions and a stalwart determination to do what is right.” (Lois Pope, “Joe Biden is a good man …,” Palm Beach Daily News, February 7, 2021, p. 16A.) This is Lois Pope’s assessment of Joe Biden. She has known Joe Biden for many years working with him on social betterment projects…

The following sections are included:

• Biden versus the Republicans in Temper and in the Exercise of Authority
• The Strength of Biden’s Presidency
• Biden’s Promise to Unify the American People
• The Importance of Women in Biden’s Presidency
• Joe Biden and His Wife
• How Biden Weakened His Own Position

Propaganda is the central element of modern politics. Many democracies, including the U.S., have large populations. People cannot be reached except by large-scale communications — mass media of some sort (television, internet, or social media). It is critical for any political candidate, official or party to reach the population. Failure to have mass media access to an electorate normally means political disaster…

It can be difficult to ascertain what the outcome of an American presidential election means. Ordinarily we determine immediately or in a few months (as in 2020) who has won the election. We know his or her political party. We know their campaign promises. We should be able to determine which political movement has won and which has lost…

First impressions matter. They remain with people a long time and are difficult to displace. The Biden Administration made a strong first impression with the American people by issuing many presidential directives — what Americans call “executive orders” — in the first days of his administration. The Administration told the American people that in doing this Biden was the most active American president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the start of the Great Depression in 1933…

On International Women’s Day (March 8, 2021) Biden signed an executive (presidential) order establishing the White House Gender Policy Council. Its duty as described in the media is to work with other policy councils to advance gender equality in domestic and foreign policy development, combat systemic bias and discrimination, including sexual harassment, and focus on increasing female participation in the labor force and decreasing wage and wealth gaps. The council will also focus on transgender rights and supporting care workers, predominantly women of color…

The following sections are included:

• The World Economy
• The Challenge to the Developed Regions
• Trade
• A Reserve Currency

The following sections are included:

• America’s Economy under Biden
• Biden’s Reach
• An Age of No Limits
• Fiscal Policy
• A Shrinking Labor Force
• Problems with Bidenomics

The following sections are included:

• Blowing Financial Bubbles
• Restraining Inflation
• A Summary of What Bidenomics Is and Will Be
• Raiding the Federal Treasury

Immigration is one of the most fought-over political issues in America. Because of this, the Biden Administration must deal with it carefully. Immigration has been politicized to such a degree that most Americans have a conviction about it and are not interested in facts unless those facts support their preconceived notions…

The following section is included:

• The Foundation of the Immigration Problem

America was among the hardest hit of the nations by the pandemic. It had more cases and more deaths than most, even adjusted for population. Its economy was greatly disrupted. Its political process guaranteed that the pandemic would become a center of bitterly partisan conflict. Yet America did much to pull itself out of the clutches of the virus. Biden had little to do with this, but he has claimed credit for it…

The following sections are included:

• A State-By-State Approach
• The Texas Challenge
• Federalization
• Politics Drive the Pandemic Agenda
• The Special Challenge of International Travel
• A Missed Opportunity: A Strategy to Combat the Virus

The following sections are included:

• Biden’s Confidence in Himself
• The Background to Biden’s Diplomacy
• Diplomacy as the Key to Foreign Relations
• Biden’s America: The Arrogance Returns

At the time of the American Civil War in the middle of the nineteenth century a song was current which had as some of its verses “Tenting tonight, tenting tonight, tenting on the old campground/Many are the hearts that are weary tonight, hoping for the dawn of peace.” Abraham Lincoln was then President of the United States. He could have provided peace by simply withdrawing federal troops from the rebellious southern states. He did not do so. He prosecuted the war at the cost of several hundred thousand northern dead until African Americans who were held slaves were freed and the union was reunified. Lincoln did this although the Supreme Court of the United States had just a few years earlier declared that African Americans were not and never should be citizens of the United States. In his turn, Joe Biden heard the prayers for peace and supplied it by withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and leaving the women of that nation in slavery. He did the opposite of what Lincoln had done. It is no surprise, therefore, that a large part of the American public is upset. It is also no surprise that the Afghan fiasco has generated soul-searching in America about America’s role in the world. Biden initiated all of this on his own…

Russia is a natural ally of America against China. Russia has natural resources and living space which China needs for its large population. Russia shares a border of thousands of miles with China and clashes have been common in the not too distant past. Already millions of Chinese reside in Russia east of the Urals, though this is denied by both governments. The potential for tension between the two countries exists, but their common opposition to American influence impels them to cooperation…

Threats to the United States and its allies grow more serious daily. What the Soviets used to call the “correlation of power” is measured recently in a book by the authors of this book: Steven S. Rosefielde and Daniel Quinn Mills, Beleaguered Superpower: Biden’s America Adrift (Singapore: World Scientific Publishers, 2021). The correlation of power is trending much to the disadvantage of the United States and its allies…

The more forward-thinking strategists in the United States are preparing for the loss of a major war. The concern is how great the devastation accompanying that loss will be…

China is a rising power. It has geopolitical aspirations that conflict with American involvements. Only a few years ago America viewed Chinese aspirations as a challenge limited to the Far East. In a remarkably short time China has become a rival to the U.S. all over the globe. China is active in Africa; it is involved in the Caribbean. It has recently signed a 25-year alliance with Iran that involves it in the Middle East. European nations are considering how best to arrange their trade relations with China. In the most dramatic of its challenges to America, one which is largely ignored in America as too extreme — as mere hyperbole — to be considered, on May 2, 2019, China’s media called for a “people’s war” on the U.S. (https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/14/asia/china-us-beijing-propaganda-intl/index.html)…

There is emerging an ideological aspect to the American Chinese rivalry. This is surprising since the end of the Cold War brought common acceptance of the notion that the great ideological contest between communism and democratic capitalism had ended. This was the so-called end of history. The rivalry that emerged between the U.S. and China in recent years has been thought to be free of ideological overtones…

Wherever it originated, COVID-19 seems to have come out of China and triggered a global pandemic. Questions about the virus’ origins and China’s responsibility for the chaos that ensued have emerged strongly in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.

Why did the U.S. not pursue the origin of the virus more vigorously? Neither the Republicans nor the Biden Administration have done so…

It is unfortunate that attention must be devoted to the risk of military conflict in East Asia. We and our readers would prefer a peaceful world without concerns about military conflict…

The following sections are included:

• Russia, China, and Taiwan
• Biden and the China — Russia Alliance
• China’s Options
• China’s Best Response

We will be discussing the United States and its current political, economic, and social shortcomings and controversies. This should not suggest that the United States is without great strengths. To avoid misunderstandings about America we list below a few of our nation’s substantial strengths…

America acclaims its democracy all over the world and sponsors democracies everywhere. No one is a louder proponent of democracy worldwide than Joe Biden…

It is unfortunate but the way the American government now works should probably be considered a weakness of the United States.

Edward Everett Hale, the United States Senate chaplain from 1903 to 1909 and a celebrated writer, was once asked: “Dr. Hale, do you pray for the senators?” Hale replied, “No, I look at the senators and I pray for the country”…

The following sections are included:

• Making Money Out of Politics
• Financing of Election Campaigns
• The Presidency versus the Congress
• The Administrative State

We have in a previous chapter discussed President Biden’s endorsement of democracy as a key element of American foreign policy. We have noted that democracy has many meanings, and that it is imperfect in the United States. In this chapter, we examine the challenge to John Locke-type (featuring constitutional minority rights protection including human, civic and property rights) democracy in today’s world from the authoritarian nations. This is a challenge that democracy will face regardless of who is at the helm of the American ship of state. But since Biden is now president in the world’s foremost democracy — though certainly not its largest — Biden’s attitude toward democracy is very important…

Joe Biden was elected president of the United States in the context of general disgust at and distrust of the political leadership of both major political parties. Polls indicated that more than 70% of the American electorate were exasperated with the political establishment…

President Biden insists that democracy is mankind’s best form of government. Winston Churchill agreed, but on the basis that democracy was not so good as that the others were worse. American democracy today may be the best form of government in the world, but it has serious limitations. We will discuss democracy and its apparent decay in this chapter. Our only purpose is to identify elements for improvement…

The following sections are included:

• Pulling Business into Partisan Politics
• The Attitudes of the American People
• How Partisanship Works
• The Texas Storm
• Different Attitudes Toward the World
• American Presidents in this Bitterly Partisan Era

The ongoing battle over attempts to change voting regulations in the states is the single most significant partisan political contest now underway in America. On its outcome turns the likely result of the congressional elections in 2022 and the presidential/congressional election in 2024…

Next in importance to the role of voting regulations in American politics is the role of African Americans in the disputes between the parties…

Partisan conflict in America has reached high levels that are not widely recognized. In fact, when they are mentioned, almost everyone dismisses the mention contemptuously as conspiracy theory. That response is likely to what is told in this chapter. Only the details of what is in this chapter can be confirmed. The overall picture of what the details mean cannot be confirmed. It is important to be aware of these matters, nonetheless, since they likely point to what may happen in the future…

Joe Biden has been a liberal all his political life. He has been a liberal and a Democrat — the two terms were almost synonymous for many years. But he is governing as a progressive. It would be a difficult challenge for him were he not, like so many professional politicians, adept at changing positions as politics requires…

Published in 2007, Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations saw the United States as trying to create a world of order, law, and justice. He saw America puzzled as other nations did not endorse the American effort. He recognized three sorts of challenges to the U.S. effort: people who seek a world government; people who advocate a religion-driven world (radical Islamists); and devotees of various sorts of cultural and identity dominance, sorts of fascism (Walter Russell Mead, God and Gold, New York: Knopf, 2007, pp. 404–406). What is most interesting about this list is what it doesn’t include — what has emerged as the greatest danger to the American-sponsored order: a revolutionary progressive Marxist — Leninist-style movement that has attained great power within the Biden Administration. It describes itself benignly as the progressive political movement…

Joe Biden’s first speech to the nation as President was given to a joint session of Congress on April 28, 2021. It was an indication that he will talk as a moderate and govern as a revolutionary progressive…

Canceling is a very potent political weapon. It intimidates opponents and squashes opposition. Revolutionary progressives have grasped the weapon and are using it effectively. It is recognized immediately by citizens of countries that are dictatorships of right or left. It may be less familiar to residents of democracies. It was unknown in the United States until recently except in blacklisting during the communist scares of the 1950s…

There are things that all Democrats agree on. The most important, probably, is that government is the best solution to many societal problems. In consequence the Democrat Congress and President Biden set out in 2021 to spend money on many social matters and simultaneously began a publicity effort to convince Americans that any progress on these matters was a result of Democrat-initiated government efforts. This Democrat effort took place in a context of deep public mistrust of the federal government. It was an effort to reverse the Reagan-era legacy of the conservative insistence that government was the problem in American life, not its solution. Democrats all agree also on the efficacy of federal spending, and of the importance of federal regulation limiting the discretion of state governments. For example, the 2021 Democrat-passed stimulus bill explicitly prevented state governments from using any federal funds to reduce state taxes.

Biden has a grand opportunity. He can rise above the partisan bickering which is immobilizing the American government domestically and weakening it internationally. Thereby, he can set America on a better path. Polls in the late spring of 2021 showed that 82% of Americans believe the country is deeply divided. Biden can rectify this by trying to lead America away from debilitating partisanship…

The American political system as it stands is at a dead end. It is presiding over the decay of American democracy and the decline of our position in the world. At the core of the problem is the excessive partisanship of our political process…

The American president has numerous important choices to make. Among the most important is one about America’s role in the world — to continue to assert hegemony without investing in the hard power to support it, or to lessen America’s footprint in the world. Biden seems to be unable to make a choice at this point and is simply flailing about. We urge him to invest vigorously in the power needed to make America’s voice in the world persuasive.

George Washington feared the impact of political parties on the United States. In his farewell address he said that the spirit of faction (of political parties) “agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.” This is exactly what has happened in the more than two centuries since…

“The means by which Providence raises a nation to greatness are the virtues infused into its leaders.” This was Edmund Burke’s insight, and it bears the test of history. Joe Biden aspires to greatness…