Seven more days of the great distraction …

I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief that knowing that Joe Biden, a nearly 50-year veteran of Washington, DC will be taking over next Wednesday. He knows how to hit the ground running, he knows where the bathrooms are in the White House, he knows who to call and who to listen to when governing gets difficult. He’s been around DC longer then power-broker Robert Moses was around New York. He knows how to get things he wants written in law by building a few bridges to nowhere. Normalcy will slowly but surely be restored. We will be living in a decade, at least as good as the 1970s.

In the meantime, the country — at least the news media and political class — will be fixated on the second impeachment of Donald Trump. Not that it will impact the generally negative review of his failed presidency in the history books. And the news will cover with glory the continued arrest and prosecution of protesters on Trumped up charges over the rather disorderly January 6th protests. Many of which will ultimately be dismissed and plead down due to lack of evidence or violation of people’s constitutional rights. It might actually be good for the First Amendment if some of those court cases end up being appealed to Supreme Court and thrown in trash where they belong.

The political class wants the distraction, to avoid the spotlight on the growing deaths from the out-of-control COVID-19 outbreak and the terrible job states are doing at getting the vaccine out as stockpiles end up sitting in warehouses. There is too much control of vaccine and prioritization of politically important groups. Nobody wants to shutdown the mauls or commence even though all the experts say they should to prevent the out of control spread of COVID. Politicians also want the $2,000 stimulus checks to go away from the public’s imagination, not so much because of deficit, because of the realization that when you keep handing out money, eventually it’s going to lead to inflation and then stagflation and ultimately job losses as inflation hits people’s pocket books and the government coffers. That $100 million bridge construction project might cost an unaffordable $250 million after a few years inflation. Hello, $6 gallons of gasoline and $5 cans of soup.

There is no question in my mind that it’s going to be difficult times on  any levels for President Biden over the next four years. A lot of the economic damage from COVID-19 is still hidden, but like rusty beams in a bridge that is hidden under the deck, we face some difficult times ahead. It’s only a matter of a time before the long-term damage of COVID will start to show in the economy. Likewise, emboldened activists on the both the left and the right are only going to make governing difficult as nobody will want to compromise, no matter how reasonable things are. The right-wing protests are in the news, but be sure the left-wing is looking for someone to emulate in the future.