Yesterday, I posted on the economic impacts of the first 18 months of the Biden regime. Today, I will take on the issues that send the right screaming into the night-crime, immigration, and culture war questions. Where do we stand with those?
On crime, the statistics show that violent crime increased dramatically in 2020–the last year of Trump, and the first year of the pandemic. The increase continued, but at a slower rate, under Biden, and was felt in both urban and rural areas. There isn’t much of a case to be made here, even assuming (absurdly) that either president had much of an impact.
On immigration, while the right continues to howl about the crisis at the border, The Economist is telling us that immigration is down, and the economy is suffering as a result. As I’ve stated many times before, increasing immigration is a good way to fill construction and service jobs and thus to reduce inflation.
As to the culture war, the right has been predicting an apocalypse for white Christians since 2016. Did the 2020 election cause the promised disaster? Hardly. In fact, the right, thanks largely to the Supreme Court and red state legislatures, has had a field day using government to deprive blue people of rights they value (abortion; freedom of speech), while expanding the rights cherished by red people (guns). Wokeness is in retreat. There are no Christian concentration camps anywhere in the country. What’s not to like?