Amid the drama of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to Congress, a profoundly insightful comment was offered by Sen. Ben Sasse.
The burden of his remarks was that the United States should do much more to help Ukraine win the war inexcusably launched against it by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But wise as this analysis was, perhaps no comment rang truer than when Sasse said Joe Biden “is constantly giving processed answers,” and went on to accuse the administration of acting like attorneys who focus not on the truth but on making a case — attending to how things look rather than to reality.
This inversion of priorities goes to the heart of our culture. It infects not just the top of the federal government but also, for instance, millions of social media feeds in which people seem more concerned to boast about their lives to online strangers — posting pictures of fun they’re having or a drink they’re enjoying — than to live in the here and now. From dreary, low-level fishing for admiration right up to Biden, the focus is often on making sure things look swell rather than on substance.
Thus, we get a constant feed of vacuity from Biden and his lieutenants about every challenge they face. Fixing problems is treated as a less pressing need than checking boxes and saying things most acceptable to their political constituencies.
The president recently fumed over the fact that gasoline prices have not tumbled as rapidly as the cost of a barrel of crude. “Last time oil was $96 a barrel, gas was $3.62 a gallon. Now, it’s $4.31,” Biden complained. “Oil and gas companies shouldn’t pad their profits at the expense of hardworking Americans.”
This is a fine example of what Biden calls “malarkey.” It’s a processed answer to seem like he wants to fix a problem for ordinary people, but he won’t actually fix it by encouraging domestic energy output and displacing dirty overseas oil (especially tainted Russian and Iranian production) with cleaner and more plentiful American oil.
Talking about the pain of prices at the pump, in grocery stores, on used-car lots, and everywhere else, Biden seizes on existing but irrelevant or counterproductive agenda items and presents them as solutions, rather than doing what is necessary to affect reality, not just temporary impressions.
Thus, he casuistically suggests his multitrillion-dollar spending plans will reduce inflation rather than stoke it.
Or — here is a beauty in his State of the Union speech to Congress — that he is “the only president ever to cut the deficit by more than $1 trillion in a single year.” Everyone knows this is not because he is fiscally responsible — he’s the opposite — but because deficits exploded with more spending and a collapse in economic growth during the pandemic year before he took office. The fall was due to nothing Biden did.
He presents a case, a mirage, a boast. But with war raging and tyrants gaining ground, isn’t it time for the American government to face reality squarely — and deal with it?
