Remember back less than two months ago when "normal" seemed abnormally good?
Like recall, for example, a record high economy and low unemployment numbers, energy independence, no North Korean intercontinental rocket or nuclear tests, a dismantled ISIS threat, massive new trade deals signed with China and Canada/Mexico, household and company budget-enriching tax cuts, and an end to illegal en masse border invasions?
Then WHAMMO, we were hit with a superbug, and that previous briefly wonderful new normal suddenly went KABLOOEY.
Results of the 2020 election will have a huge impact on what sort of next new normal we can expect — whether America will re-emerge from lock-down to renew and rekindle the last one, or whether we will retreat out the back door to dishearteningly revisit the last old one.
Here's what the latter option offers.
Tax and Economic Policies:
Threatening at a June 2019 campaign stop in Davenport, Iowa, that tax cuts will be "gone" if he is elected, presumptive Democrat party presidential nominee, former V.P Joe Biden has vowed to repeal the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) enacted by President Trump and congressional Republicans.
Such a repeal, as assessed by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), would impose a $2,000 increase on a median income family of four, and a $1,300 annual tax increase on a median income single-parent with one child.
Biden's claim that "All of [the TCJA] went to folks at the top and corporations" received a "Four Pinocchio" award from the liberal Washington Post and was also refuted by the New York Times that flatly stated: "Most Americans got a tax cut."
ATR also projected that utility bills will go up in all 50 states as a direct result of a planned corporate tax increase, and that small employers will face tax increases due to repeal of the current 20% income deduction allowance.
Energy Future:
Also in June 2019, asserting that climate change is "indisputable" and "the greatest threat to our security," and calling for a "revolution" to address it, candidate Biden endorsed the Green New Deal as a "crucial framework" for a mandate that will commit the U.S. economy to net-zero emissions by 2050.
Biden's plan envisions directing $1.7 trillion in new government spending to clean energy (which currently provides less than 5% U.S. needs.) He would also impose new taxes on carbon and prohibit new drilling, including fracking, on public lands. He further promises to return his administration to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, and push to make its targets even more ambitious.
Border Control and National Sovereignty:
The Biden campaign policy plans to end funding for the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
During his first hundred days in office, Biden would cease deportations of illegal border crossers. Thereafter, for all but those convicted of a felony while in the U.S., those arrested for crimes won't be turned over to ICE and will be eligible, with others, for free health-care services.
Dismissing concerns about health risks posed by illegal border crossings, Biden said, "A wall will not stop coronavirus. Banning travel from Europe — or any part of the world — will not stop it."
Constitutional Rights for Citizens:
While claiming to support the Second Amendment, his position on so-called "assault weapons," a term that has eluded coherent definition by previous Democrat administrations, is hardly reassuring.
When CNN's Anderson Cooper asked Biden during an August 2019 interview about people who think his proposed "buyback program" for assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, "means they're going to come for my guns," he replied, "Bingo, you're right if you have an assault weapon. The fact of the matter is they should be illegal. Period."
Foreign Policy Leadership:
It tortures credulity to imagine a president Joe Biden at the helm of international trade and security policy decisions, negotiations and/or trust that his words and warnings should be taken seriously by America's allies and adversaries.
Recurrently touting his No. 2 position in the previous administration offers little reason for confidence.
Particularly ironic, Biden criticized Trump for holding up vital military aid to Ukraine during transparently partisan impeachment hearings, claiming that the president had "used the power and resources of the United States to pressure a sovereign nation, a partner that is still under direct assault from Russia … to subvert the rule of law."
Perhaps recall that in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea and began arming eastern separatists with tanks, armored vehicles and rocket launchers, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko passionately pleaded for defensive weapons in a joint session of Congress.
Poroshenko — with Vice President Biden sitting directly behind him — said that while his country appreciated the nonlethal assistance he was getting, "one cannot win a war with blankets" that he had instead been provided.
A new normal?
No — it's more a countless rerun of an old very bad movie we've all seen before.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA) and the graduate program in space architecture. He is the author of several books, including "Cyberwarfare: Targeting America, Our Infrastructure, and Our Future" (2020), "The Weaponization of AI and the Internet: How Global Networks of Infotech Overlords are Expanding Their Control Over Our Lives" (2019), "Reinventing Ourselves: How Technology is Rapidly and Radically Transforming Humanity" (2019), "Thinking Whole: Rejecting Half-Witted Left & Right Brain Limitations" (2018), "Reflections on Oceans and Puddles: One Hundred Reasons to be Enthusiastic, Grateful and Hopeful" (2017), "Cosmic Musings: Contemplating Life Beyond Self" (2016), "Scared Witless: Prophets and Profits of Climate Doom" (2015) and "Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax" (2011). He is currently working on a new book with Buzz Aldrin, "Beyond Footprints and Flagpoles." Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.