Common-sense context in a polarized climate

While I did not vote for President

Joe Biden, I mostly agree with the positive review of his administration thus far as presented by David Brooks [Jan. 22, Commentary, Page 3, “Biden facing weakened extremists”]. In particular, Biden’s efforts to bring Western countries together to assist Ukraine and stave off Putin’s illegal attempt to subjugate a sovereign nation deserve much praise. As Mr. Brooks points out, Biden’s policies working to counteract the nationalism of Xi Jinping and China’s efforts to steal our technology are also positive. As a conservative, though I am not in favor of $1.7 trillion spending bills, I must agree with Paul Krugman that Republicans had no problems with spending and borrowing under Trump and not raising the debt limit will harm the U.S. and world economies. As far as Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, while he should have revealed this discovery earlier, they were voluntarily returned to the proper agencies.

I didn’t vote for President Biden because I felt he and his administration would tack further to the left on cultural issues such as the woke foolishness described by George Will [Jan. 9, Opinion, Page 3, “Wokeness in all its self-flattering moral vanity comes for a statue at Princeton”]. Mr. Will should be congratulated for bringing this Soviet-style ideology into clear focus. It is sanctimonious performance art, which is exactly how Jonah Goldberg describes the actions of a small number of House Republicans and their anti-establishment threats [Jan. 19, Opinion, Page 6, “GOP’S deficit reduction is a cynical performative gesture”].

Thanks to The Courant for publishing intelligent op-eds which help put today’s polarized climate into a common-sense context.