As a U.S. Senator, Joe Biden was known as a political moderate. When he ran for president in 2020, he portrayed himself as the Democrats' middle-of-the-road candidate -- a man who could work with both sides of the aisle and unite Americans of all political persuasions. However, when being a moderate wasn't helping his chances of winning the nomination, candidate Biden quickly switched horses in midstream, adopting the far-left platform of socialist Bernie Sanders.
This move won him the Democrats' nomination and made him beholden to the radical left-wing of the Democrat Party. It also called into question Biden's judgment, a subject tackled quite capably by award-winning journalist Caroline Glick in her column "Joe Biden's catastrophic judgment." For example, concerning his judgment in handling the U.S. exit from Afghanistan, Glick observed Biden's judgment "was never reasoned or fact-based" and he "was catastrophically wrong." She also makes the equally valid point that once the president adopts a position, he "is unwilling to listen to counterargument" and "he will not rethink his choices or positions, even after they failed."
Although Glick's comments were directed at the president's catastrophic handling of foreign affairs, her insights apply just as directly to his domestic socialist agenda -- an agenda he pigheadedly adheres to even as it proves to be as much a disaster as the Afghanistan bug out. In foreign affairs, Biden has proven to be a bumbling incompetent. On the homefront, he has become a socialist tyrant in the mold of Hugo Chavez. We warned this would happen in our book, "We Didn't Fight for Socialism: America's Veterans Speak Up." In this book, we laid out the socialist agenda Biden would inflict on our country point by point. To date, he has checked every box on our list.
We warned how in socialist countries, government agencies are weaponized and used to suppress citizen dissent. True to form, Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland have directed the FBI to treat parents who oppose the teaching of critical race theory as domestic terrorists. As a result, this once highly respected agency is now viewed by many Americans as a bunch of jackbooted thugs. In addition to weaponizing the FBI, the president has proposed banks be required to report citizens who spend more than $600 to the IRS so the government can monitor their spending.
We warned how in socialist countries, out-of-control government spending invariably leads to raging inflation and a burdensome national debt. Not surprisingly, with Biden pushing a tax-and-spend socialist agenda, prices of essential goods and services have skyrocketed -- if you can get them at all -- and the national debt has soared to unprecedented levels. In spite of this and proving the accuracy of Glick's comments, Biden refuses to scrap his misnamed $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill, which even moderate Democrats reject.
We warned that in socialist countries, the work ethic is replaced by an entitlement mentality in which people who are perfectly capable of working instead choose to remain idle and expect the government to provide for all their needs. With Biden pushing a socialist agenda in which Americans of prime working age are paid "stimulus" dollars as part of the misnamed American Rescue Act, people are choosing to stay home rather than work. The president's socialist policies have created the unprecedented phenomenon known as the "great walkout" in which working-age citizens are simply walking off their jobs and staying home.
America is feeling the pain of this problem in every sector of our economy.
Oliver L. North is a combat-decorated U.S. Marine, No.1 bestselling author, founder and CEO of Fidelis Publishing LLC and Fidelis Media LLC. Find out more about him at www.olivernorth.com. David Goetsch is a Marine Corps veteran, member of the Florida Veteran's Hall of Fame, professor of business, Christian counselor, and author of 77 books. Find out more about him at www.david-goetsch.com. Get the full story in "We Didn't Fight for Socialism: America's Veterans Speak Up" at barnesandnoble.com or amazon.com.