Tuesday, March 29, 2022

The Sheer Madness of Today’s Left

 Victor Davis Hanson

When ideologues demand power but cannot achieve it politically because they are cruel ideologues, expect more of their insanity to follow.


. . ."Normally, the mad Left would not object terribly to the ensuing fuel price hikes. Remember, Joe Biden bragged on the campaign trail that he would end fossil fuels during his tenure. 

"Obama’s soon-to-be Energy Secretary Steven Chu said during the 2008 campaign he wished to see American gas prices match those in Europe (i.e. $9-10 a gallon). And then President Obama himself did not disagree. He meekly added that such increases should be “gradual.” He had also warned that his cap-and-trade initiatives would necessarily “skyrocket” electricity prices—without suggesting that his off-guard brag was even a gaffe of unexpectedly telling the truth. 

"So green orthodoxy dictates that the highest possible fossil fuel prices are good. Unaffordability will hasten the end of gas and oil, ensuring currently subsidized but uneconomical green energy as the only remaining alternative. 

"But like most leftist top-down agendas, the details and consequences are usually hidden. After all, green wokeism usually exempts the lifestyles of its elite advocates. The Obamas currently are building a most un-green luxury Hawaiian beach mansion (their third such estate). And Al “Earth in the Balance” Gore got rich selling his failed cable outlet to a carbon-fueled Al Jazeera. 

"Nonetheless exorbitant gas and heating prices are toxic politically to the middle class. Worse yet for the Left, we are currently in a Biden-created inflationary spiral, in the middle of a savage Ukrainian war, and facing a catastrophic Democratic wipeout in the upcoming November midterms. 

The result of green theory meeting cruel reality is sheer madness. As a good green, Joe Biden in one of his first acts sought to cancel the critical EastMed pipeline that is planned to feed over 10 billion cubic meters per year of natural gas into southern Europe. That clean burning fuel would enhance the suppliers, our allies Greece, Cyprus, and Israel. 

"Yet Biden also dropped all sanctions against the Russian-German Nord Stream 2 pipeline, enriching Vladimir Putin with profits from global exports. Biden talked a good game, Corn Pop-style, to Putin—but acted in ways throughout 2021 that would appease Russia until it subsequently invaded Ukraine. 

"What other than sheer madness is the logic of helping enemies like Putin and hurting our Mediterranean allies? ". . .

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