This week’s vice-presidential debate did more than simply expose as duplicitous and underhanded Joe Biden’s running-mate. Kamala’s performance was so utterly devoid of truth and integrity as to expose the entire ticket’s disgraceful attempt to “gaslight” an entire nation.
The term “gaslighting” means to so insidiously deceive as to gradually undermine a victim’s ability to distinguish truth from fiction and right from wrong rendering them dependent on the deceiver for their thinking and feeling.
There may not be a more apt moniker for the 2020 Democrat presidential campaign. Does any rational voter still believe Biden, who would turn 80 in his first term should they prevail, will actually serve as president as a strong centrist?
That made Wednesday’s debate more critical than any previous VP contest. And Harris was down for the task. Her deceptions, head fakes and outright lies were so blatant that even a post-debate Telemundo poll had over 67% of Hispanic viewers recognizing Pence as the debate winner.
But never mind the facts, the Harris team is concluding. Who are you going to believe America, me or your lying eyes?
Harris refused to answer, by example, whether or not a Biden/Harris administration would pack the Supreme Court and undo over 150 years of precedent to get their way despite the will of the voters. Instead, we got an ill-informed history lesson that was designed ahead of time to avoid the truth.
Same with queries on the electoral college, fracking and China, wading so far from candor as to elicit the night’s best retort from Vice President Pence: “Senator, you are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts”.
Even on the issue of COVID-19, Harris defied credulity in sharing a list of actions they would undertake if elected that is the actual one — without exception — the current Trump/Pence administration has already employed. Talk about a whopper!
Harris’ denials of supporting people who hate America (Antifa, BLM, etc.) who continue to tear-up, burn down and menace communities and cities across the nation are nothing short of insane when put side-by-side with recent video evidence of campaign events showing her explicitly and enthusiastically cheering them on.
More pointedly, Harris would become the de facto leader of the extreme leftist agenda in a new Biden presidency. The Green New Deal calls directly for a reversal of Trump’s energy independence, which has not only fueled the historic Trump economy but makes America a safer more secure place in which to live and work. Again, Harris ducked a direct question on the Democrat intention on passing the Green New Deal.
But by far and away the most dangerous lies surrounded her and Joe’s guarantee on raising taxes for all Americans and the subsequent economic implosion those policies would ensure, if voters hand the reins of power to them.
Biden has not only promised to repeal the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, thereby ushering in the single largest income tax increases on all Americans, harming disproportionally those making less than $400,000 per year. But Biden also promised to return the corporate tax rate to 28%, while Harris has warned she intends to lift it to 35%, highest in the developed world. Yet when asked at the debate, she simply said any calls that a Biden/Harris team would raise taxes are all “false”. Unreal.
Further, Biden/Harris proposes to reverse the Trump administration’s progress on deregulation. Yet as our friend, Casey Mulligan (University of Chicago economist and former member of the Council of Economic Advisors), points out the economic effects of regulation are regressive. The Biden regulatory burden would equal 15.3% of income for the bottom fifth of the income distribution, but only 2.1% for the top fifth. Harris, however, says that’s all poppycock.
And finally, let’s not forget Kamala’s lack of experience in foreign affairs, as one can’t imagine leaving the tough negotiations to Quid-Pro Joe on China, Iran, North Korea and other urgent 21st century threats.
When it comes to understanding what a Biden/Harris presidency would mean, you would know they are lying when their lips are moving.
Lew Uhler is founder and chairman of the National Tax Limitation Committee and National Tax Limitation Foundation (NTLF). He was a contemporary and collaborator of Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman in California and across the country.
Peter Ferrara is a senior fellow of NTLF. He served as a member of the White House of Policy Development under President Reagan, as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W, Bush, and as a Dunn Liberty Fellow in Economics for Kings College in New York.
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
Democrats lie about everything because they must in order to get any support. Kamala’s smug, sanctimonious “Strzok-smirk” did nothing to help her or make people like/trust her.
A free-wheeling and rambunctious America with different opinions on every possible subject, from whether Ted Williams was better than Joe DiMaggio to whether Donald Trump is better than Joe Biden, should provide a neutral forum and level playing field for all who wish to participate. But elite opinion makers, from media talking heads to entertainment empty heads to athletes with concussed heads to government officials with swelled heads, tilt the field of dreams so that their ego-driven opinions are front-and-center. We are all as engaged as the elite and as bureaucrats nurtured on the federal teat like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, only they don’t know it. We recoil from their attempts to educate us, the attempt itself serving as another arrogant look down their noses, as if we can’t possibly decide anything for ourselves without their input. Tilt alarms sound when life is contaminated with elitist opinion and when swamp-dwellers fashion America in their own image.
Outstanding definition you gentlemen crafted for the adopted political term “gaslighting.” I had to copy and re-post it on social media, with attributions. Thanks.