Unity. Unity. Unity!
Since Inauguration Day, President Biden has promised to bring Americans together. In his words: “History, faith, and reason show the way, the way of unity. We can see each other not as adversaries, but as neighbors.” The left-leaning mainstream media is selling the same bag of goods to the general public, echoing Biden’s aspirational talking points.
Yet Biden’s reality has been anything but aspirational. His reality is anything but unifying. After one week in the White House, Biden took 40 executive actions, including 33 executive orders—and counting. That is more than triple the number of executive orders signed by Presidents Trump, Obama, and Bush combined in their first weeks of office (33 to 10). President George W. Bush’s first executive order did not come until nine days after his inauguration.
How times change. President Obama, for one, praised Biden’s unprecedented exercise of executive authority. According to Obama, “This is a time for boldness and President Biden is already delivering.” But Americans weren’t promised boldness on Inauguration Day; they were promised unity.
It is no surprise that President Obama would celebrate government by fiat. After all, rather than finding bipartisan compromise on Capitol Hill, the Obama administration often relied on executive power to score points with his liberal base. Moreover, many of Biden’s executive orders are essentially Obama-era throwbacks that were reversed by President Trump from 2017 on. For example, Biden was quick to rejoin the Paris Agreement, which remains legally non-binding for the world’s leading polluters. Countries like China and India essentially have the choice to set and adhere to new carbon-emission standards, or not.
Nevertheless, Biden marches to the beat of the radical Left’s drum, regardless of whether or not an executive order may be divisive. There’s the reversed ban on transgender troops serving in the military. Then there’s the executive order on gender identity, which opens the door to biological men using female bathrooms or playing on women’s sports teams. Then there’s the slew of executive actions on climate change and so-called “environmental justice.”
Despite promising otherwise on the campaign trail, Biden has ordered a job-killing end to the Keystone Pipeline and halted fracking on federal land, which will cripple the oil and gas industry while undermining economic growth. He even tried to set a 100-day ban on deportations of illegal immigrants, including criminal aliens, until he was met by a court challenge in Texas.
Where is the broad-based unity on the “science” of gender identity, oil and gas antagonism, or unchecked illegal immigration? Does that sound like a president trying to unify a country, or a Democratic puppet simply pandering to his left-wing radical base?
Rhetoric is empty without the action to back it up. While Biden often speaks the right words, those words have only proven to be a smokescreen for the Left’s radical agenda. Meanwhile, the liberal media—eager to be rid of President Trump—shamelessly celebrates Biden’s executive orders, giving a new meaning to mainstreamed propaganda.
Let’s call a spade a spade: Biden is a left-wing Democrat who is surrounded by left-wing radicals, and they are governing like the leftists that they are. From chiefs of staff to legislative directors, the Biden administration is filled with countless retreads from the Obama years. Newly confirmed Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is perhaps the most notable example, given his involvement in the disastrous Iran deal (which Biden, unsurprisingly, hopes to resurrect).
For those Americans yearning for unity, pin your hopes elsewhere. Based on his actions thus far, President Biden is hell-bent on dividing America.