A theme has become clearer and clearer as 2021 has inched along.  We’ve definitely seen it in Little Rhody, especially with the legislature’s attacks on charter schools, but here’s a good example at the national level, from Jonathan Garber of FoxBusiness:

President Biden shutting down the Dakota Access pipeline would result in Americans paying higher prices at the supermarket, according to experts.

The Biden administration will decide the fate of the Dakota Access pipeline, which was approved by former President Donald Trump in 2017 after being denied by former President Barack Obama, following a court-ordered environmental review.

We can debate oil pipelines, specifically, or the balance of the economy versus the environment, generally, but circumstances should matter.  Like it or not, this pipeline is up and running, moving 570,000 barrels of economy-lubricating oil every day.  Perhaps a time when the economy is on the ropes and the government is printing money faster than the pipeline moves oil is not the time to be rewarding Biden voters.

But in the mindset of the people who are pulling the Biden-puppet’s strings, it’s more important to rush forward with fundamental change than to ensure that Americans can eat.  Most of the string pullers probably aren’t capable of imagining a future in which these decisions could affect them enough to hurt.  Even more:  somewhere in the dark recesses of their minds, they may even realize that their plenty will be all the more delicious in contrast with some starving Others.

And of course, they can always soothe their consciences by printing more money and throwing more scraps to the American public.  The masses aren’t really needed, right?  Give them some cash to play videogames or go to rodeos or whatever those people do, and all will be well.

 

Featured image: Quinten de Graaf, Edersee, Germany.