Top Three Takeaways – January 27th, 2021
- You can exhale. That is if you’ve been wondering if the United States would still be recognizable by the next election cycle after Democrats swept both Georgia Senate seats in the January runoff elections to assume complete control of the federal government. Your concern was understandable after, now Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer warned - “everything was on the table” prior to Election Day. That "everything" included the end of the legislative filibuster – which if enacted would result in no checks and balances in the federal government for the next two years, the addition of Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico as states and the packing of the federal court system – including the Supreme Court – with progressive judges. The reason you can exhale is due to not one but two Democrats in the United States Senate, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, who’ve said they’ll not support that agenda. Manchin was the most moderate Democrat in the Senate voting with President Trump’s position 33% of the time. Sinema was the 2nd most moderate voting with President Trump 26% of the time. By comparison the most liberal Senator is our current Vice-President Kamala Harris who voted with President Trump only 13% of the time. Not all Democrats are created equal and those who don’t want a radical agenda can be thankful to both Manchin and Sinema for standing up for what they believe in rather than toeing the party line. It can’t be easy for them. That being said we’re far from out of the woods. Consider for example...
- Capitalism is Dead. In 2019, those were the words of the Billionaire founder of Salesforce.com. Despite the remarkable hypocrisy of someone who has benefited more from capitalism than just about anyone in American history, along with businesses which use the Salesforce software, they were seemingly still a minority opinion within corporate America. After all, if capitalism lives anywhere, America’s most successful companies would be the place, right? Consider that Amazon.com started as just a local bookstore in Seattle. Or that Apple literally began in Steve Job’s garage. Famously, Facebook started as a college project of Mark Zuckerberg’s. But here’s the thing, those who’ve benefitted the most from capitalism are now being conditioned that capitalism is dead and they should engage in a Great Reset. What used to be fringe conspiracy territory in suggesting there was a globalist effort to undermine American free-enterprise is no longer a conspiracy. It’s a reality. At the onset of this year’s World Economic Forum, annually hosted in Davos, they presented a video calling for the use of the pandemic to carryout the Great Reset. This as we’ve seen unprecedented activity by America’s largest tech companies to censor and silence those they don’t agree with politically. The same tech companies which shunned the Trump administration and are now offering to assist the Biden administration with the vaccine rollout. It’s always the case in socialism and communism that those with resources who participate in the repression are able to retain what they already have at the expense of all others. Capitalism is not dead as is evidenced by the stories behind the large technology companies now engaged in repression, but if we don’t mind the store it could be true that in the near future because we’d have allowed it to be killed. This isn’t theory, this isn’t conspiracy, as now evidenced at the World Economic Forum, it’s being mainstreamed with the pandemic now being used as a catalyst.
- Life is about decisions. In the example of my first takeaway today we have news in which the biggest concerns of those who love this country as currently constructed can breathe a bit of a sigh of relief. It’s unlikely, for at least the time being, radical change to our society is coming. At the same time the second story illustrates a bold advancement of the longer-term trend towards extreme progressivism which has increasingly mainstreamed its way into American politics and much of corporate America. The point is this. Life is a series of daily choices because we’re free as Americans. This includes everything from what we eat, to where and when we work and certainly who we buy from. Around elections it’s also who we vote for. For far too long we’ve had politics boil down into two categories. Left and right. In reality we should be evaluating people through the prism of freedom. Ditto our buying decisions if you’re inclined to vote with your wallet as is increasingly becoming the case. And remember it’s often the elections which happen closest to you that have the biggest impact on your daily life. Six municipalities in Broward will hold municipal elections March 9th and 19 will hold elections in Palm Beach County. If we make decisions in our daily life and at the voting booth which reflect our values, we’re likely to get results that resemble those values. The opposite is also true, life is about decisions and often what’s easiest isn’t best. That’s as true today as ever.
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