2020 was a mess of a year and 2021 isn’t starting off a whole lot better. However, we do have something to look forward to. After just over two months of vaccine distribution, Our World In Data reports that over six percent of the US population has already been vaccinated. As America and the rest of the world become more thoroughly vaccinated and COVID-19 has fewer hosts to which it can spread, we are about to experience a global economic boom.

The question is not whether there is pent-up demand that will be loosed when the pandemic is over, the question is when that pent-up demand will become unpent (to coin a phrase). No one knows exactly when the virus will be relegated to occasional outbreaks among the unvaccinated, but the Atlantic recently surveyed public health experts to find out when they thought the danger would be passed. The general consensus was that the combination of widespread vaccinations and warmer weather will make COVID-19 relatively rare at some point between June and September.

We may see another surge in the meantime as people abandon masks and social distancing before herd immunity is achieved through vaccinations. There is also the possibility of another surge next winter, but hopefully, by that point, the vaccine will be widespread enough to make the disease a minor inconvenience.

As COVID recedes, people will come back out and start spending money. Travel restrictions will be dropped and people will board trains, planes, and cruise ships once again to return to crowded beaches, cities, theme parks, restaurants, movie theaters, you name it. Not all businesses will survive the pandemic, but many of those that do will soon be adding employees to handle the influx of customers.

Many people have suffered financially during the pandemic, but many others have been earning money and unable to spend it. As we say in the South, this money will soon be burning a hole in their pockets. People newly freed from a year’s relative isolation will be anxious to spend, travel, and enjoy life.

People who have lost jobs or wages in the pandemic will also be poised to gain from the recovery. There will be new jobs, promotions, and pay raises as the rising tide lifts all boats. The recovery will be widespread.

The strength of the COVID recovery will likely be strong enough to overcome bad economic decisions, which is one reason I don’t worry too much about the Biden Administration (with another being the independent streaks of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema). If we’ve learned anything over the past 12 to 20 years, it’s that the American economy is extremely resilient. We’ve weathered terrorist attacks, massive government control of large portions of the economy, tax increases (remember that tariffs are taxes too), trade wars, civil unrest, and attempts at central planning by both parties.

Through it all, the economy has withstood the dumbest policy decisions that both parties could throw at it. Even the Great Recession only lasted 18 months. More often, we psych ourselves into believing that the economy is either good or bad depending on whether our tribe’s guy is in office while the economy chugs along like the little engine that could. Until the trade war recession and pandemic hit, the Trump economy and the Obama economy were basically the same, but you’d never know it from listening to the partisans.

I say that to say this: I don’t think that bad Democratic economic policies will kill the recovery. I don’t favor tax increases, increasing the minimum wage, or any number of other Biden proposals, but I also don’t think they will crash the economy or kill the recovery. At worst, the Democrats might make the recovery a bit smaller than it would have been otherwise.

There is always the possibility that something unforeseen might alter the trajectory of the post-COVID recovery. There might be another terror attack on the order of 9/11, a war might break out, there could be a catastrophic natural disaster, or maybe the SMOD will finally show up. The mysterious illness in India could even turn into another pandemic.

A lot of things could happen, but the odds are good that we are due for some much-needed relief in the form of an economic boom. Pandemics are rare in modern life, but remember that the 1918 flu pandemic ushered in the prosperous Roaring Twenties. It’s very possible that the 2020s will roar as well.

If you’re near the end of your rope, realize that things will get better soon. And you can do your part to fuel the boom by getting the vaccine and staying safe until then.

---

Follow David Thornton on Twitter (@captainkudzu) and Facebook

The First TV contributor network is a place for vibrant thought and ideas. Opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of The First or The First TV. We want to foster dialogue, create conversation, and debate ideas. See something you like or don’t like? Reach out to the author or to us at [email protected]. 

February 27, 2021 at 04:45PM - David Thornton
Get ready for the post-COVID economic boom | David Thornton
Read the full story by clicking this headline, at The First TV

So-called “sensitivity seminars” are sweeping corporate America & you need to be prepared so you don’t get force-fed white guilt, said Mike Slater this week.

So you know what to expect, he showed one leftist’s Tik Tok video in which he explains the asinine argument that white people are racist by their very existence.

“You are being told a lie and I want you to know the true story.”

WATCH:

February 26, 2021 at 03:04PM - Matt Howerton
How to survive the cultural takeover of wokeness | Mike Slater
Read the full story by clicking this headline, at The First TV

Republicans and Democrats have no shared values anymore and it’s time for Americans to seriously consider a “national divorce,” Jesse Kelly urged on Thursday.

A new poll by Echelon Insights paints the picture pretty clearly with Democrats’ chief concern being “Trump supporters,” he explained.

“There’s no putting this band back together.”

WATCH:

February 26, 2021 at 02:28PM - Matt Howerton
It’s time for a national divorce | Jesse Kelly
Read the full story by clicking this headline, at The First TV

The Biden Administration is keeping “kids in cages” after decrying such policies as “a human rights abuse,” said Buck Sexton this week.

It is a sad fact that child detention facilities at the border are nearly full as illegal crossings spike due to the open border policies, former senior Trump adviser Steve Cortes explained.

“The hypocrisy and wordplay here is stunning… I fear this could be a spring of absolute chaos and crisis at our border.”

WATCH:

February 26, 2021 at 02:02PM - Matt Howerton
The consequences of Biden’s open borders | Buck Sexton
Read the full story by clicking this headline, at The First TV

Matters just keep getting worse for embattled New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Still reeling from the ongoing nursing home scandal which is now the target of at least one federal and one state investigation, he is now being accused of sexual harassment by a former senior aide.

Lindsey Boylan says the governor kissed her without her consent at one point and the situation compelled her to quit her job.

“She says that it happened at least four times in 2018 and she left as a result of it,” Dana Loesch reported on Thursday.

WATCH:

February 26, 2021 at 01:16PM - Matt Howerton
Andrew Cuomo’s me too moment | Dana Loesch
Read the full story by clicking this headline, at The First TV

Former President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen have teamed up for a podcast called “Renegades: Born in the USA.”

Obama told Springsteen this week that reparations “are justified” but that “white resistance” made it counter-productive to support as president.

The argument for reparations is not logical or fair and every group in the world has suffered injustice at some point in time, Bill O’Reilly responded.

WATCH:

February 26, 2021 at 01:07PM - Matt Howerton
Obama: Reparations are justified | No Spin News
Read the full story by clicking this headline, at The First TV

One of the hallmarks of the last two administrations was the abandonment of bipartisanship for an attitude of whoever won the election gets to do whatever they want. Barack Obama set the tone for his first term when, three days after his inauguration, he brushed aside Republican concerns about his economic stimulus package by saying, “I won.” This attitude came back to bite Obama as no Republicans voted for the bill and the experience left a bitter taste that soured relations between the two parties for the next eight years and stalled Obama’s agenda after Republicans retook the House two years later.

When Donald Trump was elected, Republicans went down the same road. After attacking Obama’s executive actions, candidate Trump said in January 2016 that Obama “led the way” on Executive Orders, “but I’m going to use them much better and they’re going to serve a much better purpose than he’s done.”

This attitude led Trump to reject a Democratic offer of $1.3 billion for a border fence in December 2018 and instead used executive powers to declare a national emergency and redirect funds from other projects to build the wall. Trump took Obama’s strategy of going it alone and turned it up several notches in a divisive and legally questionable manner. In the last days of the Trump Administration, the partisan desire to let the minority have its own way even pushed Republicans to try to overturn the Electoral College.

When Joe Biden was elected, I hoped that having a president who was an experienced senator would help to reverse this trend. Having a president who has spent his life in the Senate and who knows how to build bipartisan coalitions, something that neither Obama nor Trump had any clue about, could mean a very different political climate for the next four years.

I oppose most of Biden’s policy goals, but the American people support quite a few of them. Among these are COVID relief, immigration reform, and raising the minimum wage. These all provide a wealth of possibilities for bipartisan deals.

At this point, the COVID relief bill seems least likely for bipartisanship. Despite the bill’s popularity, it is packed with a progressive wishlist, including a $15 minimum wage, and so far no Republicans have signed on.

Democrats are looking at passing the bill as a budget reconciliation, which cannot be filibustered, but that may not be possible. Budget reconciliations prohibit policy items that only incidentally affect the federal budget. The Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, will have to rule on whether the minimum wage can be attached to the relief bill and Democrats have promised to abide by her decision. McDonough’s decision should be in the negative because the minimum wage hike for private businesses is not a federal budget matter.

By removing the minimum wage hike, other aspects of COVID relief would become more palatable to Republicans and possibly lead to bipartisan support. Ironically, it would also open the door to bipartisan movement on a minimum wage bill at a time when 83 percent of Americans say the current minimum wage is not high enough.

Republican Senators Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton have introduced a plan that would increase the minimum wage up to $10 per hour over six years, beginning after the pandemic ends, and then index it to inflation. Because compromise is about giving as well as taking, the plan also phases in mandatory e-verify for hiring and increases civil and criminal penalties for companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

As with most good compromises, the Romney-Cotton plan doesn’t give either side everything they want but does give them enough to claim victory. For Democrats, a $10 minimum wage is better than $7.25. and for Republicans, it’s better than $15. Republicans would also get e-verify, which is a vital component of immigration reform.

And speaking of immigration reform, the Biden Administration has already announced a new comprehensive immigration bill. Among the features of the Biden proposal are several popular ideas such as a pathway to citizenship, reforming the legal immigration system to make it more workable, and using technology to bolster border security (as well as adding new barriers). The bill won’t pass as is, but it does provide a framework from which to begin talks on a compromise deal.

The question is whether Republicans will consider the pathway to citizenship to be a poison pill despite the fact that a new Politico/Morning Consult poll shows 60 percent approval for a pathway to citizenship. Rather than digging in their heels and just saying “no,” which would ensure that the border remains porous for another four years, a better solution would be to do what’s right for the country and try to meet in the middle to craft a compromise deal that fixes our broken immigration system. If a Republican president backed by a Republican Congress can’t pass a border security bill, then it certainly isn’t going to happen during a period of Democratic dominance.

One of the biggest obstacles to bipartisanship going forward is the push to change the minimum wage through the budget reconciliation. Doing so may be the easy course, as long as Elizabeth McDonough agrees, but it may poison the well in the long-term. Democrats could fall into the same trap that snared the Trump and Obama Administrations as they learn that what can be enacted through shortcuts, such as the reconciliation process or executive actions, can also be reversed the same way.

That brings us to Joe Biden’s Executive Orders. Biden’s executive pen has been busy since January 20, but executive actions should be measured by their content, not just their quantity. MarketWatch has a comprehensive list of Biden executive actions and most are different in important ways from Trump’s use of the tool.

Many of Biden’s Orders reverse Trump Orders or bureaucratic rules. In some cases, they announce changes in priorities and executive policy. What we don’t see is Biden using Executive Orders as a tool to bypass Congress’s role in passing legislation.

Even rejoining the Paris Accords as an executive agreement does not require ratification by the Senate under a 1937 Supreme Court ruling, but this shortcut comes at a price. Under US law, ratified treaties become federal law, which must be repealed by Congress. An executive agreement, like an Executive Order, can be easily undone by a president’s successor. Just as Obama entered into executive agreements and Trump withdrew from them, Biden can rejoin them once again. To make an international agreement binding on future presidents, Congress must ratify it. Those who live by executive actions die by executive actions.

Going forward, it is not a certainty that the Biden Administration will pursue more bipartisanship… or that Republicans will grasp the hands that reach across the aisle if they do. There does seem to be a much better chance of bipartisan compromise under Biden than under previous recent presidents, however. Not only does Biden seem to want to repair the breaches in our political discourse rather than simply “owning” the other side, he has had experience putting together bipartisan deals in the past.

The wingnuts on both political extremes won’t like any compromise that falls short of their aims, but the vast majority of Americans who fall in the middle will. In numerous polls going back years, Americans say they want the parties to work together. That includes a Monmouth poll from January which found that 71 percent wanted Congress to work with Biden rather than oppose him. Normally, 71 percent of Americans don’t agree on anything.

The message to Congress is that the voters want them to get things done. That doesn’t mean that either party should roll over for the other but that they should find ways to make deals that work for both sides. That, rather than an all-powerful chief executive who rules by decree and is immune from prosecution, is what the Founders intended.

Follow David Thornton on Twitter (@captainkudzu) and Facebook

The First TV contributor network is a place for vibrant thought and ideas. Opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of The First or The First TV. We want to foster dialogue, create conversation, and debate ideas. See something you like or don’t like? Reach out to the author or to us at [email protected]. 

February 26, 2021 at 08:31AM - David Thornton
Can Biden help the parties relearn the art of compromise? | David Thornton
Read the full story by clicking this headline, at The First TV

It’s not white power crushing the Black race; it’s elite power salving its own conscience, setting up an Inquisition against the working class. The elite don’t even realize they’re doing it. They have latent privilege, institutional power, and they will use it like a monkey flings poo.

By now, you may have read about the brouhaha at Smith College, a small private school in the rolling green hills of central Massachusetts, north of Springfield. Smith is primarily a women’s college, but it now admits men to its graduate program. Boasting a cozy 2,400 student body, tuition is $55,830, and an additional $19,420 for room and board. Studies include such liberal arts subjects as Africana Studies, Jewish Studies, Women & Gender Studies, ranging to hard sciences like Physics and Computer Science.

Courses such as Corporate Capitalism, Media and Protest in America, American Conservatism in the Age of Trump (I’d love to audit that one!), and Race, Feminism and Resistance in Movements for Social Change pepper the school’s academic catalog. Attending and graduating from Smith makes one a member of a very tight group of alums.

So when one of Smith’s alumni, a staff member, a woman named Jodi Shaw, shared her story on YouTube, along with her resignation letter, with former New York Times editorial writer Bari Weiss (read the whole thing), it sent shock waves through the academic community. Shaw was paid $45,000 a year, which in central Massachusetts is not a huge salary, as a Student Support Coordinator in the Department of Residential Life. 

Her letter claims that the “racially hostile environment that the college has subjected me to for the past two and a half years has left me physically and mentally debilitated.” The story began with a Black student, who ate her lunch, procured from a cafeteria that students were not supposed to use that summer day in 2018, in a dormitory that had been closed for the summer.

A passing janitor noticed a person where they should not be, and following procedure, called security. Security showed up (an unarmed officer), recognized the student, shared a few words, and that should have been the end of it. Oh, but it was just the beginning.

Michael Powell, writing in the NYT, covered the sad tale in depth, and with complete transparency (read the whole thing). The student, Oumu Kanoute, did not react well to being confronted by a security officer while eating her lunch. To her, it was “eating while Black” and the product of a systemically racist society. As the officer approached, Kanoute was ready. She recorded the conversation. 

She then lashed out against the officer on social media, the janitor (even another janitor, 35-year employee who wasn’t even working at the time of the incident), the lady who served her lunch, and in general, anyone not Black at the college.

That night Ms. Kanoute wrote a Facebook post: “It’s outrageous that some people question my being at Smith, and my existence overall as a woman of color.”

Because her story had to be believed, and failure to support a Black women telling such a tale of woe is in itself a reason for cancellation in the elite halls of privileged academia, the school went full Leroy Jenkins to prove that it could cleanse itself of the stain of latent systemic racism.

The effort became an all-out attack on anyone white, an Inquisition that proceeded to collect confessions from all staff, delving into intensely personal, humiliating, and psychological exercises, not just for the senior management and academic employees, but also from lowly Student Support Coordinators whose entire annual salary could not cover tuition at her own alma mater.

It didn’t matter that the whole incident was entirely in keeping with the school’s procedures, and not in any way remotely racist. A Black student’s feelings of what Smith College president Kathleen McCartney called “living in a context of ‘living while Black’ incidents” must be avenged.

Even after a law firm investigated the incident and published a 35-page report, finding no real evidence of discrimination, it was insufficient reason to stop the Inquisition. The goalposts simply had to move.

Rahsaan Hall, racial justice director for the A.C.L.U. of Massachusetts and Ms. Kanoute’s lawyer, cautioned against drawing too much from the investigative report, as subconscious bias is difficult to prove. Nor was he particularly sympathetic to the accused workers.

“It’s troubling that people are more offended by being called racist than by the actual racism in our society,” he said. “Allegations of being racist, even getting direct mailers in their mailbox, is not on par with the consequences of actual racism.”

Even though were was no actual racism at Smith College directed toward Kanoute, the fact that actual racism exists somewhere, and Kanoute was Black and therefore susceptible to receiving it from somewhere, was enough to pit the elites against the working folk.

The real privilege here was not white privilege.

Jackie Blair, the cafeteria worker who served Kanoute lunch that day, and Mark Patenaude, a janitor who had worked for Smith College for 35 years, were implicated by Kanoute online. The school refused to defend them in any way, despite threats, insults and whispers “there goes the racist” on campus.

“This is the racist person,” Ms. Kanoute wrote of Ms. Blair, adding that Mr. Patenaude too was guilty. (He in fact worked an early shift that day and had already gone home at the time of the incident.) Ms. Kanoute also lashed the Smith administration. “They’re essentially enabling racist, cowardly acts.”

Kanoute, a privileged student in a protected minority, at an elite school, abused her privilege of protection and honor to destroy the lives of people who did nothing to her. But in her lashing out against Smith’s administration, she was right, just not in the way she intended. Kanoute committed a racist, cowardly act, hiding behind her skin color, just to soothe her own hurt feelings, because she was talked to about being where she should not be. In her mind, any rebuke, no matter how mild, no matter how deserved, coming from a white person, was by definition racist.

Who is to blame for her worldview? Is it the working class folks in Northampton, Massachusetts? Is it—at the time—the Trump administration? Or is it the academic institutions that teach such things to elite educated young women, who prime them like muskets and set the firing cap, ready to go off at the slightest pull of the hair trigger?

Ms. Blair was born and raised and lives in Northampton with her husband, a mechanic, and makes about $40,000 a year. Within days of being accused by Ms. Kanoute, she said, she found notes in her mailbox and taped to her car window. “RACIST” read one. People called her at home. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” a caller said. “You don’t deserve to live,” said another.

Ms. Blair also has lupus. Lupus is aggravated by stress, and the effects of it are horribly debilitating. During the pandemic, Smith College furloughed Blair, who now can’t find a decent job because “there’s that racist” has stuck to her like a scarlet letter.

Yet, the “whistleblower” Jodi Shaw, who saw all this happening, endured the painful humiliation, group chants, psychological intrusions, and loss of job opportunities because she used a rap form of a program she designed, and rapping while white is a no-no because it’s “cultural appropriation,” is the villain, according to Smith president McCartney. 

In an open letter to “members of the Smith community,” McCartney claimed it was Shaw “who demanded payment of an exceptionally large sum in exchange for dropping a threatened legal claim and agreeing to standard confidentiality provisions.”

Further, while the employee aims her complaint at Smith, her public communications make clear that her grievances about equity and inclusion training run more broadly—as she puts it “to the medical field … the publishing field, the tech field, it’s in the schools, the legal field, public schools, private schools, colleges of course, government. It’s everywhere.”

Well, it is everywhere, if you’re working in the academic field, or in many of the places Shaw cited. Then there’s “training,” and there’s Inquisition designed to elicit a confession, a guilty plea. Reading through what Smith implemented, they designed an Inquisition, not “training.” McCartney continued:

While it might be uncomfortable to accept that each of us, regardless of color or background, may have absorbed unconscious biases or at times acted in ways that are harmful to members of our community, such self-reflection is a prerequisite for making meaningful progress. The aim of our equity and inclusion training is never to shame or ostracize. Rather, the goal is to facilitate authentic conversations that help to overcome the barriers between us, and the college welcomes constructive criticism of our workshops and trainings.

If the aim of Smith’s equity and inclusion training is never to shame or ostracize, and several employees have either quit or been furloughed with their ability to find new work severely impaired by false accusations of racism, then it would be more than fair to claim Smith has failed. McCartney, as school president, needs to check her privilege before she all-knowingly claims the high road.

Frederick M. Hess, writing in National Review, claimed to know McCartney.

We were friendly for many years, and while I haven’t seen her in a long time, I remember her as being smart, sensible, good-hearted, with no interest in the struggle sessions and racist reeducation now unleashed at Smith on her watch. Perhaps she has been sold on the marvels of intellectual repression. But my hunch is that she has been stampeded and intimidated into acquiescence.

Think of that. The president of an elite women’s college that was founded in 1871 was “stampeded and intimidated.” Either it was her career and ability to find work, or it was employees who made $40,000 or $45,000 a year. We all know who she chose.

Ultimately, this is about power. Elite power over working class power. The college had power to force guilty pleas, confessions of latent racism, and humiliating apologies for things not done or even necessarily thought, by the lowest staff members, to make the top faculty feel better about themselves.

The janitor, Mark Patenaude, was not even working when Kanoute got her lunch that day. Soon after being accused, he quit.

“I was accused of being the racist,” Mr. Patenaude said. “To be honest, that just knocked me out. I’m a 58-year-old male, we’re supposed to be tough. But I suffered anxiety because of things in my past and this brought it to a whole ’nother level.”

He recalled going through one training session after another in race and intersectionality at Smith. He said it left workers cynical. “I don’t know if I believe in white privilege,” he said. “I believe in money privilege.”

You want to know why Donald Trump can whip up an actual insurrection, with lawyers, military people, working-class folks, all listening with rapt attention to his “fight!” message? It’s because of poo-flinging monkeys like the blind scolds at Smith College, who have no idea of the damage they cause in people’s lives because working staff who have literally done no wrong are punished to assuage the consciences of the elites.

I’m afraid this is just the tip of a very large and ugly iceberg, and it illustrates the depth of healing this nation needs to do to get back on course. Racism is terrible, but an Inquisition in search of racists who don’t exist is worse.

Follow Steve on Twitter @stevengberman.

The First TV contributor network is a place for vibrant thought and ideas. Opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of The First or The First TV. We want to foster dialogue, create conversation, and debate ideas. See something you like or don’t like? Reach out to the author or to us at [email protected]. 

February 26, 2021 at 06:00AM - Steve Berman
The Smith Inquisitors will come for you | Steve Berman
Read the full story by clicking this headline, at The First TV

Investigative journalist James O’Keefe joined Dana Loesch to discuss the arbitrary suspension of Project Veritas’ Twitter account after they published an expose on Facebook’s Vice President.

By the standard they are using as justification for the ban, CNN should have gotten the same treatment long ago, he explained.

“We thought the public had the right to know this information… We’re gonna start suing the hell out of these people.”

WATCH:

February 25, 2021 at 12:51PM - Matt Howerton
James O’Keefe: How we can fight back against Big Tech
Read the full story by clicking this headline, at The First TV

Bill O’Reilly called out “the worst governor in U.S. history” who he says is making a bad situation worse by ending cash bail amid a historic violent crime wave.

Even worse, he says he is doing it to “dismantle the systemic racism” plaguing the state. Bill had a strong rebuttal to that claim:

“You know what’s systemic racism, governor? YOU. Allowing the murders of thousands of African-Americans.”

WATCH:

February 25, 2021 at 10:51AM - Matt Howerton
The worst governor in U.S. history | Bill O’Reilly
Read the full story by clicking this headline, at The First TV