Americans were bombarded with a single, overarching message during the 2020 presidential election: "Joe Biden and the Democrats are the compassionate, empathetic party while Republicans and Donald Trump are cold and uncaring."
As the empathetic president, Biden promised to listen to the cares and concerns of the little guy. He promised to give the most marginalized communities a voice and to reclaim our position as a leader for good on the world stage.
The Afghanistan debacle has undone that carefully crafted persona--not just for Biden but for all of our nation's most powerful leaders.
When asked at a press conference this weekend about his lagging poll numbers, Biden laughed and defended his actions in Afghanistan.
And when a reporter cited a new CBS poll, published on Sunday, saying it found “a majority of Americans… no longer consider you to be competent, focused, or effective at the job” amid the humanitarian crisis, Biden laughed it off and grinned widely.
“Look, I had a basic decision to make,” the president replied, before reciting stats on the number of Americans killed and wounded in Afghanistan before the withdrawal, and the money and resources spent there.
“And I decided to end the war,” he said.
Biden doesn't care about his lagging poll numbers because he doesn't care what the American people think. He doesn't care about the Americans he stranded behind enemy lines, and he certainly doesn't care about our Afghan allies at risk of being executed by the Taliban.
His lack of empathy extends to others in his administration. Vice President Kamala Harris took a page out of Biden's playbook when asked about Afghanistan.
“Hold on. Hold on. Slow down, everybody,” said Harris. “Hahaha. Um, I want to talk about two things. First, Afghanistan — we couldn’t have a higher priority right now,” she said from halfway around the world.
“And in particular high priority is making sure that we safely evacuate American citizens, Afghans who worked with us, Afghans at risk, including women and children, and that is one of our highest if not the highest priority right now. And it’s a big area of focus for me in the past days and weeks, and will continue to be,” she added.
WATCH: Kamala Harris laughs when a reporter starts to ask her about Americans trapped in Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/7863Seq36C
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 22, 2021
Even members of Congress have gotten in on the joke. While American citizens suffer under the tyranny of the Taliban, Sen. Chuck Schumer joined Stephen Colbert to yuk it up backstage of The Late Show.
Backstage antics pic.twitter.com/3v2Ge3E9zM
— Bill Neidhardt (@BNeidhardt) August 21, 2021
Clearly, our federal leaders aren't overly bothered by the fact that thousands of Americans are in danger of being executed by the same terrorists who helped mastermind 9/11. They're far more concerned about their next reelection campaign than about attending to the concerns of the American people.
And make no mistake: the American people are concerned. According to a recent Convention of States Action poll, 70% of Americans disapprove of how Biden has handled the situation in Afghanistan. According to a separate poll, 74% of Americans believe Biden's Afghan withdrawal has gone "badly," while the president's approval rating has fallen below 50%.
But does the president care? It doesn't appear so. He's quadrupled down on pulling out of Afghanistan, and he hasn't changed his strategy for getting Americans out of the country. Mr. Empathy has plugged his ears to the concerns of his constituents, and he's pushing ahead against the will of We the People.
Our "leaders" in Washington don't care about us or what we think, so we shouldn't look to them to fix the problems our nation is facing. Instead, we should look to the people and the states, and our most powerful tool is an Article V Convention of States.
A Convention of States is called and controlled by the states and has the power to propose constitutional amendments that limit the power, scope, and jurisdiction of the federal government. These amendments can limit presidential power and shrink or eliminate many federal agencies. Other amendments can get career politicians out of office by mandating term limits and imposing fiscal restraints on Congress.
Federal overreach is one of our nation's most pressing threats, but politicians like Biden don't care enough about what we think to do anything about it. That's why We the People need to take control, and we can do it with a Convention of States.
