The problems that bother Americans today tend to fall into one of two broad categories: those that upset us and those that terrify us.  There is, of course some crossover between the two, but we seem to be whipsawed between that which is troubling and that which would frighten any reasonable citizen of our troubled and deeply divided nation.

First, the merely depressing.

The Biden economy is, understandably, dragging down all of our moods.  Inflation is at heartbreaking and historic levels, and anyone who is trying to put food on the table or fuel in their gas tank cannot believe what they are seeing.  Housing costs are astronomical, and both rents and home prices are squeezing most Americans despite—or perhaps because of—the nearly $5 trillion of borrowing and spending poured into our nation’s economy during the governmentally-mandated Covid-19 mass hysteria.  

With interest rates now rising and layoffs increasing, the future of our household budgets looks dimmer by the day, even as the Bidenistas continue to claim that we are actually experiencing zero inflation.  The disconnect between their disingenuous rhetoric and the painful reality now facing most Americans could not be greater, and any hope that they will pull their heads out of their Woke cloud and understand the damage their policies are causing to American workers and families is a forlorn fantasy.

Worse yet, our children are being sacrificed to extremist ideologies and ideologues who care little for they harm are doing.  

Stuck in underperforming and unaccountable public schools that function as paycheck factories for the marginally competent and completely looney among us, which has been a problem for many decades, our children graduate from high school more frequently than ever, which is a mixed blessing.  Although we pay hundreds of billions of dollars to support school districts across our nation, fully 60% of high school graduates are unprepared for success in higher education.  Our public schools are not typically actual schools; they are outrageously expensive diploma mills.

This translates into millions of young adults graduating from high school each year whose futures are hobbled before their futures even have a chance to start because, college or no, few well-paying jobs are today available that do not require good reading, writing, and math skills.  The ripple effects of this educational malpractice are impossible to adequately measure, but it should be little surprise that 25% of our college students now start out paying for non-credit remedial education courses when the arrive on campus, and many schools see up to half their freshman class drop out in despair every year.

Thank goodness they are at least today figuring out their preferred pronouns and switching their gender identities before they move on to wretched lifetimes of school-inflicted psychiatric problems and dead end jobs.  If concerned parents try to intervene to keep this from happening, they risk being branded as domestic terrorists, and many school districts now make it their policy to conceal the indoctrination being inflicted on their children from the mothers and fathers whose taxes pay the bills at these Woke failure factories.

The battle for the souls of our nation’s young is, sadly, just one front in a Culture War that is hitting Americans from all sides.  Crime is out of control because the police cannot arrest, the prosecutors won’t prosecute, and our open borders have become a superhighway for drugs and dangerous gang members.  Racialist ideology puts us at one another’s throats, religious belief is now considered to be a form of bigotry by our out-of-touch elites, and our bloated layers of government have become a criminal playground  for grifters, grafters, and fraudsters of every stripe who live off the hard work of beleaguered and disgusted taxpayers while they denigrate America and Americans at every opportunity.  No wonder a poll in June found that a whopping 88% of Americans believe our nation is on the wrong track.  It is sometimes difficult to believe the percentage is not much, much higher.

Now take a deep breath.  Let’s talk about what terrifies Americans.

The top of the list has to be the widespread fear that the Biden Administration is bumbling into a real shooting war with both Russia and China—simultaneously.

The sanctions that Joe Biden and his Team of Losers slapped on Russia after their invasion of Ukraine have been a monumental failure that have enriched Russia by jacking up the price of their oil.

It is also worth remembering that only a few short years ago America was a net exporter of oil; now we are rapidly draining our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which we will need in the event of a war, so that the Biden-Harris follies can shave a few cents off the price of a gallon of gas before vengeful voters cast their ballots in the midterm elections.  This change has harmed our economy, damaged our national security, and left us groveling to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Iran for the oil we used to provide for ourselves.  The utter folly of Bidenista policies that have crippled our domestic fossil fuel production are obvious to everyone but the extremists now in control of The White House, Congress, and the Departments of Energy and Transportation.

In addition, not content with only one failed policy in the form of sanctions against Russia, the Biden administration and the Democrats who control Congress have seized upon an insanely dangerous strategy with the potential for catastrophic failure leading to war: shipping over $9 billion dollars of weaponry to Ukraine.  

There is probably little that is stupider than pouring military aid into a corrupt kakistocracy—one, by the way, with extensive financial ties with the Biden Administration and a host of leading Democrats—and hope this will not eventually escalate into even more destructive warfare that is already one atrocity away from a major escalation.  Whether any of our arms will eventually end up in the hands of the Russians or terrorists elsewhere is anyone’s guess, but we are apparently supposed to trust that the same Biden foreign policy team that brought us last year’s humiliation in Afghanistan is totally on top of their game in 2022.

The fecklessness of the Biden administration’s China policies is yet another fear factor afflicting our nation today.

Setting aside the fact that the Biden sanction policies in Russia have turned China into a major importer of Russian oil, which both makes Russia richer and China stronger, the constant swirl of contradictory Biden pronouncements regarding our security commitments toTaiwan have reinforced the confusion of our President and the weakness of our national resolve.  

Nancy Pelosi’s recent junket to Taiwan, which accomplished little other than encouraging the Chinese military to launch live fire drills right off the coast of Taiwan, was a diplomatic disaster that only hardened the resolve of the Chinese military and annoyed our allies, who were appalled at the ludicrousness of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives bringing her son on her supposedly serious mission to Taiwan so that he could check on his investments in a Taiwanese tech company.

Couple these many threats abroad with crashing military recruitment at home—apparently, no one wants to sign up for Joe Biden’s Woke Armed Forces—and it is clear that this is an extraordinarily dangerous time to have a Commander-in-Chief who takes weekends off to catch up on his nap time.

We have lots of worries about our current leadership, and lots of fears about where we might be—and whom we might be fighting—at this time next year.

Moreover, many Americans have a legitimate fear of their own government, a hangover from the Covid-19 debacle disguised as science.

Having learned that government can strip away every civil right we thought we enjoyed as citizens of a democracy, Americans now understand that we can—with breathtaking ease—be confined to our homes, locked out of our houses of worship and schools, and stripped of our livelihoods.  Worse still, it has become clear over the past couple of years that the full force of the regulatory state will be directed at those who dare to dissent.  

To listen one’s conscience or common sense is a perilous undertaking in America today, and this is an understandable source of concern—and fear—for the 88% of us who believe that our nation is on the wrong track.  The minority of extremists, who want to silence us and compel our obedience with laws and policies we know in our hearts are wrong, count on governmental and judicial tyranny to force our compliance.  This worries us, but it also makes us very, very angry—which is itself also a source of yet more fear.

Troubled times, troubled minds, and troubles abroad: We today have more than enough reasons to worry—and plenty to fear.