Fanatics are scary because they refuse to change their ideas no matter how crushing the weight of contradictory evidence or experience might be.  Convinced—absolutely convinced—that they are correct, their one-track minds are perfectly willing to drag everyone along for a flaming crash into the brick wall of reality.  To alter course would be to admit error, which is simply not a possibility.

Fanatics are even more terrifying when they occupy the halls of government. 

It defies all logic to insist, for example, that open borders, free range criminality, uncontrolled government spending, broken supply chains, pointless mask mandates, indoctrination rather than education, galloping price inflation, a hamstrung military, ramped up racial tensions, and pervasive censorship and surveillance will create a happy and secure country, but these are exactly the policies that the Biden administration is pursuing—despite overwhelming evidence that they are leading to catastrophe and destroying our remaining social and cultural cohesion in the process.  

The true believers of the Progressive dogma, who insist the solution to the myriad problems caused by decades of government waste and interventions is—wait for it!—yet more government spending, regulation, and oversight, are incapable of changing course.  To presume that reasoned discussion and moderate consensus are possible is to presume the impossible.

Just look at where we are today.  Despite polls that indicate a majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of America—which sets up Democrats for a stunning repudiation in the 2022 midterms come November—there has been little inclination to tack away from divisive far-left policies in pursuit of a more centrist course. The Progressive acolytes, in fact, insist what is needed to win back voters is a still more radical approach that abandons all past political and social norms in order to escape a past they truly believe is irredeemably hateful and harmful—and so must be wholly and irrevocably discarded.

This is fanaticism at its most frightening. 

Moreover, it must be remembered that the Biden agenda will still need villains so that the blame for Progressive mistakes can be shifted to others.  The greater the mistakes, the more the need for villains; therefore, the dismal direction of the Biden administration on so many fronts does not bode well for national unity in the years ahead.  

Fanatics need enemies, and they also need to believe that their enemies are the very incarnation of evil.  The many policy mistakes of the Bidenistas are only the start of the problems that are plaguing our nation as we stumble into madness.  The ongoing persecution of the unbelievers is what should really be worrying us as we head toward the ragged edge of reason.  Our country’s divisions cannot be healed with more smug insults.

However, I do not wish to present a picture of unmitigated doom and gloom.  Although the fanatics of the far-left are doing an excellent job screwing up our nation right now, I have hope that their baleful influence is rapidly ebbing.

You see, I have a boundless faith in the even more fanatical dedication of career politicians—as pertains to keeping their jobs.

It is heartening to see so many Blue State Governors now easing off their bizarre obsession with mask mandates.  Politicians survive in office by riding the winds of public opinion, and most are uninterested in serving as a human sacrifice for the extremists in their party.  One’s hopes for a return to sanity must be somewhat tempered by continuing support for restricting civil liberties and the right to gainful employment by using every tool in their bureaucratic and legal arsenal to press for vaccine passports and the dismissal of employees who refuse to get jabbed, but I suspect these restrictions will too soon blow away like a discarded plastic bag on a windy day.

Likewise, citizens are making their disgust with lax prosecutors and Woke theories of law enforcement abundantly clear.  More state and local politicians are awakening to the need to hire more officers and start making arrests in order to stem the epidemic of murders, robberies, assaults, carjackings, and property crimes plaguing our nation since police departments were stigmatized as the agents of institutionalized racism—and discouraged from doing their jobs.  

Given that Americans are now vigorously pushing back against policies that are keeping criminals on the streets and putting the lives of police officers at risk, we are certainly going to see more elected officials abandon the extreme positions of those who loudly advocate for defunding law enforcement.  Marching forward with their fingers held resolutely on the pulse of public opinion, many bravely Woke politicians will gradually, haltingly—and certainly unwillingly—rediscover the benefits of incarceration as a tool of public safety in order to keep their jobs.

Other Biden policies regarding border security, public education, and censorship may be next in line for a swerve toward centrism, but any changes will be dependent on just how afraid Democrats are of an electoral wipeout in 2022—and just how piteously the Wokesters wail in response.  It will be loud, and it will get ugly.

The big question is, of course, if the music changes on these and many other issues, will the tune remain the same?  Even if the shape of government oppression changes, it remains government oppression if it steals away our peace and security while continuing to saddle Americans with onerous intrusions into our lives and Constitutional freedoms.

We will have to wait and see whether the fanatical extremism associated with homegrown Marxism is more or less powerful than the fanatical desires of elected officials who want to remain employed.