There seems to be a deep split between the message of unity the Joe Biden administration would like us to hear, on the one hand, and what its actions are communicating, on the other hand.
President Biden's Inaugural Address was great. It hit the right themes of bringing people together as Americans. But but he promptly walked up to the White House and created dissonance with his first volley of partisan left-wing executive orders.
Much of his first week in office was afflicted by the consequences of these divisive orders.
More and more people are realizing that President Biden's order to disallow discrimination based on gender or gender identity in Title IX essentially eliminates women's sports. Keep in mind that one of the main features of Title IX, when it was passed in 1972, was to ensure that colleges and universities receiving federal funding would offer sporting programs in which women could compete. Before Title IX, women—most of whom cannot physically compete with male athletes due to differences in musculature and hormones—did not have the same athletic opportunities their male cohorts had.
Biden's order on Title IX undoes this. If biological males can compete in women's collegiate sports—and receive scholarships and grants for women's sports—because they identify as female, their biologically female competitors are immediately placed at a competitive disadvantage. At this point, how long before biological males who identify as women are entitled to women-owned business grants, or other programs for uplifting women?
To be clear: I don't support discriminating against Americans who are simply living their lives, exercising their liberties and pursuing their happiness—but I also don't support measures that grant unfair advantages over other Americans trying to do the same thing.
Divisions are also beginning to widen over President Biden's decision to kill the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which was meant to carry oil from Canada to the U.S. These divisions aren't strictly along partisan lines, either. As President Biden is quickly learning, it will be tough to balance the desires of the radical Left and those of more traditional working-class Democrats.
Of course, Biden campaigned on both killing Keystone XL (when he was talking to his environmentalist constituents) and less aggressiveness in attacking fossil fuels (when he was talking to people in oil and natural gas states).
Now, ironically, some of the biggest unions that supported Biden in the election are going to lose the largest number of jobs from him killing Keystone XL. The North American Building Trades Unions, the Laborers' International Union of North America and the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters have all come out criticizing President Biden's move, because it will render thousands of Americans unemployed—during a pandemic, to boot.
As one last example, I must again point out the Biden administration's knee-jerk reaction to abolish the 1776 Commission. This was purely an effort of partisan cultural warfare. That's because President Biden is beholden to a radical, elite culture that consistently wants to erase American history and rewrite it to better serve a left-wing agenda.
The 1776 Commission was an answer to The New York Times' 1619 Project, which initially proclaimed America's "true founding" occurred when the first slave ship docked in the colonies. The project has been so thoroughly debunked by serious historians that The New York Times has been quietly editing out its most egregious statements. I have written at length about this propaganda effort.
The 1776 Commission, on the other hand, was an effort to study and teach real history (CNN promptly called it "racist" without any cause). One of the lead advisors was my friend, College of the Ozarks President Jerry Davis. But on the very first day, the Left realized what a danger the 1776 Commission was and pushed President Biden to kill it.
So, in his first week, President Biden continued to talk about unity but delivered purely partisan actions. This is because when he says "unity," he really means "conformity." The Left is not interested in listening to, or compromising with, the more than 74 million people who voted for President Donald Trump. The Left just wants them to step in line or be summarily ignored.
If President Biden really wanted unity, he could call on the U.S. Senate to drop its impeachment proceedings against President Trump. But he knows he can't do that—it would break his flimsy coalition.
The single unifying element of the current Democratic Party is hatred of Trump. The Democrats know they must keep Trump as a central issue if they are going to keep their grip on government.
Two or three years focused on Trump, instead of solving problems, is exactly what America doesn't need right now. But the Democrats know that as long as they can keep Trump as a piñata, they can keep their members happy.
Once the piñata goes away, they will all be staring at each other—still holding sticks.
To read, hear and watch more of Newt's commentary, visit Gingrich360.com.
The view expressed in this article are the writer's own.
