A Vision of Division

February 4, 2021

Sir Isaac Newton wasn't thinking about politics when he stumbled on the laws of motion. But physics, like politics, is about nature. And right now, Americans are responding to the liberal whiplash in a way that even science could predict: For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Joe Biden is pushing -- and America is pushing back.

The voters who elected Barack Obama's vice president, expecting a moderate, have had 15 days to wonder what hit them. After a blizzard of executive orders that rivaled this week's Nor'easter, a good portion of the country is still shellshocked. On almost every issue -- whether it's open borders, Victor Davis Hansen writes, blanket amnesties, radical transgenderism, the Keystone pipeline, or his team of hard-Left idealogues -- this so-called "middle of the road" Democrat has managed to launch an agenda that almost none of the country supports.

"When Biden made a Faustian bargain with the far-Left Democratic wing of Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to win the election," Hansen argues, "he took on the commitment to absorb some of their [manifesto] and to appoint their ideologues." Now, incredibly, after a year and a half of pretending these weren't his values, the president seems almost as sincere as they are! In just two weeks, "Biden is now unapologetically leading the most radical Left-wing movement in the nation's history." But he's also sparked one heck of a counter-movement in the process.

Conservatives, who are sick of playing the Left's January 6th shame game, have started speaking out even louder. When Biden opened the dam to overseas abortion funding, Republicans fought back, flooding the House and Senate floors with more than 20 pro-life bills in response. Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa), one of the dozen members who joined a special order Wednesday night, understands that under Joe Biden, her party will have to work even harder. But, she insisted, "We must stand up for the unborn who cannot stand up for themselves. I am hopeful that the next generation will fight for life, and I am proud to lead this fight here in Congress."

But Biden's war on normalcy is also emboldening some otherwise skittish Republicans. Now that they know the cancel culture will come for them no matter what, maybe more leaders feel freer to tackle the most outrageous parts of the president's plan -- things like: forcing our daughters to shower with biological boys, ordering federal buildings to let men into our wives' bathrooms, and erasing the future of millions of athletes so that Biden can realize his dream of being "the most pro-transgender president" in history.

Wednesday, the uproar that's been building in the states finally spilled into the Senate, where Biden's pick for Education secretary, Miguel Cardona, locked horns with Rand Paul (R-Ky.) -- who was dumbfounded over the administration's wildly unpopular obliteration of girls' sports. The doctor asked if Cardona thought allowing biological boys to compete in girls' sports was "fair." "I think it is appropriate," he replied. "It's the legal responsibility of schools to provide opportunities for students to participate in activities and this includes students who are transgender." What did Cardona think, Paul pressed, about the teenage boys stealing titles and scholarships away from girls in Connecticut?

"Does it bother you," Senator Paul asked, "that like the top 20 percent of boys running in track meets beat all of the girls in the state, that... it would... completely destroy girls' athletics, that girls are being pushed out? They don't make the finals in the state meet, they don't get college scholarships, that it's really detrimental to girls' sports. Do you worry about having boys run in girls' track meets?"

"I recognize and appreciate the concerns," Biden's nominee replied, "and the frustrations that are expressed. As commissioner of education, I have had conversations with families who have felt the way you just described it, and families of students who are transgender." Paul asked him to answer the question -- was it fair? Cardona went back to his talking points. "I believe schools should offer the opportunity for students to engage in extracurricular activities, even if they're transgender. I think that's their right."

So you think it's their "right," Paul went on, to pursue a policy that ends girls' sports? Frankly, the senator fired back, "I think most people in the country think that's bizarre -- that is just completely bizarre and unfair that people -- and you're going to run the Department of Education -- you've got no problem with it. That concerns me, and I think it's this kind of thing [that's going to] lead to really just the vast majority of America just wondering, 'Who are these people that think it's okay? What planet are you from?' ...I wonder where feminists are on this?" Paul wondered. "I wonder where the people who supported women's sports are on this. I mean are we all gonna be okay with hulking six-foot-four guys wrestling against girls?"

Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kans.) certainly isn't. He spoke up and demanded alternatives to the Biden order. Cardona refused to offer one. This just shows, Paul said, what "a real problem we have -- and [what] a disconnect [this administration has] with Middle America. I even think most Democrats don't believe girls should run in a boys' track meet." And he's right. They don't. In the battleground states, the opposition to mixed-gender sports is overwhelming -- as high as 75 percent. Nationally, it's just as unpopular. Rasmussen could only find 28 percent of American adults who agree with Cardona's position. And in Hawaii, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee, voters have a chance to do something about it. Email your state legislature and tell them to support the movement to protect girls from the Biden administration.

"Will there be a reaction to this extremism?" Victor Davis Hanson asked. If these last two weeks are an indication, it has only just begun.