And we’ll have Joe Biden and the Democrat party to thank for making that unpleasant task considerably more difficult.

The costs of electricity and home heating oil are climbing alarmingly. Food, gasoline, and all sorts of parts and equipment, indeed practically everything requiring transportation across a continental nation are becoming prohibitively expensive, if not altogether scarce.

We now see that the most costly purchase of all was what retailers might term an “impulse buy”: an extravagant selection carrying an exorbitant price but precious little utility. It was the ill-advised buy-in to Joe Biden’s claims to presidential fitness. Like an unfair tax, the burden of that mistake falls upon even those wiser voters unmoved by his bait and switch sales pitch.

However much deceit and indeed fraud was involved in that unfortunate piece of election marketing, it’s now indisputable that his “victory” and opening executive order sallies into reversing any and all Trump policies --- acts of personal spite every bit as much as political disagreement --- served as the trigger for this un-transitory bout of inflation we’re experiencing, and all of the other economic woes clearly coming down the pike.

In early 2020, the Democrat brain trust --- such as it was --- came to the rather obvious conclusion that the gallingly popular Bernie Sanders was a certain Election Day loser should he somehow secure their nomination. But Trump needed to be turned out at any cost, and polls showed Biden was the man with the best chance to accomplish the job.

However the president needed to be softened-up first, so with the connivance of Trump haters embedded in the NSA and CIA, Pelosi and Schiff cooked up the Zelensky Phone Call impeachment. While of course not resulting in Trump’s removal, it effectively served the dual purpose of dirtying him while diverting needed scrutiny away from the corrupt actions of the ethically unbothered Biden family that might have torpedoed Joe’s ambitions to take on Trump.

It was a cynical, dishonest, and thoroughly reprehensible maneuver that did untold harm to the nation --- but one that nevertheless worked like a charm.

The way was then clear to rid themselves of the pesky Sanders and anoint Biden their weathered champion; but it required an effort so opaque and underhanded it once again --- as in 2016 on Hillary’s behalf --- threatened to infuriate the party’s ascendant left wing and ignite dissension, even possibly cause a revolt.

Surprisingly though, once that messy sausage-making was complete and the other superfluous contenders bought or threatened off, the thwarted Sen. Sanders, still the Left’s darling but now a two-time victim of establishment machinations, seemed oddly sanguine --- even accepting.

Less than two years into Biden’s term, such generosity of spirit exhibited by the twice-denied quasi-Democrat is no longer puzzling. We see that although it’s Joe’s butt occupying the Oval Office chair, the policy shots being called are strictly from the Sanderista playbook. Consequently, this winter we stand to be the unwilling eggs broken in a Bernie omelet; one that finally road tests his previously considered crackpot beliefs in socialist economic theory and strong-armed environmentalism.

The bill for maintaining peace in the Democrat party and the nomination of the appropriate  “winning” cutout will finally come due amid winter’s freezing temperatures, accompanied by potentially dangerous food and fuel shortages and prices climbing too rapidly to be painlessly absorbed by any other than the wealthy.

But an unwelcome visitor named Vladimir has crashed the Bernie-Biden “transition”; dumping a bucket full of fittingly cold water on the dream-like leftist abstractions guiding their way forward. And he’s driving a tank, not a Tesla.

It’s a great historical irony that Russia, the site of the most momentous collapse of socialism/communism to date, is the nation that’s thrown the biggest monkey wrench into the fossil-free plans of Euro-American neo-liberals.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine --- hopefully an ill-fated venture, but still more an expression of tsarist, rather than communist nostalgia --- by multiplying the damage done to Western economies begun by their own short-sighted leaders, can ultimately act as a sort of October Revolution in reverse: painfully and with growing hardship illustrating the bankruptcy of half-baked theories of an uplifting socialism featuring “renewable” energy and unrestrained social spending that makes it unnecessary to seek work.

Should these insane policies result in runaway inflation, it will inevitably be the poorest and most vulnerable among us who pay the dearest price for indulging Utopian fantasies.

Biden’s Inaugural Day declaration of war on domestic energy --- obviously a non-negotiable condition to his arranged ascension to the Democrat nomination --- handed Vladimir Putin (and other U.S. enemies/adversaries) a weapon against us and our allies every bit as potent as the sophisticated systems we’re rolling into Ukraine to oppose his forces.

It’s pointless to reiterate the utter idiocy of such a strategic error at a time when Putin’s threats to Ukraine and his willingness to weaponize natural gas deliveries to Europe were already open and notorious. Let it suffice to say that insofar as Biden participated in the decision at all, it was necessitated by forces out of his control. He was obliged to yield to the prevailing priorities of the Democrat Party, no matter their effect upon the nation’s fortunes.

We look at Joe Biden’s obvious vacancy and try to divine his mental state, his possible infirmities, and who in the final analysis is pulling his strings. But when it counted --- before the election --- many neglected to assess how such a man made it to the front of the line in the first place. Alas, it was those very defects: his malleability and controllability, when combined with the unbridled ambitions of those around him, which got him there.

A candidate --- any candidate --- is not just a personality or the sum total of his or her own gathered beliefs and experiences. That office seeker can only be the product of the party he or she represents, and lugs around both its attributes and detritus.

A good thing to keep in mind when going to the polls in November, and facing afterwards what may turn out to be the grimmest winter we’ve seen in years, is that when the core of a party becomes predominantly radical, there can be no real “moderates” in leadership roles, only poseurs and fakes doing their best to hang on for dear life. When push comes to shove, all of them --- Pelosi, Schumer, Hoyer, Durbin and the lesser lights clamoring for your approval and votes --- will bend to the prevailing winds, as did the hapless figurehead Biden.

Those bitter winds now blow steadily to the left as far as Democrats are concerned, and there’s no member of the party on the horizon who figures to stand up to such powerful gusts.

Image by Stock Snap by Pixabay / Pixabay License