The “awakened” movement was stunned after January 20, 2021. The left controlled both houses of Congress.

Joe Biden was drafted as the necessary veneer of 1980s Democratic normalcy to advance an otherwise tough leftist agenda.

All major cultural, financial, economic, entertainment and media institutions have played various roles in seeing former President Donald Trump not only defeated, but also deposed, twice. He was struck off as persona non grata after the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill.

So universities, corporate boards, Hollywood, the media, the Pentagon, professional sports teams, Silicon Valley and Wall Street in an almost hysterical way all got on the waking train. They all boasted of having unearthed the “white rage” and hired legions of “diversity, equity and inclusion” czars.

Critical race theory would be incorporated to eliminate racism and discrimination by embracing racism and discrimination.

“Crime” was now to be seen primarily as a construct created by the elite to protect their own privileges, prerogatives and property. Shoplifting, looting and street thugs were part of life in a normal town.

The “warriors of social justice” could replace the funded police. Most of the deterrence policies around bail, incarceration, mandatory jail time, arrest and search and broken glass are gone.

Green agendas, the left hoped, would fundamentally transform America by ending man-made “climate change” immediately. As a result, many oil and gas leases have either been canceled or their costs have increased dramatically. The pipelines have been shut down. Oil and gas companies have been warned that everything from lack of funding to new regulations will soon bankrupt them. The golden age of wind and batteries was already upon us.

Modern monetary theorists have assured us that printing money will “spread the wealth” and devalue the money of unworthy capitalists who have too much of it. Printing more money, they thought, would put it in the hands of the needy who unfairly had too little.

To the extent that inflation followed, it would be a good thing, they hoped, a sign of a newly empowered and robust consumer class long deprived of “fairness.”

COVID was virtually over. President Biden assured us that Trump has killed more than 350,000 Americans with his lax health policies. In contrast, Biden would vaccinate us all soberly, claiming that the vaccine’s effectiveness was his. He predicted victory over the virus by July 4. The delta variant was still only an obscure rumor from abroad.

The border would be open – and would remain open. No more walls. As citizens of the world, the left has welcomed 2 million immigrants who arrived illegally without audits or vaccinations during a pandemic.

As the revival drove terrified old Liberal Democrats into hiding, all the old wisdom about human nature faded away. Forget that criminals hurt the poor the most. Throw in the weird idea of ​​Martin Luther King, Jr. that our character, not our color, determines who we are. Ignore the fleeting idea that inflation is eating away at the wages of the working class.

We could always resume the quarantines, lockdowns and shutdowns that have made Amazon, Target, Walmart and other conglomerates hundreds of billions in profits, while small family businesses go bankrupt.

(C) Tribune 2021 content agency