Top 10 editorials of 2022
Washington Examiner
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Any election year, even a midterm election year, is a consequential one. Some stories emerged for the first time, others faded away, and some persisted throughout. Below we have compiled the top 10 editorials of 2022 to help you remember the year that was and set the stage for the year to come.
10. The Black Lives Matter scam: A movement that dominated the news in 2020 slipped into obscurity in 2022 thanks to corruption and mismanagement. After raising $90 million in 2020, the organization could not account for how most of the money was spent, and senior staff have been accused of theft. Meanwhile, the “defund the police” policies pushed by the organization have only led to more black homicides, about 2,000 a year more than before cities started cutting their police budgets. These grifters will not be missed.
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9. Biden’s border of death: When 977,000 immigrants surged to the southern border in 2019, one picture of a drowned father and daughter sparked outrage from Democrats against then-President Donald Trump for his handling of that border crisis. Trump got the border under control through his “Remain in Mexico” policy, however, and people moved on. President Joe Biden’s border crisis has blown past Trump’s, with just over 2 million border encounters in 2021 and over 2.5 million in 2022. Deaths on the border have also exploded, as first reported by the Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli. But now Democrats don’t care. Record numbers of immigrants are dying and will continue to die as long as Biden is president. The only way to fix the crisis is to change the occupant of the White House.
8. Xi’s zero-COVID policy shows why Communist China remains a threat: There is no greater foreign threat to the United States today than the Chinese Communist Party. Whether or not you believe a lab leak from China caused COVID or not, from its bullying of Taiwan to its subjugation of Hong Kong to its genocide in Xinjiang, China continues to show it has the intention and will to overthrow the post-World War II international order. The ruthless efficiency China showed in locking down Shanghai, a city of 25 million people, causing untold misery all to maintain the now clearly unattainable goal of eradicating COVID, shows just how terrible life will be for everyone if China obtains global dominance.
7. California’s green bureaucracy gets the verbal smackdown it deserves: It is tempting to feel sorry for the people who live in California, but they get the government they deserve. This year, with record-high gas prices, the California Energy Commission had the audacity to send letters to oil companies demanding to know why California gas prices were so much higher than the rest of the nation. Valero’s vice president for state government affairs let them have it: “We believe the commission experts understand that California cannot mandate a unique fuel that is not readily available outside of the West Coast, and then burden or eliminate California refining capacity and then expect to have robust fuel supplies.” It doesn’t take an expert to know that Valero is right and California’s government is the cause of the state’s high gas prices, but politicians will always try and shift the blame.
6. Joe Biden lives in a world of alternative facts: Outside of Florida and New York, Democrats did not really suffer at the polls for Biden’s low approval ratings. But that doesn’t mean the average voter hasn’t noticed that Biden seems to be living in another reality. Whether the issue is inflation, which Biden doesn’t know the magnitude of, the border, which Biden insists is secure, or Georgia, where Biden insists black people are living under a Jim Crow 2.0, Biden appears to be operating in a different world — which can be helpful when your policies have made living in this one so difficult.
5. A mass exodus from the Democrats’ America: This is a story that has been going on for some time, but with COVID opening more and more people’s eyes, it has only accelerated. The latest census data released in June show that between July 2020 and July 2021, 15 of the 15 fastest-growing cities were in states that Republicans govern: Arizona, Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Idaho. And 14 out of the 15 fastest-declining cities during the same period were in states that Democrats governed at the time. From crime to high taxes to environmental regulations that make it impossible to build affordable housing, Democratic states are simply becoming unlivable, and more and more people are leaving them (even ones with great weather like California) for states governed by Republicans.
4. Biden’s lesson from the election is that he is doing a great job: As mentioned earlier, Democrats performed better than expected in this year’s election considering Biden’s low approval ratings. They did lose the House, albeit not by as much as they expected. But they added to their lead in the Senate. Republican failures at the polls were due largely to bad candidate selection and motivated single women who turned out in record numbers in response to the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade. What the election was not about was an affirmation of Biden’s policies on inflation, immigration, and the environment. But that is what the White House has taken the election to mean. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both tacked toward the center after bad midterm elections, but that is not the message the White House received. It is now full speed ahead for the Biden administration without any course correction.
3. What House Republicans should and should not investigate: With the Biden administration unchastened by the 2022 elections, the Republicans taking over the House of Representatives in 2023 face a huge responsibility in providing much-needed oversight of the Biden administration. Investigations on Afghanistan, the southern border, the IRS, and the Department of Justice are all in order. But what House Republicans should not do is look backward to the 2020 election or run interference for Trump. Republicans need to prove to voters that they can govern responsibly. Investigations that shed light on broad public policy problems can do that. Serving Trump’s whims will not.
2. Biden’s mental sharpness is a serious issue: From falsely claiming his son died in Iraq on multiple occasions to asking where a congresswoman was at an event even though she had died weeks earlier, Biden’s grasp on reality is clearly slipping. All of these incidents are uncomfortable for all of us, but when they happen on issues of major policy, like whether or not the U.S. will defend Taiwan or send troops to Ukraine, the issue becomes deadly serious. It appears Biden will not only run for reelection in 2024, but he will do so unopposed in his own party. His mental clarity will be a defining issue of the general election.
1. Why Hispanics are leaving the Democratic Party: Bad candidates and a surge of turnout from single women saved the Democrats in 2022, but the trend among Hispanic voters is clear: More and more of them are voting Republican every cycle. Polling from Texas Hispanics, especially those who live closer to the border, shows they are tired of the Democratic Party’s open-border immigration policies. This traditionally culturally conservative community is also not on board with the Democratic Party’s leftward lurch on issues like abortion and transgenderism. Hispanics are proud of being American, to live in a country they know is not as racist as Democrats make it out to be. Republicans still have work to do, but if they can show Hispanics a real working-class agenda, the political earthquake of Hispanics moving to the GOP will be felt for generations to come.
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