Unfortunately for football fans, the political ads didn’t end when the election did! The millions of people who tuned into Super Bowl LV found that out the hard way, thanks to companies like Jeep — who tried to sell cars with condescending ads that tell the 74 million Americans who didn’t vote for Joe Biden that the country’s in much better shape, because liberals always know better.

Most people tuning into the game were probably hoping for an escape from the country’s tensions. Instead they got a sermon from Left-wing activists like Bruce Springsteen, who’s decided that unity has magically been achieved now that Democrats are in power. The commercial, called “The Middle,” kicks off with a Kansas chapel that sits in the exact center of the country. “It never closes,” the voice of Springsteen tells us. “All are more than welcome to come meet here in the middle. It’s no secret that the middle has been a hard place to get to lately between red and blue, between servant and citizen, between our freedom and our fear.”

He tells us, amid waving flags, that freedom “belongs to us all,” and “We need the middle” — a case that would have been a lot more convincing had Springsteen himself not called for an “exorcism” in the capital last fall to get rid of the conservative “bums.” Suddenly, the idea that “we stand on common ground” rings a little hollow. As does his insistence that the country has magically become the “ReUnited States of America” under three weeks of a radical Joe Biden.

Critics of the ad, which seemed to be everyone from the Washington Post to Mollie Hemingway, called the two-minute exercise patronizing, “particularly obnoxious and tone deaf.” “Being preached to by someone who doesn’t respect my views,” one Twitter user posted, “who relishes in suppressing them, having the nerve to pretend to be ‘my community’ and declare unity. They have no idea how transparently cynical the whole thing came across.” And who on earth, Mollie wanted to know, would say the country is reunited now?

Joe Biden won an election that came down to about 40,000 votes in three states, she pointed out. Then, despite the media’s insistence that he’s a “unifier,” Biden set to work signing a slew of far-Left executive orders and pursuing major COVID policy without the support of a single Republican member. If that’s the reunited states of America, you could have fooled us.

What Jeep wants everyone to believe is that now that Democrats control the federal government and have jerked the wheel to the Left, everything’s going to be okay, because the cultural elites agree with it. In other words, when Republicans “win a national election, that’s divisive — but when Democrats win one, [it’s] unifying,” Mollie shakes her head. Give us a break. Most Americans can see right through this musician’s kumbaya after sitting through years of his conservative name-calling. They despised Donald Trump, sure. But in the end, he was just a convenient cover for the Left’s hatred of the conservative, pro-family, pro-life, pro-religious liberty policies the 45th president represented.

For proof, check out the Washington Post’s review of the ad. They’re not mad because the New Jersey rocker is talking down to half of America. They’re mad that he’s suggesting unity without making conservatives pay for their sins first. “Despite the healing sound of his voice, Springsteen is ultimately preaching reconciliation without reckoning — which after January’s Capitol siege is no longer an acceptable path toward progress… Suggesting that we should all swiftly and metaphorically travel to the nucleus of White, rural America to make up and move along feels insulting and wrong.”

Bruce Springsteen is a hard-core liberal ideologue. “For a celebrity so identified with one party to go to the other side’s turf after his side has won the election and call for unity is not really an effective tactic,” NRO’s Dan McLaughlin agreed. “People see it for what it is: We won, now get together behind us.” That’s the kind of hard-line extremism that got America into this mess. It certainly won’t get us out.

Originally published here.

At Debt’s Door with Biden’s COVID Plan

Joe Biden learned a lot of things under Barack Obama — but reaching across the aisle wasn’t one of them. That’s become quite apparent in the last week, as the new president charges ahead with a controversial COVID relief package that almost no Republicans support. Aides say the new president is trying to “avoid the missteps of the Obama years” — but he’s already repeating one of the biggest: talking about bipartisanship, but refusing to practice it.

Inviting 10 Republicans to the White House to talk about alternatives to Biden’s $1.9 trillion plan was a good step — but, as everyone would learn later, it was hollow at best. Not only is President Biden unwilling to work with conservatives, he’s already hatching a scheme to “punish” the members who oppose his colossal waste of taxpayer dollars. In a not-so-veiled threat to the GOP, White House officials have warned that Republican members will suffer if they don’t bend a knee to the Left’s Big Government demands. How’s that for “getting people to work together?”

Even the Washington Post’s editorial board chided Biden for dismissing Republicans’ ideas out of hand. The president, they argued, should “exhaust the possibilities for compromise on COVID relief.” “Moderates in both parties have some good ideas,” the editors point out. “Limiting the direct payments was one; making future stimulus contingent on objective indicators, such as the unemployment rate, could be another. Giving them a genuine hearing — and exhausting the possibilities for compromise, even if it fails — would enhance the legitimacy of a party-line bill when and if that becomes unavoidable. This is the approach that got Mr. Biden elected, because voters, correctly, bet that it would be the healthiest one for the country.”

Bipartisanship is more than an Oval Office photo op, and voters know it. If Biden wants people to believe that unity isn’t “some pie-in-the-sky dream,” then he needs to prove it — hosting honest negotiations about a bill that currently costs more than the government’s annual operating budget. But, as we’ve learned from his flood of executive orders, this president isn’t interesting in finding common ground. For all the talk of unity Mr. Biden is on course to being a polarizing president.

Meanwhile, analysts warn, the plan itself is a disaster. As CNS News’s Terry Jeffrey pointed out on “Washington Watch,” Congress has already set aside a staggering $3.2 trillion dollars for COVID relief. And even that money hasn’t all been spent! Now, Terry shakes his head, Biden wants another $1.9 trillion dollars, which would bring the grand total to an astounding $5.1 trillion dollars. To put that money in perspective, he says, 158.7 million people in the U.S. had jobs in December 2019 just before the pandemic hit the US. If Democrats pass the package Biden wants, “the COVID relief spending alone in less than one year — that $5.1 trillion — will equal $32,129 per worker. And the money that’s already been spent — the $3.2 trillion dollars — is worth more than $20,000 per worker.” Americans have to ask themselves, he insisted, “Did they get $20,000 worth of benefits from the federal government last year from this bill? I don’t think so.”

Our government is already up to its eyeballs in debt — $27,800,000,000,000 and counting. The last thing Americans need is to pile on another $2 trillion dollars, especially when a good chunk of that money doesn’t have anything to do with the pandemic. Even the New York Times admitted that only about $400 billion of Biden’s plan would directly combat the virus. The rest will go to outrageous causes like bailing out liberal states who completely mishandled the virus and destroyed their economies. Now, Biden thinks those same heavy-handed leaders, who are responsible for the decline in their tax revenue, should be rewarded for their authoritarian behavior.

“Can the White House demonstrate a fact-based explanation for sending $350 billion in unneeded taxpayer money to the states?” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wanted to know. The numbers certainly don’t seem to support it. Some new research by JP Morgan found that states have only lost .12 percent in revenue collectively across 47 states in 2020. Governors like Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.), who — like a lot of state leaders — celebrated a surplus in tax revenue from 2019, don’t think the extra money is necessary. “I think this is where there needs to be some negotiation down from the $1.9 trillion,” he argued.

At the end of the day, Biden’s plan isn’t about COVID relief. It’s about making people dependent on Washington. “I think what we’ve seen happen over the last year is these people who love Big Government, who want government to control every aspect of our life have used the pandemic as an excuse to expand their power and expand spending,” Terry argued. And at this point, the direct payments to Americans could almost be described as hush money from Democrats, who are saying, “Look, we know we’re spending money recklessly, but we’re giving you some of it too — so don’t do anything rash at election time.”

“It’s a bribe,” Terry agreed. “They’re using the [money] of those who work and pay taxes to basically buy support from the American people with these [stimulus checks]… and that is an outrage. It’s a small form of socialism, which is the general direction that our country is heading.” And make no mistake: we’ll get there sooner rather than later if this current version of “relief” stands.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.