By Brad Greer
Guest columnist
I’m 55 years old and have followed and been involved in politics since I was 17. At the age of 25 I decided to read and study the platforms of the 2 main political parties. I was surprised to find that my beliefs lined up with the Republican Party. I had bought into the Democrat Party for a few years, and understandably so. West Tennessee Democrats were very different from coastal Democrats and certainly different from the Democrats of today. Even Joe Biden was a different Democrat then. At some point, the Democrat Party and Biden veered hard left, and the policies they embraced harmed our nation. They continue to do so, and appear ready to move further left.
Biden and Democrat elites are not leading, but rather being used to promote a dangerous alt-left agenda. This agenda includes open borders, transferring debt through student loan “forgiveness,” endorsing the idea of men competing against women in sports and using their locker rooms to disrobe, the brainwashing of children instead of actually educating them, encouraging children to “change” their gender while chastising parents and sane Americans who point out the insanity of this leftist push, promoting class warfare, embracing socialism and its ideals, chasing climate change sensationalism, and many more flawed policies that simply distract us from the actual important issues of our country: our national debt, inflation, national security, drug and human trafficking, energy independence, crime, and creating infrastructure and jobs for tax-paying U S citizens.
I’ve had private conversations with many friends who are Democrats over the last few years. Several have stated that they “don’t recognize the Democrat Party anymore,” and that their “party has left them.” This is one reason so many people in Tennessee have shifted their party affiliation, and begun to vote Republican. As Chairman of the Madison County Republican Party, I welcome them. As an American, I am saddened that we no longer have a grounded Democrat Party. Some would disagree with me, but I believe we are better as a nation when we have fruitful debate and create legislation that is developed from this debate of ideas. Typically any lasting legislation is born of compromise between the two parties, but how can we have honest debate when one side won’t even recognize the difference between a man and a woman? How can we find common ground when Democrats almost nominated Bernie Sanders who openly campaigned on a platform of our country becoming a socialist nation? How do we compromise when Democrat golden players, like “The Squad” – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ileana Omar, Ayanna Presley, and Rashida Tlaib, and others introduce bills to defund police? And, how can we possibly survive with a President who has gone from a strong belief in border security to promoting having an open border?
When I was 2 years old, a young Joe Biden entered politics as a County Council member. When I was 4 he was elected U.S. Senator, vowing to fix the problems that ailed America. I’m now 55, he’s 81, and he is still telling American’s he’s going to fix our problems, the very problems he has helped create for over half a century. (For perspective, Reagan was 77 when he left office after 2 terms, and was the oldest serving President up to that point.) If Biden hasn’t fixed our problems in 52 years of Washington DC “leadership,” is it likely he will do so if given another 4 years as a President with obvious cognitive decline in full view of the entire world? The average age for CEO’s across industries in America is 59. There is a reason that companies don’t hire 82 year olds, which would be the age of Biden if hired again for a second term.
Democrat Party elites are more interested in getting elected than governing. Point in case is shown when the curtain is pulled back on the actual reason behind Biden’s open border policies. Democrats need voters since they are steadily losing them. Instead of rethinking their policies, the answer that Democrats have found is to allow millions of people to cross the border illegally, use those people to build the population in democratic strongholds across the country, and then count them in the 2030 census. Congressional seats will be created to “serve” the increased population, and Democrats will be in the majority of both houses and hold the Presidency for decades. That is not a reflection of democracy, nor would it be good for our Republic.
Some would question the assertion I am making, so fact check it. In 2020, Biden jettisoned the existing border policies, and in 2021 signed an executive order to require illegals to be counted in our next census. You read that right, Biden signed an order that would force the Census Bureau to count non-Americans in our census. Republicans realized that a foul play was in process, so, in March of this year, U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee proposed an amendment which would have excluded non-Americans from being counted in the United States Census. Senate Democrats unanimously voted it down, Republicans voted for the amendment, and with Democrats holding a slim majority in the Senate, it failed. Those inside our borders illegally or on vacation, are NOT citizens of our country, therefore not taxed on income, but Democrat elites want to count non-citizens in the census to boost the number of Congressional districts in Democrat areas. Therefore, those here illegally would sway the balance of Senate and Congress for the Democrat Party, push our country to chaos in the process, and by default, create a new unwritten policy of taxation without equal representation. Historians will write books about this colonial failure of this President and the Democrats who supported him.
Meanwhile, the same people borrow money from our enemies to hand out around the world and spend on left wing, hairbrained projects, while our national debt grows like a cancerous tumor in our great nation. We are 20 years away from debt unsustainability if we do not change our spending/borrowing trajectory. Government has overspent, borrowed, taxed more, shifted funds, and in general not looked after the best interest of the country. Out of the 195 countries across the globe, no country on planet earth has more debt than ours. Let that sink in. In the last decade, our national debt has almost doubled from $17.8 Trillion to $34 Trillion. Viewed through the GDP lens, we are the 12th most debt-laden country in the world. But, we hear more from the news-less mainstream media and from social media about children’s right to change their gender and climate change, than about changing our spending habits. As a college student I thought credit cards were great. If I didn’t have the money, I could just charge it! Then I felt the sting and had to work on fixing that issue. I have not had credit card debt in 2 decades. I only charge what I can pay at the end of the month, and I don’t spend more than I make. I did, however, pay my student loans off within 2 years of graduating. There was never a question in my mind of who owed the money for what I chose to borrow in order to have a marketing and political science degree. Yet, elected officials continue to vote to “raise the debt ceiling” year after year to pay for everything from “stay at home and don’t work” programs, to paying student loans, to wars we didn’t start. This foolish, financial recklessness will have to be answered by the taxpayers now, or by our children and grandchildren.
It is my hope that our elected officials will return to the basic values that our country once proudly upheld. The ideals of the left are not working, and we must hold all politicians accountable to the standards that we, as a people, hold dear.
“To sin by silence, when we should protest, makes cowards out of men.”
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Brad Greer is a Jacksonian, father, husband, businessman, and political consultant. He serves as the Chairman of the Madison County Republican Party and can be reached at BradGreerREG@Gmail.com. The Jackson Post’s opinion/editorial page is meant to help launch public discussion of local issues or allow local people to discuss national or statewide issues. Publication of a column is not an endorsement of that column by The Post, its owners or any of its advertisers or employees. To join the discussion, send a guest column or letter to the editor to brandon@jacksonpost.news. Submissions for a specific week’s print edition need to be sent by Monday night. Sending does not guarantee publication that week as that is based on space availability.
