As New Year’s festivities are now firmly in the rearview mirror, the 2024 calendar year has entered its first month. While January and the new year are often annual periods of “new resolutions” in which most people temporarily attempt to make changes, the unfortunate reality is that the state of international and domestic American politics remains poor. The calendar year may have changed, but the state of affairs remains troubling. Over the last three years since the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the international economic situation has deteriorated. Joe Biden the 46th president of the United States promoted massive spending bills early in his presidency which were also championed by Democratic and Republican congressional representatives. Trillions of dollars in new federal spending at minimum partially resulted in contributing to massive levels of inflation that reached heights not witnessed in many decades. The cost of living has skyrocketed, with items like groceries and basic necessities increasing in price astronomically. Currently, 6 out of every 10 Americans are estimated to be living paycheck to paycheck.
The working class continues to struggle in the United States and wages remain stagnant. The gap between the wealthy and the poor continues to widen in a phenomenon known as the “hourglass effect”. Compounding the problem of stagnant wages are the millions of illegal migrants that have entered the United States through the southern border in just a three year period. President Biden and the federal government appear powerless to stop the flow of migrants into the nation, and tens of thousands continue to arrive daily, providing a reliable supply of unskilled and cheap labor, hurting citizens.
Internationally, two foreign conflicts have escalated under Biden’s watch. In October 2023, the Muslim terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel and murdered over 1,000 citizens. In early 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, bringing armed conflict back to Europe for the first time since 1945. Putin recently announced the Kremlin will “intensify” its attacks.
