Don’t Count America Out Just Yet

Written by Robert Knight

Just when you think it’s all over and that America has gone over the edge, some good things are happening.

Let’s start with the ascent of U.S. Representative Mike Johnson (R-LA) to Speaker of the U.S. House. This has stunned observers who thought that pro-life, pro-marriage, conservative Christians were forever barred from such offices thanks to the left’s takeover of virtually every major institution.

The Louisiana Republican is being assailed, of course. He is a “MAGA extremist,” according to the Biden White House and liberal-leaning media. But he’s used to this sort of thing, having been in the thick of the culture war, which is not for cowards.

As an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund — now the Alliance Defending Freedom — he filed an amicus brief in 2003 explaining why all Hades would break loose if the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas’ anti-sodomy law. Any reasonable person would conclude that it has. For details, see the latest transgender madness or the shocking health statistics about certain sexual behaviors.

Mr. Johnson also supported Louisiana’s constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of only a man and a woman. A congressman since 2017, he voted against the Democrats’ oxymoronically named Respect for Marriage Act, which attacks marriage as God created it.

He also voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to pass President Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. He and 147 other House Republicans voted against certifying the 2020 election, and he opposed the establishment of the Democrats’ Stalinist kangaroo court, better known as the Jan. 6 committee.

His pro-life record is well established, as is his support for Israel.

Can he survive the onslaught of toxic media and Democrats’ hardball? Time will tell.

Americans seem to be warming to the idea that we might not have to live with destructive policies like “woke” indoctrination of children and an open southern border. There’s pushback even in some Democratic-run cities like San Francisco and New York.

“Sound of Freedom” and other positive films are showing serious box-office muscle. More are in the pipeline at Angel Studios and Kevin and Sam Sorbo’s Sorbostudios.com.

Another plus is that many American and European firms are leaving China for friendlier places like India. Some, including General Motors, Intel and Generac Power Systems, are bringing jobs back to the United States.

A lot of this began in 2018, after Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on China and urged U.S. companies to “reshore” manufacturing.

China itself has a dangerous housing bubble and other economic woes. Consumer spending in the Middle Kingdom is falling, and youth unemployment is reportedly somewhere between 20 percent and 50 percent.

The Chinese got richer on the COVID pandemic that they perpetrated on the world, and they cornered the market on minerals for batteries. They are counting on America’s green elites to keep strangling the U.S. fossil fuel industry.

But a funny thing happened on the way to an all-electric future. Americans are not so eager to buy electric cars, even with $7,000 federal subsidies. Unwanted electric cars are sitting on dealers’ lots.

Millions of Americans still prefer gasoline-powered cars and trucks. Electric vehicles accounted for only 7.2 percent of sales in the second quarter of 2023. Hybrids fared better, at 16 percent.

Through the first three quarters of 2023, Ford lost $3.1 billion on its electric and software division. The company managed to make a profit because of strong sales of gasoline-powered trucks and hybrids.

People still seem more inclined to own a vehicle whose tank they can fill in a few minutes than one needing an hour or more of charging every couple of hundred miles.

General Motors has scaled back its target of 400,000 electric vehicles by mid-2024 and delayed an electric truck factory. The United Auto Workers strike has been a wild card in this deck. But the shine is off electric vehicles for now.

Another indicator that America may not be so quick to abandon its incredible fossil fuel advantage is Chevron’s purchase of Hess Corp. for $53 billion. This will “further strengthen domestic energy security,” a Chevron news release said on Oct. 23.

They must think that gasoline-powered vehicles are going to be with us far longer than do the Obama-Biden environmental extremists who insist that wind and solar energy are our only options.

But wait. The world’s largest offshore wind power company, Denmark’s Orsted, just canceled two major windmill projects off New Jersey. Even liberal media acknowledge that this is a blow to the Biden administration’s green agenda.

As for foreign policy: The Afghanistan debacle, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’ attack on Israel have exposed how weakness tempts evil to overstep. Israel’s invasion of Gaza has divided the Democrats and exposed radical leftists on campuses and Capitol Hill.

Finally, the Texas Rangers won the World Series on Wednesday night.

No offense to the scrappy Arizona Diamondbacks, but the Rangers were the only major sports franchise to buck the pressure to hold June pride events, such as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ honoring perverse men dressed as nuns.

None of this is to say we don’t have problems.

But don’t count America out just yet.

Robert Knight is a former Los Angeles Times news editor and writer and was a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. This column was originally published by The Washington Times.

He has been published by the Wall Street Journal, National Review, the Christian Post, AmericanThinker.com, DailyCaller.com, Townhall.com, OneNewsNow.com and many others.  He has co-authored three books and written 10, including “Liberty on the Brink: How the Left Plans to Steal Your Vote” (D. James Kennedy Ministries, 2020) and “The Coming Communist Wave: What Happens If the Left Captures All Three Branches of Government” (D. James Kennedy Ministries, 2020) . 

You can follow him on Twitter at @RobertKnight17, and his website is roberthknight.com.