This afternoon, President Joe Biden set out to make my job difficult.
I’m fairly certain he doesn’t know I exist (we’ll keep it that way), and even if he did, he likely wouldn’t care. Nonetheless, as he affixed his signature to the massive omnibus spending bill that finally made its way to his desk, headlines proliferated.
“US bans TikTok unless it is sold,” NPR reports. “Biden Signs a $95.3 Billion Aid Package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan,” the New York Times said. Financial Times wrote, “Pentagon rushes $1bn in weapons to Kyiv after Biden signs aid bill.” (READ MORE by Aubrey Gulick: Biden’s Title IX Revisions Aren’t Good News for Women)
Where to even start?
Perhaps the only surprising element of the bill is that the Biden reelection campaign didn’t step in and surgically remove or delay the government’s restriction on TikTok given that so many of the president’s supporters spend hours on that social media platform (a topic Ellie Gardey and I have discussed on The Spectator P.M. Podcast).
The rest — the fact that Ukraine received $60.8 billion in funding, that America is still funding both Israel and Hamas, that we’re continuing to send billions of dollars to Taiwan, and that the government has no intention of protecting our southern border — wasn’t surprising in the slightest.
“It’s a good day for America, it’s a good day for Europe, and it’s a good day for world peace,” Biden assured Americans. It’s also a good day for Democrats, who got almost everything they wanted and nothing they didn’t out of the legislation — even as Americans become increasingly skeptical of sending billions of dollars to Ukraine. (WATCH MORE: The Spectator P.M. Podcast Ep. 42: Biden’s Claim That Uncle Suffered Cannibalistic Fate Is No Surprise)
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that few Americans care. There’s a massive disconnect in Americans’ minds between the checks they sent the government less than 10 days ago and the billions of dollars going to foreign countries while illegal immigrants flood the across border barely impeded by an underfunded ICE — just as there’s a massive disconnect between those same billions and the rapidly ballooning federal debt that nobody cares about.
There are several reasons for that disconnect. First, most people don’t think of the world in grand terms. Americans have no way of conceptualizing $95.8 billion, and most don’t sit down to research and think critically about the issues in each of the conflicts we’re funding. They either don’t care, are conservative, or are encamped on Columbia University’s quad. (READ MORE: I’ll See Your Charlottesville and Raise You Columbia)
Second, the government has discovered that by bundling these kinds of massive issues all together, it receives less pushback than it would if it passed each issue individually. When inundated with a month’s worth of headlines, the average Joe puts down his phone, listens to his wife, and does some yard work.
The result is decently groomed yards in suburban America and more missiles in Ukraine.
This article is an excerpt from The American Spectator’s Spectator P.M. newsletter. Subscribe today to read future letters from our staff!
