The latest voter opinion polls vary considerably about which issues American voters find to be most important. The most recent poll I read was a Fox News poll of registered voters taken October 9-12, 2022. It showed (in order of importance) that voters found:
- Inflation/Higher Prices,
- Higher Crime Rates,
- the Russia/Ukraine Situation,
- What’s Taught in Schools,
- and Abortion[1]
to be most important to them.
Other polls listed the Economy, Immigration, Climate Change, Guns, Voting Policies, Energy, Race Relations, and Foreign Policy (among others) as their most important issues for 2022.[2]
National Defense was notably absent from any of the lists I found. It would be interesting to know why? Were respondents offered the opportunity choose National Defense as an issue of importance to them? If not, then why not? Was it an error of omission by the pollsters, or did they exclude National Defense on purpose? If it was excluded on purpose, then why?
I believe that National Defense is an issue that is vital to the continued existence of the United States of America as we know it. Let me explain why I think voters must vote for candidates who favor a strong National Defense. Hopefully, I can raise the consciousness of a few of my fellow citizens on this issue before November 8th.
At times, an issue may be understood when studied by itself, or by considering it and two or three variables that influence outcomes. Often, issues are part of a dynamic in which many things are interrelated. Our ability to defend our country is impacted by many of the other issues voters say they are concerned with in the upcoming elections in 2022 and (hopefully) in 2024.
Voters are concerned about the Economy. Our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has posted negative growth for the previous two quarters of 2022. Traditionally, a recession is defined by two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. There is some disagreement among the experts about whether we are in a recession, but it is clear that the U.S. economy is not performing well. Our government’s primary source of revenue comes from taxing economic activity. When the government spends more money than it takes in, the result is called deficit spending. Accumulated deficits become the national debt. Our current national debt is $31,148,224,201,748. (31 trillion dollars) Opinion varies as to how much debt we can accumulate before we are forced to default. It seems clear to me that, without large annual revenue surpluses, we will not be able to reduce the national debt significantly, let alone pay it off. To compound the severity of the problem, the government has embarked on programs that will increase federal spending by trillions of dollars. The result has been another issue of concern to voters in 2022 – Runaway Inflation.
The Biden Administration has shut down American energy production. The result has been higher fuel and utility prices, which are contributing to inflation. President Biden has attempted to lower fuel prices by increasing the supply of oil. He has asked oil producing countries to increase their oil production, and he has released oil from our strategic reserves. The result has been a small, temporary reduction of the price of refined petroleum products. However, these actions have damaged our ability to defend ourselves. Other nations have lost confidence in our competence to govern ourselves and to lead the free world. Further, if we have to go to war without strategic oil reserves, what will we use to fuel our ships, airplanes, and tanks – fumes?
Despite some improvement during the Trump Administration, too much of our productive capacity remains overseas. Many things like computers, shoes, batteries for our electronic vehicles, and pharmaceuticals are made in China. In an ill-considered statement during an interview recently, President Biden said that he would use American military personnel to defend Taiwan if the Chinese invaded. Now, help me understand because I’m getting a little older myself. How, pray tell, are we going to fight China if we are getting the things we need to support our troops and our home front from them?
The history of modern warfare shows us that, in most cases, the nation with the most resources, money, and productive capacity is the nation that will prevail in a shooting war. See how it all works together to make us or break us? Our present government is flushing our economic power and the value of our money down the toilet. In short, the United States cannot afford to fight a big war for any length of time, and our adversaries know it.
It has been obvious for a long time that the Democrats want to keep themselves in power by providing social programs that will make large groups of Americans dependent on the government for one or more of them. Military spending takes away from the government’s ability to fund more and bigger social programs. Consequently, whenever they are in control in Washington, D.C. the Democrats limit military spending. In the Clinton and Obama Administrations, the cuts were drastic. Acting on ideology, rather than on pragmatism, President Obama also unilaterally reduced our nuclear capabilities in the futile hope our adversaries would follow suit. It didn’t happen. They know that in international relations it is important to deal with other nations from a position of strength. So, if International Relations is an important issue to voters in 2022, we must understand that International Relations do not exist in a vacuum.
When military appropriations remain static, or are reduced, one of the areas that is affected is weapons development, production, and distribution. Since World War II, the United States has faced adversaries with numerically superior forces. The only way that we have been able to hold the strategic advantage is through superior weaponry and the nuclear deterrent. Presently, we can see how the effectiveness of American and NATO weapons has helped the Ukrainians in their struggle with Russia. We have, however, lost much of the lead we had in weapons development, and we must elect leaders who understand the importance of getting it back.
The issue of Education is related to the National Defense. As weapons systems become more sophisticated, our war fighters need to have strong educational backgrounds in Science, Mathematics, Geography, Engineering, and Computer Science to operate them and assist in their development and improvement.
Much as I hate to advocate for increased spending, I believe it is imperative for the United States to have enough military power to simultaneously defend our interests and our allies on three fronts … Europe, the Middle East and East Asia. To help offset increased military spending, it is important to cut spending on social programs and remove the need for them by bringing our industrial production back home. People with high paying jobs do not need social programs.
China has built a powerful navy, tested weapons in outer space, has a first-rate air force, and has nearly achieved parity with the United States in military strength. Despite their poor showing in Ukraine, Russia remains a formidable military power, with land based hypersonic missile systems that can evade anti-missile defenses and are capable of delivering nuclear warheads. There are reports that the Russians will soon deploy hypersonic missiles on some of their surface vessels and on submarines. North Korea has nuclear weapons and large conventional forces. They continue to develop more sophisticated delivery systems for their nuclear weapons. Iran will become a nuclear power in the foreseeable future. They have missiles capable of striking targets in the Middle East and Europe.
The Chinese, Russians, Iranians, and North Koreans are forming mutually supporting diplomatic and economic relationships. They are not blind. They know that the United States cannot fight all of them at once. It is entirely possible that they might agree to act simultaneously to achieve their various ambitions by using military force. What would happen if China invaded Taiwan, North Korea invaded South Korea, Russia attacked Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, and Poland, and Iran and other Middle Eastern countries attacked Israel – all at the same time?
Americans,
we do not need to panic or start digging holes in our backyards. We do need to elect leaders in 2022 and 2024 who
have some sense of the real problems we face that may mean the difference
between the survival of our society as we know it, or living with an oppressor’s
boot on our necks. No joke. Vote the Democrats and RINO Republicans out
of office – now.
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