Joe Biden: Unifier or Divider?

Joe Biden’s inaugural address was dominated by calls for unity.  But this seems naïve or even disingenuous to me, as the divide between Americans seems impossible to bridge.  Our division now goes beyond the traditional stuff of politics—e.g., the tax code, how to reduce the national debt, the foreign policy best for America, etc.—to include things like abolishing the police, allocating voting rights based on race, and even attacking the nuclear family.

Given this state of affairs, on what could Americans possibly unite?  We can’t even agree on who is to blame for the Wuhan Virus (or what it should be called), and the Left even wants to strangle the most American of our fundamental values: free speech.  In today’s environment, I find the once insightful words of the late Christopher Hitches to be less insightful than they are obvious:

If you say you're a unifier, you expect and usually get applause. I'm a divider. Politics is division by definition, if there was no disagreement there would be no politics. The illusion of unity isn't worth having, and is anyways unattainable.

But to make matters even worse, Joe Biden might actually be dividing the nation even further while disingenuously acting under the banner of unification.  How?  Paradoxically, he could be doing it by waging a new, seemingly unobjectionable war.

Political correctness, virtue signaling, and masks

I really hate political correctness and virtue signaling.  And in 2020, there was no bigger symbol of either of those things than the mask.  Now, because I am concerned with health, I wear a mask religiously and properly.  (I never believed Saint Fauci when he said in early 2020 that we don't need to wear masks.  By insisting on empirical data before recommending masks, he dangerously ignored logic, reason, and common sense to worship at the alter of science.)  However, I’ve accepted that I will get the Wuhan Virus, but I’m doing everything in my power not to get it, including living like a hermit.  I pessimistically predict I will get it right before the vaccine becomes available to me. 

But at first, I hated wearing a mask, and was even embarrassed to do so, as Democrats had turned the mask into a political weapon.  And today, many people wear them only for political, virtue signaling purposes.  You know what I mean: the woman with the mask under her nose, or the guy wearing the mask as a “chin bib,” i.e., under both the nose and mouth.  (I love that one; see photo above.)  They may as well not wear them at all.  But they do, because just having that piece of cloth draped under the nose or chin makes a political statement.  It’s as bad as the Democrat politician who demands that you wear a mask or even quarantine, but is then caught at the beauty salon or the French Laundry restaurant, without a mask, no less.  Then, to top it all off, these half-assed mask wearers preach about “following the science.”  (This gibberish reminds me of when the Left divides the country and then calls for unity or, worse yet, accuses the Right of being divisive.)  

Unfortunately, this virtue signaling exercise of half-assed mask wearing has infected one of my favorite things: college football.  I just shake my head as I sit alone in my condo, as the politicians demand, watching game after game after game.  Don't misunderstand; I’m very grateful to have college football.  But I could do without the virtue signaling.  Please share my pain by viewing some college football photographs and commentary, after the jump.