Year of the Slack

2022 in review

This year ought to be remembered as the year in which the West slackened. Not just because inflation spiked or the danger of total American statism worsened. Not merely because multi-trillion dollar debt rose and economic, fiscal and monetary policy also worsened amid bad laws and practices and looming collapse and disorder. The impending, unfolding debacle of Joe Biden’s presidency, which seeds irrationalism in foreign, domestic, and, imminently, energy policy, is also not the most essential reason the West went limp. However, each of these are leading indicators.

Three main events caused by the refusal to think prove the West went soft in 2022. The first is a breakdown in civil discourse and accelerating disunity. As the midterm elections demonstrate, the nation’s never been more philosophically bankrupt or politically and socially divided, on issues ranging from the right to abortion to the right to free speech. The Democrats want abortion to be sponsored, promoted and subsidized by…