The campaign trail
You gotta love moms. They tell it like it is. And they fight like hell for their children. I saw that fighting spirit a few weeks ago in New Hampshire, where I joined a group of Moms for Liberty at a Manchester school. I heard from moms — and dads — about how fed up they are with education. Their daughters and sons were shut out of school during the pandemic, some for more than a year. Now they’re being indoctrinated with lies about America. Moms are furious. They should be. But you know what those moms are most upset about? That the leaders who are supposed to protect their children are actively attacking them — especially Joe Biden. He didn’t push to reopen schools. He wants boys to play girls’ sports, even sharing the same locker room. And he wants students to stay in failing schools. In fact, the last thing Joe Biden wants is to give parents the freedom to pick the schools that are best for their children.
No wonder those moms are furious. As a mom of two, I share their anger. We should trust parents to make the best decisions for their children. Joe Biden and the political class don’t trust them. Our leaders in Washington want to control parents and children alike. This is beyond insulting. And this lack of trust — this lack of freedom — is crippling the next generation. It’s fundamentally un-American. I encounter the same crisis every day on the campaign trail, and not just on education. On virtually every issue, Americans are being ignored and insulted by our politicians. Biden doesn’t believe in the American people. He doesn’t believe we can solve our problems or lead our own lives. He doesn’t even seem to think we’re smart enough to recognize that our country is crumbling around us. The way he tells it, you’d think the border crisis was non-existent. The families I’ve met — from Columbia, South Carolina, to Des Moines, Iowa, — know better. Biden’s failed policies have made every state a border state. Meanwhile, fentanyl is coming from China to Mexico, across the border and into the hands of our children. Washington is basically doing nothing. Do they think we don’t know that people are dying?
For that matter, does Biden think we don’t notice he’s picking our pockets? We’re being told Washington can spend our money better than we can. It can’t: look at Biden’s $6 trillion spending spree, which fueled inflation, broke family budgets and put us on track for massive tax hikes to pay for our staggering $33 trillion national debt. We’re told that Biden’s unelected bureaucrats know how to build the best economy. They don’t. They’re raising prices on everything, from the cars we drive to the groceries we buy, while sending billions of dollars to communist China for solar panels and wind turbines. As farmers in Grand Mound, Iowa, recently told me, China is buying up farmland near military bases and companies that control big parts of our food supply, yet our nation’s leaders don’t notice the danger. The supposedly “smart” experts who want to run our country are helping our enemies while hurting us.
For the record, Joe Biden isn’t the only one who doesn’t trust Americans with the truth. My fellow Republicans aren’t honest about their addiction to pork-barrel spending. They aren’t honest about the trillions of dollars they added to the debt, pushing our country toward bankruptcy. And Republicans aren’t honest about the crisis facing Social Security and Medicare — a crisis that threatens the seniors and vulnerable families who depend on the safety net. We need to trust people enough to talk about these challenges. It’s the only way to tackle them.
The single most important thing we need to do as a country is this: believe in the American people. We need to remember that our fellow citizens are fundamentally trustworthy — that free people can beat the odds and astound the world. We’ve given Washington too much control over us, giving politicians like Joe Biden a false sense of mental and moral superiority over everyday people. But the American people are always smarter, as we’ve proved throughout history. And we’re certainly smart enough to know when politicians are past their prime. It’s ironic that the same career politicians who don’t believe in Americans desperately oppose term limits and mandatory mental competency tests. We need both.
I’ve spoken with tens of thousands of Americans who want control of their country back. On my recent swing through New Hampshire, people from all walks of life told me they worry our best days are behind us. That’s only true if we continue to let Washington run our lives and ruin our future — if we continue to elect politicians who don’t believe in us. I do believe in the American people. They’re the only ones who can save our country. Especially those moms.
