It’s that time of the year, so I’ll jump on the bandwagon for end-of-year-lists.
Person of the year? Donald Trump. Surprise of the year? The presidential election. Idea of the year? Conservatism.
Worst party of the year? The Democratic Party.
And it’s not particularly close.
I can’t welcome 2025 without remembering just how much Democratic leaders repeatedly lied, without remorse, to the American people in 2024.
Democrats chose to manipulate Americans with a specific type of deceit: Make voters doubt reality. From inflation to President Joe Biden’s health and Vice President Kamala Harris’ competence as a presidential candidate, Democrats tried to lie their way to the White House.
They failed, but that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten.
Democrats’ view of the economy was a lie
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 10, 2024.
The economy tanked for tens of millions of working-class Americans under Biden as inflation ate away at their ability to buy groceries, pay rent and afford even a used car. Can we say that now?
It wasn’t entirely Biden’s fault. Trump in his first term as president gave out stimulus checks during the COVID-19 pandemic that pumped money into the economy as businesses shutdown, unemployment spiked and the stock markets tanked. But there was a severe unintended consequence: The rate of inflation started to rise.
Biden, early in his term, poured jet fuel on the fire by pushing massive spending bills through Congress
By June 2022, the rate of inflation reached a 40-year high of 9.1%.
Although the pace of price increases has slowed, the inflation rate was 2.7% in November, the cost of essentials such as food and rent is substantially higher than four years ago.
Opinion: Biden’s sad, failed presidency is even worse than Trump’s first term
The thing about inflation that’s particularly brutal is that it compounds. That means this year’s price increases are piled on top of last year’s and the year before and the year before that, stretching beyond the era when gasoline cost less than 40 cents a gallon.
Since 2021, the combined inflation rate is 19.6%. If your income hasn’t increased by an average of 4.9% a year since Biden entered the White House, then you − like tens of millions of other Americans − have lost financial ground.
A customer shops in the ready to eat meals aisle of a grocery store on October 17, 2024 in Miami, Florida.
That may seem obvious, but Democrats refused to admit this reality, let alone take any responsibility for it.
Harris, during her presidential campaign, insinuated that price gouging was the primary driver of the rising cost of food. And her “solution” was even worse: the Democratic nominee proposed mandating federal prices controls.
But what she and other Democrats refused to admit was that the high rate of inflation during Biden’s presidency had wreaked havoc on Americans’ finances − and Harris’ economic proposals would have done nothing to help.
If you’re against DEI programs, progressives say you’re a bigot
Progressives’ gaslighting didn’t stop with the economy. For years, leftists in academic, business and even in government agencies ordered Americans to embrace DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives. Those who raised questions about the fairness and effectiveness of DEI programs were shunned as bigots.
In 2024, the DEI scam was finally exposed, and major employers like Ford and Walmart stepped back from programs that promoted one set of beliefs over others.
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Even university leaders began to question the fairness and effectiveness of DEI mandates on campus. Schools in Florida, Michigan, North Carolina and Texas were among the universities that have cut, sometimes drastically, DEI initiatives.
DEI policies often appear to be more about public relations than driving changes that truly deliver equity. And those policies often hurt employees who don’t conform to the mold imposed on them from above.
Democrats claim puberty blockers are good for minors
Dawn Land, an anti-transgender activist, holds a sign outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. Justices on Wednesday will consider states’ ability to prevent transgender adolescents from using puberty blockers and hormone therapy. How the conservative court decides the transgender rights case out of Tennessee could affect not just access to specific medical treatments across much of the country, but could also impact ongoing legal challenges to other rules targeting transgender people, such as those restricting bathroom use and sports competition.
Progressives’ efforts to push gender reassignment surgery and hormone treatments for children also were exposed as dangerously unscientific this year. Yet, the Biden administration was at the same time pushing to remove age limits for transgender surgeries.
It’s clear that some children struggle with gender dysphoria. But the controversy is over how to help these kids.
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While Democrats and their progressive allies in the U.S. champion puberty blockers and surgeries for children, experts in other countries increasingly have raised concerns about such treatments, and Denmark, France, the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe have banned the use of puberty blockers for transgender care.
We may well look back in 20 years and understand that it was asinine for a major political party in the U.S. to promote the routine use of powerful medications to stop children’s natural development.
Yet, leftists smear conservatives and others like author J.K. Rowling as bigots and transphobic for encouraging caution.
Democrats claimed Biden was healthy and strong
The biggest lie that Democratic leaders told America this year wasn’t about an issue − it was about themselves. They offered two presidential candidates who they claimed were fantastic until the truth became obvious.
For years, Democrats insisted that Biden was healthy and strong. When the truth about Biden’s decline became undeniable, they then pushed Harris on voters at the last minute.
U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris waves at supporters at the end of her concession speech at Howard University in Washington, D.C., on November 6, 2024. Donald Trump won a sweeping victory on November 6, 2024, in the U.S. presidential election, defeating Harris to complete an astonishing political comeback that sent shock waves around the world.
Americans repeatedly told pollsters that they were concerned about Biden’s mental and physical health. But it wasn’t until roughly four months before Election Day that some Democratic leaders began to admit the truth, eventually forcing Biden to step aside.
His replacement wasn’t any better. Harris was such a bad candidate that she burned through $1.5 billion in campaign contributions in less than four months and still lost 31 states and the popular vote to a convicted felon.
I’m a bit sad to see 2024 go. I loved watching more voters across America support conservative candidates this year. If current trends continue, our nation’s future will look a lot like Texas, and as a Texan, I love to see it.
We also saw the Democratic Party lose badly after trying to deceive Americans on a variety of issues and even on the strength of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris themselves.
I won’t let Democrats forget how they tried to gaslight us, and neither should you.
Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and get it delivered to your inbox.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What’s my New Year’s resolution? Not to buy Democrats’ lies | Opinion
