The Democrats’ ’Kudzu Economy’

As many a Gen Xer will do these days, I dusted off an old compact disc: REM’s album Murmur, which was released in 1983. As I listened to the first track, “Radio Free Europe,” I looked at the CD’s cover. It was an eerie photo of thick vegetation.

As I later learned, when the REM album was released, this plant was well on its way to enveloping large swaths of the southeastern United States, including Georgia (which was REM’s original base). The name of the all-consuming plant? Kudzu (Pueraria montana).

Immediately, I thought of the left’s “Green Economy.” Bear with me.

Per a 2019 article in The Nature Conservancy entitled “Kudzu: The Invasive Vine that Ate the South”: “Kudzu looks innocent enough yet the invasive plant easily overtakes trees, abandoned homes and telephone poles.”

Kudzu is an invasive species. “Kudzu—or kuzu (クズ) – is native to Japan and southeast China. It was first introduced to the United States during the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 where it was touted as a great ornamental plant for its sweet-smelling blooms and sturdy vines.”

The invasive plant’s other ominous nickname is “mile-a-minute,” for its spread of up to “one foot per day.” This makes Kudzu’s spread as lightning quick as it is lethal to indigenous vegetation:

“[Kudzu] outcompetes everything from native grasses to fully mature trees… This loss of native plants harms other plants, insects and animals that adapted alongside them, leading to cascading effects throughout an ecosystem. Over time, these effects of habitat loss can lead to species extinctions and a loss of overall biodiversity.”

So, are we to blame posh 19th-century Americans’ vanity for the introduction of and devastation by Kudzu? The introduction, perhaps. But, like sundry other 21st-century problems, we can point to the 20^th Century’s titans of science and the federal government for the vast extent of the devastation. As the Nature Conservancy concedes:

“From the 1930s through the 1950s, the Soil Conservation Service promoted it as a great tool for soil erosion control and was planted in abundance throughout the south. Little did we know that kudzu is quite a killer, overtaking and growing over anything in its path.” [Italics mine.]

Note the article’s use of “we,” to mute the culpability of the government and scientific community at the time. Some things never change, right Dr. Fauci? Nor does the present scientific community’s effort to without the slightest trace of humility or irony push their remunerative climate change narrative—and the more apocalyptic the narrative the better:

“Kudzu thrives in areas with mild winters and hot summers. Climate change may be making it easier for creeping vine to spread, as winters in many areas of the U.S. become milder. Climate change also can lead to more regional drought, an opportunity for this versatile killer.” [Italics mine.]

The weasel words “may” and “can” have been italicized, rather than, say, the words “does” or “will.” Why? It is an attempt to insulate subsequent speculative statements from having to be demonstrably factual—you know, like real science expects (or used to, anyway). This is the tell in apocalyptic climate change rhetoric.

Here is an easy way to remember the climate change cult’s rhetorical conceit: “If I could be any plant in the forest, I would be Kudzu.” Yet, there are no “ifs,” “ands,” nor “buts” about it. You cannot be any plant in the forest; thus, you are not now and can never be a Kudzu. (Don’t shoot the messenger.) Still, such is advice for those who have not been indoctrinated to blindly “trust the science” and the expertise of the governing elite.

Is there any hope of eradicating Kudzu? It is possible, though the size of the “patch” is determinative of how best to do so. “Newer, smaller patches can be controlled with persistent weeding,” as well as through persistent mowing and grazing (by cattle and goats, not people)” will weaken and eventually control the plant.” Bigger patches require cutting the invasive vine and treating it with herbicides. Oh, and here is the most comprehensive remedy 21st-century science provides: “The best way to deal with kudzu or other invasive plants is to prevent them from spreading.”

You don’t say?

On the subject of things best not to spread, ponder the latest collusion between the environmental and political science communities: the Democrats’ Kudzu Economy (a.k.a., the “Green economy”).

Their Kudzu economy perversely denigrates increasing prosperity and promotes scarcity in the name of collective virtue. Reducing energy and product production, spurring inflation, and curtailing employment opportunities and the American Dream, itself, the Democrats’ Kudzu economy seeks to insulate its proven failures behind a veneer of collective “purpose.” Trillion-dollar spending bills combined with executive and administrative diktats are designed to curtail and, in many instances, eliminate consumer choices and smother the entrepreneurial spirit and productive capacity of the American people. Further, Democrats and their cohorts in radical climate change organizations seek to have an omnipotent federal government, as well as state and local governments, substitute their arbitrary and capricious decisions and preferences for those of the sovereign people it purports to—and is supposed to—serve.

Rarely right but never in doubt, this elitist gaggle of climate alarmists, leftist politicians, collusion media, anti-competitive corporatists, and sundry know-it-all billionaires bent upon introducing and spreading within the most prosperous economy in human history their own version of an invasive socialist ideology that will smother and destroy everything in its path.

Imbued with neo-pagan earth worship, including dire prophecies of an apocalypse if its dictates are not obeyed, at its invasive root the Democrats’ Kudzu economy is simply more hoary socialism in earth shoes: another duplicitous attempt to impose a demonstrably failed, inhumane ideology upon an unfortunate populace.

Unlike their 20^th-century predecessors in the Soil Conservation Service who acted and erred with inaccurate information but with the best of intentions to improve the lives of Americans, the proponents of the Democrats’ Kudzu economy should know better; however, they have allowed ideology and greed to desensitize them to the consequences of their actions upon their fellow citizens. For the rest of us, the Kudzu economy may be “The End of the World As We Know It,” but its elitist proponents feel fine.

Well, for now, anyway. Kudzu advance is not limited to the largely “red,” southeastern states. It has been increasingly found in “blue” northern climes, including the states of Michigan, New Jersey, Oregon, Illinois, and Delaware. Should a landscaping crew happen upon the invasive vine on a tony estate on Martha’s Vineyard or any of the other retreats of the insulated elites, perhaps the Democrats will learn a painful lesson that blind faith in fallible science has unforeseen and unfortunate consequences. Heck, maybe that could then spur a further self-examination of their radical ideology and, thus, a reconsideration of their zealous promotion of their Kudzu economy.

Is this too much to expect? Probably. But where there is life, there is hope; and, however deep the darkness enveloping it, a thin reed of truth will out to the light.

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An American Greatness contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) served Michigan’s 11th Congressional district from 2003-2012, and served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee. Not a lobbyist, he is a frequent public speaker and moderator for public policy seminars; and a Monday co-host of the “John Batchelor Radio Show,” among sundry media appearances.