As many have pointed out, it's apparent that the incoming Republican Congress has no platform or planned agenda to improve the inflation, crime, and illegal immigration they've been complaining about all year, but are instead planning to distract the public with so-called "culture war" issues like drag-queen story hours, trans athletes, "wokeness" (whatever that is), and covid response (even though the pandemic now seems to be blessedly over).

They're particularly focused on investigations into Hunter Biden's laptop. We can expect a lot of congressional inquiries, hearings, headlines, and airtime related to Hunter Biden's laptop.

The sorry news is that the left doesn't care about Hunter Biden's laptop, nor do we feel particularly compelled to defend Hunter Biden.  Republicans mistake the "both parties are alike" philosophy to mean that Democrats have the same cultlike devotion and fealty to our titular leader, Joe Biden, that they do to Donald Trump and his family.  

Look, as I've said before, Biden wasn't my first choice for the party's nomination, and he wasn't my second, third, or fourth choice, either.  But he's the president now and I have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised that he's doing not nearly as terrible a job as I had thought.  In fact, I think he's doing about the best he can given all of the circumstances. But I don't think he was sent here to Earth by our savior Jesus Christ or that he's above criticism, reproachment, and, if he broke the law, justice.

Here's what does bother me, and I'm surprised it doesn't bother more people.  I'm surprised it doesn't bother you.  The last time I checked, Hunter Biden is not a government employee, holds no elected position, and deserves the same rights of due process and presumption of innocence as any American citizen.  Isn't it a little unseemly that the U.S. House of Representatives is announcing its intention of bearing all of its investigative powers and awesome authorities on a private, non-elected American citizen? That if they really thought that there's something there, they aren't referring the case over to the Justice Department, like Biden did with the potential case against Donald J. Trump?

Republicans will retort that's not the way Clarence Thomas and Brent Cavanaugh were treated, and I'll remind them that Thomas and Cavanaugh were being considered for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the United States. Hunter Biden isn't. Republicans will say that the theoretical case against Hunter Biden might extend all the way to his father, the President, and should therefore be investigated and I'd say fine, tell that to the Justice Department or investigate Joe Biden himself, who's very much a member of government and an elected official.

If Congress spends the better part of the next two years persecuting a private citizen as political theater or a distraction from their lack of a legislative agenda, that opens the door to them persecuting any "political enemy" they see fit, elected or not.  Look out, Stacy Abrams.  Be careful, Michael Moore.  Watch your back, Rachel Maddow.

It opens the door to a scary form of totalitarianism I'd really rather not see.