MAYBE HE DIDN’T ACTUALLY WANT TO LOWER THE TEMPERATURE: Andrew Sullivan: Biden’s Culture War Aggression: He may have needlessly crippled his chances for lowering the temperature already. Excerpt:

Biden has also signaled (and by executive order, has already launched) a very sharp departure from liberalism in his approach to civil rights. The vast majority of Americans support laws that protect minorities from discrimination, so that every American can have equality of opportunity, without their own talents being held back by prejudice. But Biden’s speech and executive orders come from a very different place. They explicitly replace the idea of equality in favor of what anti-liberal critical theorists call “equity.” They junk equality of opportunity in favor of equality of outcomes. Most people won’t notice that this new concept has been introduced — equity, equality, it all sounds the same — but they’ll soon find out the difference. . . .

In less tortured English, equity means giving the the named identity groups a specific advantage in treatment by the federal government over other groups — in order to make up for historic injustice and “systemic” oppression. Without “equity”, the argument runs, there can be no real “equality of opportunity.” Equity therefore comes first. Until equity is reached, equality is postponed — perhaps for ever.

It means a government empowered to reward its supporters and punish its enemies, along race/ethnic/sex lines. That certainly won’t lower any temperatures anywhere.

Related: Biden brings back Critical Race Theory, which Trump called ‘divisive, anti-American propaganda.’