Welcome back to the theater of the absurd, where the facts are flexible and the timelines are whatever we need them to be to secure a 30-second spot on the evening news. Today’s performance features the latest attempt to bend the space-time continuum: the claim that overdose deaths dropping in 2023 and 2024 is somehow a parting gift from an administration that packed its bags in January 2021.

It’s a classic move in the Washington playbook. When the numbers look like a crime scene, blame the other guy’s 'failed radical agenda.' When the numbers finally start to dip—even slightly—you start digging through the archives to find a memo you signed six years ago so you can take a victory lap. It’s like a former chef claiming credit for a soufflé rising three years after he was fired, simply because he once bought a sturdy whisk.

The narrative here is as predictable as a mid-season sitcom. We’re told that 'border security'—that evergreen, one-size-fits-all solution for everything from fentanyl to the price of eggs—is the secret sauce. Never mind that the 2022 peak occurred well into the subsequent administration, or that addiction is a complex, grinding monster fed by healthcare failures and economic despair. No, that’s too hard to put on a bumper sticker. It’s much easier to say, 'We built a fence, and then three years later, the spreadsheet looked better. You’re welcome.'

Let’s be real: politicians treat overdose statistics like a scoreboard, conveniently forgetting that every 'unit' in that 37,000-person drop is a human being who didn't end up in a morgue. But in the world of professional spin-doctoring, they aren’t people; they’re data points to be weaponized. If deaths go up, it’s a moral failing of the incumbent. If they go down, it’s the ghost of policies past reaching out from the grave to save the day. It’s a cynical game of retroactive competence played by people who couldn't tell you the difference between carfentanil and a Cabernet, but sure know how to read a polling chart. Stay cynical, folks. It’s the only way to stay sane.