It has been a momentous week with three nearly simultaneous developments: 1) the exposure of the senile Joe Biden to the public in the presidential debate; 2) the SCOTUS body blow to lawfare in the form of a 6-3 decision holding that "the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority" and 3) the political collapse of the center-left in Europe fueled by a grassroots rejection of unlimited migration are challenging the status quo as never before.
At a family gathering at Camp David, the Bidens urged Joe to hang on and blamed staff for the disaster. "President Biden’s family is urging him to stay in the race and keep fighting despite last week’s disastrous debate performance, even as some members of his clan privately expressed exasperation at how he was prepared for the event by his staff," reported the NYT. "One of the strongest voices imploring Mr. Biden to resist pressure to drop out was his son Hunter Biden, whom the president has long leaned on for advice, said one of the people informed about the discussions, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations. Hunter Biden wants Americans to see the version of his father that he knows — scrappy and in command of the facts — rather than the stumbling, aging president Americans saw on Thursday night."
The truth burned through, but no one was ready for it. No Plan B. “It would be a Category 5 hurricane,” said one top Democratic official nervous about Biden considering what would happen if the president stepped aside according to CNN. “People don’t understand the sheer destruction that would be unleashed.” The quid pro quos of the Biden candidacy have all been transacted. A new candidate would mean a do-over, like a drug deal gone wrong.
A similar situation exists in Europe. Emmanuel Macron called a snap parliamentary election after his party suffered a heavy defeat in the June EU Assembly elections gambling that France would never elect the Right. So certain was the center-left of its anointment by history that it forbade anyone to fraternize or even speak to the right on penalty of political excommunication, a policy called the cordon sanitaire. It didn't work. Macron’s election gamble failed. With Marine Le Pen on the verge of victory, he’s nowhere to be seen. "For the first time since modern European states were defined by the Treaty of Westphalia, every government of every major Western country is falling or would fall if it had to hold elections," writes David Goldman.
The powers that used to be are milling around because they've never been here before. Has the public, through some enchantment, become charmed by Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen? Or is it rather simpler: has the ordinary man concluded that the enemy of my enemy is my friend? Perhaps the public hates the Macrons, Trudeaus, and Bidens, and the only way to oust them is to vote for the untouchables.
From its responses, the left, who in its own estimation can do no wrong. believe its current setbacks have been due to a failure of nerve. It hasn't gone far enough left to excite the imagination of the masses. So the order of the day is to double down on 'good man' Biden, vilify SCOTUS, and burn Paris in rage. But it may not work like before; the global upheaval goes beyond the Narrative; it is rooted directly in the failures of the leftist status quo.
Rarely is the Left ever beaten by the Right, who is often inept. Mostly the Left is defeated by God, or Reality if you prefer, as its fantasy policies founder against nature. It's just that the Right is the usual beneficiary of Left-wing stupidity, after people who have had enough resist. Joe Biden is a perfect example. Donald Trump didn't make Joe look senile. He IS senile, and nature showed through despite the best efforts of the narrative. What beat Joe was Father Time. What is grinding down the status quo is failure.
Whether or not the Biden family acknowledges it, a timer started the instant Joe was exposed. The probability that the U.S. will face a serious security, economic, or health crisis will approach 1 with passing time. Reality is getting ready to administer another test, one which Joe cannot pass. An existential choice between hanging on to a fiction and facing the truth cannot then be avoided.
American political senescence, like senescence in general, is about information corruption. It involves transcription errors, intentional mutation, and cultural genetic engineering. It's deep-rooted. After decades of feeding the public lies the reckoning is coming due. We are a wreck of our former selves.
Joe Biden is not only a metaphor for the system; he is its reflection of the uniparty. And blob without distinction is a miniature of the world as a whole. Europe, Russia, China, MENA, and Africa are in no better case. A world is dying. But in this ugly mess is something inchoate waiting to emerge. Unlike the Marxists who believed that they had the roadmap to the coming future, we should accept that for us as for everyone, tomorrow will be a surprise. We have to make it up as we go along, just like we always did, from the moment we came down from the trees.
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