Current Thing: The Biden Entourage
The country's predicament is their gain
Note: when I put “current thing” in the title of a post, I am signaling that I may be reacting too quickly and too emotionally to an event that is receiving excessive attention relative to its long-term significance.
For some people staying in power is worth anything, any price. And the destruction of their country is a price they're also willing to pay.
At the moment, the left-of-center media is filled with stories about a Kamala Harris honeymoon. There is also a lot of praise for President Biden’s supposed selflessness.
I am, on the contrary, very angry about how we got here. As I see it, Mr. Biden remained in office for too long. And the timing and manner of his withdrawal from the Presidential race made it too awkward for anyone to contest Ms. Harris for the nomination.
Arnold Kling, hypothetical high official
Suppose that, contra reality, I were a high-level official in the Biden Administration. Or suppose that I were a member of the inner circle within Mr. Biden’s entourage.
Also suppose that, contra reality, I cared very little for the well-being of my fellow Americans. But I was intoxicated with the status that being close to power provides: riding in chauffer-driven limousines, attending receptions with celebrities and dignitaries, having my appointment calendar filled with important people seeking favors, seeing myself the subject of flattering stories in friendly newspapers and magazines.
Ask yourself: How would this hypothetical Arnold Kling, the power-intoxicated high official, have handled Mr. Biden’s feeble condition? What would I have done differently?
Nothing.
I would have done exactly what Mr. Biden’s entourage did. I would have propped him up for as long as possible. When this finally became untenable, I would have set up Ms. Harris to gain the nomination without a contest.
On the other hand, suppose that as a high-level official my dominant concern was with the welfare of my country. In that case I would have determined a year ago, or more, that Mr. Biden is no longer fit to serve as President. He is not capable of setting the direction of the Administration, and instead decisions that he should be making are being made by others, or not being made at all.
At that point, if I believed that Ms. Harris was better suited to serving as President, I would have leaned on Mr. Biden to resign. I would have encouraged like-minded members of his entourage to help me.
If, on the other hand, I did not believe that Ms. Harris was up to the job, then I would have done everything possible to talk Mr. Biden out of endorsing her. I would have advocated, both privately and publicly, for an open contest for the nomination.
We are being played
The foregoing analysis leads me to conclude that the Biden entourage is filled with the kind of people who put their own desires for remaining near the center of power ahead of what would be best for the Democratic Party and for the country. As I watch events unfold, the thought that keeps running through my head is: We are being played.
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Biden was an ideal president for the modern Democratic Party. They don't want a president! They want diffuse decision making by unaccountable and hidden experts. Biden's only failure is that his ramblings might have gotten Trump elected. Without the election issue, he would continue to be their ideal president.
Absolutely agree and I find exactly this deeply unsettling.
Since Trump’s election in 2016, we’ve been seeing the so-called “elites” – in government, media, academia, the health establishment, and so on – reveal themselves to be acting for their own benefit, revealing a profound contempt for the public and the nation. I do not particularly like that our alternative is Trump, but he does represent an alternative in the “you see what you get” way he presents himself – his gaffes somehow speak to how he’s not trying to manipulate you (you can argue about whether they’re calculated or not, but the point is that his brand is “unfiltered to the extreme”, which is why people often describe him as being very funny – it’s the mode of a stand-up comic to say out loud the things that are thought but not said).
I believe the defining feature of the coming years will be something like this: the distinction between the gaslighting, sandbagging, conformist notional elites and those who position themselves as contra the former. Again, for this “contra” group, whether their motives are good or bad, they will define themselves as having been “red pilled”, seeing the world as it is, and communicating their opinions, unfiltered.
This attempt by the left to label Vance as “weird” will ultimately be significant – both because it’s jarring to have the erstwhile “live and let live” set on the Left engage in name-calling reminiscing of high school jocks, and because it suggests an opportunity for a movement to define itself as “weird”, that is, as opposing the dominant elites. We’ve seen some attempts at this – e.g., DeSantis and “where woke goes to die” – but they haven’t completely captured the whole in a meaningful way.
It seems we’re ripe for a new anti-authoritarian movement, but, again, a “weird” one, where the push comes from the right. Someone smart will put this together in a more coherent way than Trump, whoever wins in November.