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.
Exactly. I have news for you AK -- you were played in 2020, when the Democratic Party rigged their primaries in favor of Biden and sold him as a moderate Democrat, but as you have acknowledged in your Substack more than once, Biden (or the faceless apparatchiki behind him) has governed as a leftist -- open borders, industrial policy for 'green energy,' wokism and gender ideology, lawfare against political opponents, and so forth. AK writes as if an open contest for the Democratic nomination would have produced the kind of candidate he wanted, a moderate, neoliberal alternative to the Trump/Vance option. He is angry because the way the Democrats have operated robbed him of such an alternative. But even if the Democrats go back to the primary process at some point in the future, the contest will not be open, and it will never again produce the moderate alternative that AK wants. In recent days, the rumor mill has it that Harris will pick PA governor Josh Shapiro, a Jew, as her running mate, to swing the vote in PA. That's another bait and switch. But go ahead, keep on believing in the nonexistent Great Blue Hope.
Biden has never been moderate or basically any particular persuasion . He see where most Democrats are on policy and that's his position. Basically he has no deep root principles he is willing to defend. He just wants to be where the power is. Probably true of a lot of politician. This is exactly why, I think, he was picked by Obama. Easily manipulated and why he was hand picked for 2020 (and everyone else was pushed aside). Of course that and by 2020 they knew he was starting to show signs of dementia. Luckily COVID hit and they could put him hiding so he would not do what he did every other time he ran for president: say something really stupid and have to bow out....
If you were in the entourage and chose to speak out about the elephant in the room, what would that have looked like? Would it have changed anything to have one person speak up or would that one person be squelched and have his/her career destroyed by the media while everything else would stay as it was originally? In other words, speaking up would have required a heaping dose of selfless naive courage. Any volunteers or do you decide to keep your head down and collect the paycheck?
That’s conformity bias working its very logical magic.
Agreed. And conformity bias is working just as hard in the other party. What would be hoped is that there are some who have the courage to speak up despite the threat to their political career. I look to Liz Cheney as one example. I'm not trying to dwell on either Republicans or Democrats; each group is failing us by presenting under-qualified candidates by falling into conformity bias (not to mention the "win at all cost" mentality).
This 'both sides do it' argument doesn't wash. Complete nonsense. The GOP conducted primaries to choose the party's presidential candidate, and Trump was selected through a democratic process, i.e. elections, despite opposition from the 'old guard,' and mainstream media coverage that was unfavorable to Trump (but what about January 6?) and favorable to candidates like Nikki Haley. You just don't like the outcome of a democratic process. Tough. There is no conformity bias in the Republican Party -- lots of Republicans and conservatives don't like Trump, and everybody knows it. Same thing with JD Vance -- there was enormous pressure on Trump to pick someone else as the VP candidate. You just want the GOP to choose its candidates in the same way the other party does, i.e. through a rigged process. As for Liz Cheney, good riddance. All she stands for is endless unwinnable wars, she was removed from the House through an election, and Trump's ostensible opposition to that is one of the main reasons he was able to take over the Republican Party, through a democratic process. I also had direct experience with her many years ago when she held one of the positions she achieved through nepotism, and she was horrible back then as well.
Sorry but I don't want a rigged process. 100% agree each party should use a democratic process, primaries if you like, to select their candidate, and I may not like the outcome but will go with it. In Harris' case, that process obviously didn't happen. My point is conformity bias can and does occur in both parties even within a democratic process, with people following the group even if they disagree with the policy/candidate under consideration simply "to win". You might not like Cheney example but she represents a willingness to buck a party's pressure to conform. Webb or Sinema are Democrat examples of some who've diverged from party lines.
Tom Schelling pointed out that signals have to be credible. Would you believe a politician who said, "I choose advisors based on how good they are, not whether they suck up to me"? Or some more polite equivalent?
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.
We have known the substance of Mr. Biden's character for decades - long before he was the "last hope". We know the character of the individuals of The Entourage from the fact that each is willing to turn a blind eye to plagiarism and untruthfulness in order to sit near Power.
An open society cannot exist long when its individual members act contrary to Truth and Trust without suffering consequences and repercussions. Instead, Mr Biden's Entourage will be rewarded for their "loyalty" with well connected jobs in the private sector, future bureaucratic appointments, party backing for stepping stone elected office - perhaps even a nomination for Mr Biden's current position.
Who teaches their children to "go along to get along" and "keep your mouth shut"? I know few parents who would - at least directly - impart such a lesson. Yet, this mindset and the corresponding behavior seems all too common and prominent. We must ask ourselves, how and where does this attitude gain ascendancy?
Perhaps - too many of us teach it to our children indirectly through our daily in our daily societal interactions?
In any case, I can't see an open society surviving long until we change the incentives for faithless behaviors
“In any case, I can't see an open society surviving long until we change the incentives for faithless behaviors”
I disagree with this point. The Founders wisely set up our country to have competing interests, rather than a system that depends on frail humans being faithful to “the system” or “the people”. Our country can survive things like this.
The fact that the Founders were not omniscient and able to control all aspects of the future doesn’t change my point at all, nor does your mostly true comment counter my claim that our country can survive this, thanks in large part to the wisdom of our Founding Fathers.
Depends how you define "survive", did the Roman Republic survive as the Empire? Did post-Soviet Russia really "survive" to today?
I think most would find it ludicrous to think America as a nation is the same nation in any regard as America in 1795 beyond name. The America First Republic ended in 1865, the Second Republic in the 1910's, the Third Republic in 1930's, the Fourth Republic in the 1970's, the Fifth Republic in 2001, and I'd argue we are in the death kneels of the sixth Republic now. A nation is more than a name and it's hollow trappings.
Not sure how to answer your other questions, but yes, I believe that the U.S. has “survived” from the founding to today. Not just in name. And despite the many changes.
The Founders established a means of organizing which mirrored the mindset of the era. They established a mechanism to manage the darker angels in a period where rogue actions were swiftly meet with harsh consequences in the market of society.
There isn't the same downside for acting badly today.
The constitution is only as good as the people who live under it and who We-The-People charge with administering it. When was the last time consideration was given to a candidate who promises nothing more than "faithfully executing the responsibilities of office within the bounds of the constitution". Such an individual would be laughed off the political stage.
When the constitution ceases to live within the hearts of the governed - all of its wisdom and benefits are forfeit.
Due respect, sir, I disagree. Until the day the constitution is explicitly trampled upon and ignored, it provides protections never before - and rarely since - seen in the world.
Yes of course we would have a better, more civil society if the culture - at least when it came to politics - was as you suggest.
But the beauty of our constitution is precisely that the Founders *did* understand human nature - the one thing I think you’ll likely agree has *not* changed - and designed a system quite well equipped to address it. It was very much designed not under the assumption of broad public good will by politicians, but instead optimized to ensure division of power and competing interests that were likely to jealously guard such power.
Yes, it’s been imperfect, and in particular Congress has been derelict in granting too much power to the Executive branch for political expediency, but the system has still held up remarkably well.
Perhaps the one place I would agree with your framing is that if we had a Supreme Court that did not actually believe in the Constitution but believed in “a living, breathing Constitution” where activist judges simply ruled in accordance with their policy preferences, then we *would* indeed forfeit many of the Constitution’s benefits. Fortunately, the Supreme Court is in better shape now arguably than it’s been in decades.
"Until the day the constitution is explicitly trampled "
Where have you been man? That ship sailed long ago. What part of "no law" and "shall not be infringed" do you think haven't been explicitly trampled? The 4th/5th/6th/8th amendments don't even exist anymore in practice nor does the 1st. As for those vaunted protections, most of the world is freerer than America in PRACTICE hence our need to jail more people than the world to combine and our need to turn nearly all Americans into unconvicted criminals and a giant chunk of them into convicted one.
Man I did five years on a pure speech crime with no evidence beyond "a cop recorded you saying this" where the underlying action wasn't even illegal but the speech (strict liability ) itself was so don't give me the 1st amendment exists. The SCOTUS has carved out free speech exceptions and while it has walked many back, i.e. threats became "true threats", obscenity became "community standard / strict liability", they still haven't walked back most of the others.
And I lived in fourteen nations including third world ones and practically speaking on things that matter such as individual liberty, you are more free in Russia.
I agree that Founders did understand human nature (think they fully acknowledged their own flaws and limitations and were well positioned to guard against their own darker angels). One of the elements of human nature they recognized was complacency- and it was the element most potentially destructive to the way of self-governance they established.
I don't disagree that the Constitution is unique, exquisite, and beautiful. But like all things that are unique, exquisite, and beautiful - these characteristics must be maintained or they begin to lose value and worthiness.
I think few today are willing to adhere to a mantra of "Liberty for liberty's sake". Such an attitude toward a method of societal organization is not a desire to eschew responsibility toward our fellow citizens - but rather a desire to fulfill those responsibilities in a manner that one sees fit and appropriate. We are far removed from comprehending the mindset of the "average" American at the time of the founding.
Without that spirit of liberty for liberty's sake, I can't see the constitution surviving as much more than an empty shell of "promised" liberties. It's ironic that even at the founding, the constitution was merely a promissory note for 500,000 individuals living under its authority. It's up to us to fill the shell and deliver on the promise.
The problem is when they no longer compete as has been the case since at least the New Deal. Instead two branches just collude with each other over a revolving door whose agreeing in practice with 99% of anti-American policies (I.e. KOSA just passed 98-2) while the third branch forever just wants to invited to the cool kid table and just rubber stamps anything of import to the other two.
And if you don't think the entire system currently isn't just frail biased people ruling via writ then you've neither spent any time around bureaucrats or the courts. How many innocent people did cops kill this weekend? I'm sure glad the Founder's set up a system to prevent those frail police officers extrajudicially shooting unarmed people in the back. How many actual, not factual, innocent Americans last week were turned into felons via the arbitrary writ of some unaccountable judge?
“How many innocent people did cops kill this weekend?”
I actually suspect on most of the other topics we likely agree more than we disagree.
On your question above about people killed by cops, however, we surely must disagree. My answer on average would be far less than zero, something more than 0.1.
To imply that your answer to the question is a number more than 1 means you are suggesting that more than 500 *innocent* people a year are killed by police in this country. And that just does not line up with the facts and the data - WHATEVER your precise definition of “innocent” might be.
"I actually suspect on most of the other topics we likely agree more than we disagree."
I'll actually agree with that given we are both on this blog.
As for the second part, any person killed by a cop is constitutionally innocent and being denied her due process. When the guilty people are killed by the government it's called an execution and isn't done by cops.
And you would be wrong. SCOTUS has ruled cops have zero obligation to arrest, protect, or prevent crime. The cop should simply retreat unless it's truly self defense. Which is almost never given you can't claim self defense generally if you are the aggressor or intentionally escalated the situation.
And don't give me that niche case because nearly every police killing is of an unarmed person or a armed person who wasn't engaging. But yeah shooting unarmed kids, old ladies turning off boiling water, and people live streaming twitch sure have their due process respected.
The parties are private organizations not beholden to the Constitution or legally bound to any formal process. They generally decide to use primary elections to make people happy, but in the end can do what they want. They only risk their own legitimacy if they engage in too many shenanigans, but it seems like most Democrats are ok with this change so long as it gives them a good chance to win the election. What’s to get mad about?
Grrr! But, what’s there to be mad about as of right now? Did we learn something recently that we didn’t already know in 2020? What year did the first *Weekend at Bernie’s* reference get uttered?
Yesterday and this morning I was listening to podcasts about the political duopoly and the second on nonpartisan primaries and rank choice voting. The first mentioned filing an anti-trust suit against the parties. I don't know about legally but logically that makes sense. With that in mind, the second made me wonder why government pays for a political party's election. It seems if a party wants to have an election to select its candidate, it should pay for it. Otherwise, primaries should be nonpartisan.
Any organization is bounded to apply its own rules. Those rules define the organization, and the state is always a party, because external enforcement of internal rules can always be requiered (in a court of law)
Biden (at least to all outward appearances) stepped aside voluntarily. There are delegates and rules and process for how a replacement gets picked now (even if these are uncharted waters in some senses). I don’t think this is a legal issue, and there can be a good case that party officials are acting for the best interests of the party, and a democrat partisan could make the case that electing a Democrat is what is best for the nation.
There is actually an interesting and unresolved Title 11 legal issue, and my guess is that it is the most probable reason for the way this all went down.
The issue is with regards to whether Biden can simply transfer all his campaign contributions to anyone when dropping out of the general election.
The general view of election law experts is that the case is strongest for Harris (as the Vice Presidential candidate on the ticket, her name is arguably already listed in the same "committee" (nb: it's an election law term of art). The case is legally much weaker for literally anyone else.
That money issue alone - given how much has been collected and how late in the game we are - makes Harris the only practically feasible replacement. If it was anyone else they'd have to refund that war-chest and start from zero vs Trump. Yes, a lot of those donors would just bounce the money back to the nominee, but not all of them, and it would take too long. The Democratic party simply will not tolerate that and would never forgive any other potential candidate who tried to make a run anyway.
So Biden had to go, and Harris had to be the one to take his place, and the party insiders' view is that everyone who is serious about maximizing the chances of a Democrat win should just shut up, trust the party, go along with what's happening, not ask questions or raise a fuss, obey orders, and salute the new boss.
Arnold sees Biden as having remained in office too long. But his condition is no "current thing;" he was clearly and obviously cognitively impaired even before the 2020 election, impaired beyond the character deficiencies that marked his whole political career. The time to have gotten angry was back then when he was foisted off on the country by underhanded means. His ouster is just the belated recognition of that reality. Now his party will try to foist off Harris in similar fashion, obfuscating her record, misrepresenting her character and denying her political extremism.
1) Duh! I like reading you because most of your pieces I find interesting/different, and *not* obvious. This one is stating the incredibly obvious. And for those of us paying attention, it was quite obvious more than a year ago.
2) You fail to excoriate the mainstream media for doing close to the exact same thing. Ok, fine, they only had about 80% of the same info. OTOH, they were not only *not* making the public aware of Biden’s status, they were actively hiding it, and attacking those who claimed otherwise. THEY were playing us just as much as Biden’s entourage - and arguably more so - as you can make the case that the entourage’s first duty was to Biden, while the press’ duty is supposedly (ha!, I know) to reporting the truth.
It’s the Democrat Demonization Strategy, where the elite demonize a person or group, and most Dems go along, many vociferously adding to the demonization, even with lies.
Kling, Applebaum, Mounk, Sam Harris, & most Dem media support the demonization.
If you’re opposing a real demon, in a war against evil … all is fair.
Those who accept and support the demonization are the ones being played. Kling has accepted being played, a small but important bit, wrt Trump, for 8 years, and has too much pride to honestly compare his Trump complaints with the same criteria being used against Hillary, Biden, or Kamala.
Trump is no demon, neither are Israeli Jews, tho Hamas is close.
The Demonization Strategy needs to be identified and laughed at. And opposed.
Sorry I slept thru Arnold’s rant on Monday, hope it gets posted.
I think you are a fool if you think he is personally doing any of that. We don't elect the president's staff, we elect the president. And if she is no longer mentally competent to manage her staff, no matter how great her staff is, they need to go. Look up the story of Wilson sometime after his stroke, do you really think it was legitimate that his unelected wife and CoS ran the entire country hiding it from even the VP?
We don't elect administrations, "results" came out of Wilson's administration as well. We elect a single person and if she's incapacitated, or effectively, it doesn't matter how "good" her staff is as they aren't implementing her will but their own at that point. I do generally (not always) judge an administration by their results BUT that is because I assume, as one should, those results are a direct result of the President communicating and directing them or relieving them when they fail.
It's another reason I despise the FDR administrations push to create what is effect, even today, an unelected shadow president known as the FLOTUS though I will admit with some glee I look forward to First Lady Harris especially if they rebrand it as a male name given it's just a title you know, gender, identity, etc. is fluid and doesn't matter per the Dems hence why would he feel offended being given a formal title just because it historically was feminine .
Biden was a.remarkably good.president. According to Paul Krugman, he.was among the best there ever was. And John Kennedy - aho was the best - was wracked with very serious health issues. Indeed, it was these health issues that made him the singularly great man he was. He didn't care who he had to stand up to and felt free to speak his own - well informed and exquisitely educated mind. Not afraid to deny the CIA US warplanea and marines in the Bay of Pigs and the generals such as Curtis Lamay when they told him he had to bomb Cuba during the missile crisis. I get your point - the sight of Romney rushing to Trump's beckon to apply for Secretary of State was certainly revealing, and John McCain hugging George W was about as debased as I've seen the craze for power drive anyone. But there can be other things to consider when trying to evaluate a superior's capacity to govern.
What did Romney's action reveal other than a desire to mitigate?
You don't think Romney would have been as good or better than Tillerson?
I don't know when Romney went to Trump but Tullersom probably wasn't a high probability until at least late November. You don't think Trump could have picked someone worse than Tillerson?
Personally, I appreciate Romney asking for the job.
Romney was dealing with the situation as it was, not some fantasy of what he would like it to be.
Again, regardless of who the President is and whether he is "serious," the best Romney can do is what is most likely to improve the situation. Asking Trump to resign does exactly zero.
There are lots of selection effects that lead to this outcome. The democratic party, as highlighted by the shenanigans and proposed shenanigans around their primaries, are more than willing to portray their selection process as one driven by the party rank and file while instead using an occulted process to select candidates. Unlike with actual elections bound by federal laws, federal regulation, state law, and state regulation, primaries are internal affairs that might as well be Calvinball. Although actual elections, like real life, involve lots of law breaking, there are lots of formalities and adverse parties to be worried about that can temper the brazenness.
The Democratic rank and file would have probably preferred a Bernie or a Warren. Neither of them would take particularly well to being driven by The Experts and their clients (their clients being VIPs in the power centers of American life). They would have ideas, often ideas in line with the passions and interests of the rank and file, who are distinct from the experts' clients. Allowing a Warren or a Bernie when you have the option of a Biden is violating your fiduciary duty to your important clients who have important interests in controlling various parts of the American government that are in theory controlled by the president. Those duties trump patriotism for a great many people in Washington. Actual patriots are often seen as gravely mentally ill but possibly useful.
While the demos in our system does not have meaningful control over much, their enthusiasm is very important for the legitimation of the system. Without at least a core of enthusiastic minions, you otherwise get the famous surliness and tendency towards sabotage of chattel slavery or late Communism. You want the Radiohead model of enthusiasm: you want your minions to be visibly fitter, happier, and more productive in service to your ends. If Trump is better at mustering enthusiasm for service to America's richest occulted oligarchs, then that is the better guy for the job. If Biden cannot command mass enthusiasm on command, he is not a better candidate despite his other positive aspects such as utter slavish submission to his dark masters.
Trump has the same kind of Bernie/Warren issue of possibly having ideas, but most of his "ideas" are just personality conflicts. This is reasonably easy to solve because you can just have a rotation of people who all have the same program that are just ready to replace when he wants to fire someone. That's not always practical because eventually you wind up like Trump did in his later administration in which he was appointing basically teenagers to senior positions, but if you have a deep enough bench prepared for him to run through then perhaps it's not so bad.
I think it is fair to say that the Biden administration went in the same direction a Sanders or Warren administration would have, just slower. In fact, given that any administration has to deal with Congress, I'm not sure they would have been able to actually go any faster.
It is important to realize that many of the experts that Sanders or Warren would have appointed are the same that Biden did. Lina Khan anybody?
In broad strokes, absolutely, he campaigned as a centrist democrat and governed civil matters like a DSA member as you say. However, on important issues of war and peace, he (using the royal plural to indicate him and his viziers) governed for centrist clients who supported aid to Ukraine and Israel without much serious revisionism to NATO.
The most radical action that he took was to [redacted redacted] the [redacted] pipeline, but is radicalism in service of sensible conservative centrism really radical? A question for the philosophers to answer.
A Bernie/Warren government would have been under more pressure to engage in broad strokes foreign policy revisionism rather than just surreptitious footsie with Iran, “the UN," or whatever.
While I agree with your main point, I suspect that there were a lot of private conversations about what to do, and they decided a long time ago that this very scenario was the most likely way for them to continue, not just staying close to power, but actually wielding it for as long as possible. The two main (related) reasons for this are that there is not another candidate whom they both like and perceive as having a better chance, and the campaign contributions issue. They’ve been plotting this, including the timing, for a long time.
Any vetting process that resulted in her selection surely would have been seen as rigged. Probably true if she wasn't selected.
I think as VP, Harris has been vetted in a way no other choice has. Any candidate not selected by popular vote has risks but alternatives to her have many added risks.
Background info: Before the 2020 election Biden participated in two debates but there was a lot of talk in conservative media about how Biden didn't campaign and spent the fall in his Delaware home basement. This seems all the more relevant after everything since this summer's debate.
Aside: Why was there a debate in June? Biden wasn't even nominated yet. In 2020 and 2016 debates didn't start until September. Seems like a perfect start to a conspiracy story to get rid of Joe before the Democratic convention.
With that lead-in, here's an alternative scenario:
From day one in Biden's inner circle, it makes sense he graduated at the bottom of his Syracuse law school class. He's above average intelligence but far from as bright as most people in the room. And he struggles to speak coherently. Three years later he has less energy and his workday is somewhat shorter. He struggles with speech a bit more but it's not really different. He struggles more than usual at the June debate but that's in part how he's always been and partly being more tired from the cold/covid he is recovering from. Once the media starts commenting on his difficulties, everything snowballs and what was noticeable in 2020 and slowly degrading has now become untenable.
I see that the early debate date was chosen by "Biden." To me this just adds to the likelihood. Staff said let's find out early if he can do well in a debate or if we need to replace him.
It is interesting, and ironic, that you used a quote from Anne Applebaum to support your criticism of what you call the 'Biden entourage.' In her discussion with Mounk, Applebaum apparently goes on to argue that it is Donald Trump, not the Biden entourage, that poses a threat to American democracy (and by implication is willing to destroy the country to achieve and maintain power), and early in the discussion, Applebaum claims that the 2014 US-supported (and likely engineered) coup in Ukraine replaced the democratically elected president of Ukraine with a 'more democratic political system.' Sure. The particular excerpt you quoted references what Putin is allegedly doing to Russia as a result of the war with Ukraine, even though it is widely acknowledged that the Russian economy and Russian living standards appear to be holding up surprisingly well, while the proxy war of which Applebaum is one of the most prominent supporters is destroying Ukraine. I don't think Applebaum would like the way you are using her words, but perhaps that is intentional on your part.
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.
Exactly. I have news for you AK -- you were played in 2020, when the Democratic Party rigged their primaries in favor of Biden and sold him as a moderate Democrat, but as you have acknowledged in your Substack more than once, Biden (or the faceless apparatchiki behind him) has governed as a leftist -- open borders, industrial policy for 'green energy,' wokism and gender ideology, lawfare against political opponents, and so forth. AK writes as if an open contest for the Democratic nomination would have produced the kind of candidate he wanted, a moderate, neoliberal alternative to the Trump/Vance option. He is angry because the way the Democrats have operated robbed him of such an alternative. But even if the Democrats go back to the primary process at some point in the future, the contest will not be open, and it will never again produce the moderate alternative that AK wants. In recent days, the rumor mill has it that Harris will pick PA governor Josh Shapiro, a Jew, as her running mate, to swing the vote in PA. That's another bait and switch. But go ahead, keep on believing in the nonexistent Great Blue Hope.
Biden has never been moderate or basically any particular persuasion . He see where most Democrats are on policy and that's his position. Basically he has no deep root principles he is willing to defend. He just wants to be where the power is. Probably true of a lot of politician. This is exactly why, I think, he was picked by Obama. Easily manipulated and why he was hand picked for 2020 (and everyone else was pushed aside). Of course that and by 2020 they knew he was starting to show signs of dementia. Luckily COVID hit and they could put him hiding so he would not do what he did every other time he ran for president: say something really stupid and have to bow out....
If you were in the entourage and chose to speak out about the elephant in the room, what would that have looked like? Would it have changed anything to have one person speak up or would that one person be squelched and have his/her career destroyed by the media while everything else would stay as it was originally? In other words, speaking up would have required a heaping dose of selfless naive courage. Any volunteers or do you decide to keep your head down and collect the paycheck?
That’s conformity bias working its very logical magic.
Agreed. And conformity bias is working just as hard in the other party. What would be hoped is that there are some who have the courage to speak up despite the threat to their political career. I look to Liz Cheney as one example. I'm not trying to dwell on either Republicans or Democrats; each group is failing us by presenting under-qualified candidates by falling into conformity bias (not to mention the "win at all cost" mentality).
This 'both sides do it' argument doesn't wash. Complete nonsense. The GOP conducted primaries to choose the party's presidential candidate, and Trump was selected through a democratic process, i.e. elections, despite opposition from the 'old guard,' and mainstream media coverage that was unfavorable to Trump (but what about January 6?) and favorable to candidates like Nikki Haley. You just don't like the outcome of a democratic process. Tough. There is no conformity bias in the Republican Party -- lots of Republicans and conservatives don't like Trump, and everybody knows it. Same thing with JD Vance -- there was enormous pressure on Trump to pick someone else as the VP candidate. You just want the GOP to choose its candidates in the same way the other party does, i.e. through a rigged process. As for Liz Cheney, good riddance. All she stands for is endless unwinnable wars, she was removed from the House through an election, and Trump's ostensible opposition to that is one of the main reasons he was able to take over the Republican Party, through a democratic process. I also had direct experience with her many years ago when she held one of the positions she achieved through nepotism, and she was horrible back then as well.
Sorry but I don't want a rigged process. 100% agree each party should use a democratic process, primaries if you like, to select their candidate, and I may not like the outcome but will go with it. In Harris' case, that process obviously didn't happen. My point is conformity bias can and does occur in both parties even within a democratic process, with people following the group even if they disagree with the policy/candidate under consideration simply "to win". You might not like Cheney example but she represents a willingness to buck a party's pressure to conform. Webb or Sinema are Democrat examples of some who've diverged from party lines.
I thought this was clear from what AK wrote.
Why don't candidates signal that they will not be completely surrounded by sycophants?
Lol. They HAVE TO have staff. Who is to say which ones are sycophants?
Tom Schelling pointed out that signals have to be credible. Would you believe a politician who said, "I choose advisors based on how good they are, not whether they suck up to me"? Or some more polite equivalent?
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.
We have known the substance of Mr. Biden's character for decades - long before he was the "last hope". We know the character of the individuals of The Entourage from the fact that each is willing to turn a blind eye to plagiarism and untruthfulness in order to sit near Power.
An open society cannot exist long when its individual members act contrary to Truth and Trust without suffering consequences and repercussions. Instead, Mr Biden's Entourage will be rewarded for their "loyalty" with well connected jobs in the private sector, future bureaucratic appointments, party backing for stepping stone elected office - perhaps even a nomination for Mr Biden's current position.
Who teaches their children to "go along to get along" and "keep your mouth shut"? I know few parents who would - at least directly - impart such a lesson. Yet, this mindset and the corresponding behavior seems all too common and prominent. We must ask ourselves, how and where does this attitude gain ascendancy?
Perhaps - too many of us teach it to our children indirectly through our daily in our daily societal interactions?
In any case, I can't see an open society surviving long until we change the incentives for faithless behaviors
“In any case, I can't see an open society surviving long until we change the incentives for faithless behaviors”
I disagree with this point. The Founders wisely set up our country to have competing interests, rather than a system that depends on frail humans being faithful to “the system” or “the people”. Our country can survive things like this.
Eh, the founders thought congress would guard its power instead of subordinating it to party loyalty.
The fact that the Founders were not omniscient and able to control all aspects of the future doesn’t change my point at all, nor does your mostly true comment counter my claim that our country can survive this, thanks in large part to the wisdom of our Founding Fathers.
Depends how you define "survive", did the Roman Republic survive as the Empire? Did post-Soviet Russia really "survive" to today?
I think most would find it ludicrous to think America as a nation is the same nation in any regard as America in 1795 beyond name. The America First Republic ended in 1865, the Second Republic in the 1910's, the Third Republic in 1930's, the Fourth Republic in the 1970's, the Fifth Republic in 2001, and I'd argue we are in the death kneels of the sixth Republic now. A nation is more than a name and it's hollow trappings.
Not sure how to answer your other questions, but yes, I believe that the U.S. has “survived” from the founding to today. Not just in name. And despite the many changes.
The Founders established a means of organizing which mirrored the mindset of the era. They established a mechanism to manage the darker angels in a period where rogue actions were swiftly meet with harsh consequences in the market of society.
There isn't the same downside for acting badly today.
The constitution is only as good as the people who live under it and who We-The-People charge with administering it. When was the last time consideration was given to a candidate who promises nothing more than "faithfully executing the responsibilities of office within the bounds of the constitution". Such an individual would be laughed off the political stage.
When the constitution ceases to live within the hearts of the governed - all of its wisdom and benefits are forfeit.
Due respect, sir, I disagree. Until the day the constitution is explicitly trampled upon and ignored, it provides protections never before - and rarely since - seen in the world.
Yes of course we would have a better, more civil society if the culture - at least when it came to politics - was as you suggest.
But the beauty of our constitution is precisely that the Founders *did* understand human nature - the one thing I think you’ll likely agree has *not* changed - and designed a system quite well equipped to address it. It was very much designed not under the assumption of broad public good will by politicians, but instead optimized to ensure division of power and competing interests that were likely to jealously guard such power.
Yes, it’s been imperfect, and in particular Congress has been derelict in granting too much power to the Executive branch for political expediency, but the system has still held up remarkably well.
Perhaps the one place I would agree with your framing is that if we had a Supreme Court that did not actually believe in the Constitution but believed in “a living, breathing Constitution” where activist judges simply ruled in accordance with their policy preferences, then we *would* indeed forfeit many of the Constitution’s benefits. Fortunately, the Supreme Court is in better shape now arguably than it’s been in decades.
"Until the day the constitution is explicitly trampled "
Where have you been man? That ship sailed long ago. What part of "no law" and "shall not be infringed" do you think haven't been explicitly trampled? The 4th/5th/6th/8th amendments don't even exist anymore in practice nor does the 1st. As for those vaunted protections, most of the world is freerer than America in PRACTICE hence our need to jail more people than the world to combine and our need to turn nearly all Americans into unconvicted criminals and a giant chunk of them into convicted one.
Seems we do disagree more than we agree.
The First Amendment remains intact.
And I disagree with you that most of the world is freer than the U.S. I don’t even agree that most of the rich Western world is freer than the U.S.
…even though, sadly, I do of course agree we are not as free as we were 60 or certainly 100 years ago.
Man I did five years on a pure speech crime with no evidence beyond "a cop recorded you saying this" where the underlying action wasn't even illegal but the speech (strict liability ) itself was so don't give me the 1st amendment exists. The SCOTUS has carved out free speech exceptions and while it has walked many back, i.e. threats became "true threats", obscenity became "community standard / strict liability", they still haven't walked back most of the others.
And I lived in fourteen nations including third world ones and practically speaking on things that matter such as individual liberty, you are more free in Russia.
I agree that Founders did understand human nature (think they fully acknowledged their own flaws and limitations and were well positioned to guard against their own darker angels). One of the elements of human nature they recognized was complacency- and it was the element most potentially destructive to the way of self-governance they established.
I don't disagree that the Constitution is unique, exquisite, and beautiful. But like all things that are unique, exquisite, and beautiful - these characteristics must be maintained or they begin to lose value and worthiness.
I think few today are willing to adhere to a mantra of "Liberty for liberty's sake". Such an attitude toward a method of societal organization is not a desire to eschew responsibility toward our fellow citizens - but rather a desire to fulfill those responsibilities in a manner that one sees fit and appropriate. We are far removed from comprehending the mindset of the "average" American at the time of the founding.
Without that spirit of liberty for liberty's sake, I can't see the constitution surviving as much more than an empty shell of "promised" liberties. It's ironic that even at the founding, the constitution was merely a promissory note for 500,000 individuals living under its authority. It's up to us to fill the shell and deliver on the promise.
The problem is when they no longer compete as has been the case since at least the New Deal. Instead two branches just collude with each other over a revolving door whose agreeing in practice with 99% of anti-American policies (I.e. KOSA just passed 98-2) while the third branch forever just wants to invited to the cool kid table and just rubber stamps anything of import to the other two.
And if you don't think the entire system currently isn't just frail biased people ruling via writ then you've neither spent any time around bureaucrats or the courts. How many innocent people did cops kill this weekend? I'm sure glad the Founder's set up a system to prevent those frail police officers extrajudicially shooting unarmed people in the back. How many actual, not factual, innocent Americans last week were turned into felons via the arbitrary writ of some unaccountable judge?
“How many innocent people did cops kill this weekend?”
I actually suspect on most of the other topics we likely agree more than we disagree.
On your question above about people killed by cops, however, we surely must disagree. My answer on average would be far less than zero, something more than 0.1.
To imply that your answer to the question is a number more than 1 means you are suggesting that more than 500 *innocent* people a year are killed by police in this country. And that just does not line up with the facts and the data - WHATEVER your precise definition of “innocent” might be.
"I actually suspect on most of the other topics we likely agree more than we disagree."
I'll actually agree with that given we are both on this blog.
As for the second part, any person killed by a cop is constitutionally innocent and being denied her due process. When the guilty people are killed by the government it's called an execution and isn't done by cops.
Oh, puh-leeze. A guy shoots at a cop and the cop shoots him dead. I don't consider that "constitutionally innocent and being denied her due process."
And you would be wrong. SCOTUS has ruled cops have zero obligation to arrest, protect, or prevent crime. The cop should simply retreat unless it's truly self defense. Which is almost never given you can't claim self defense generally if you are the aggressor or intentionally escalated the situation.
And don't give me that niche case because nearly every police killing is of an unarmed person or a armed person who wasn't engaging. But yeah shooting unarmed kids, old ladies turning off boiling water, and people live streaming twitch sure have their due process respected.
The parties are private organizations not beholden to the Constitution or legally bound to any formal process. They generally decide to use primary elections to make people happy, but in the end can do what they want. They only risk their own legitimacy if they engage in too many shenanigans, but it seems like most Democrats are ok with this change so long as it gives them a good chance to win the election. What’s to get mad about?
The Biden entourage is using unethical means to keep unqualified persons in the office of President. I am mad about that.
Grrr! But, what’s there to be mad about as of right now? Did we learn something recently that we didn’t already know in 2020? What year did the first *Weekend at Bernie’s* reference get uttered?
Yesterday and this morning I was listening to podcasts about the political duopoly and the second on nonpartisan primaries and rank choice voting. The first mentioned filing an anti-trust suit against the parties. I don't know about legally but logically that makes sense. With that in mind, the second made me wonder why government pays for a political party's election. It seems if a party wants to have an election to select its candidate, it should pay for it. Otherwise, primaries should be nonpartisan.
Any organization is bounded to apply its own rules. Those rules define the organization, and the state is always a party, because external enforcement of internal rules can always be requiered (in a court of law)
Biden (at least to all outward appearances) stepped aside voluntarily. There are delegates and rules and process for how a replacement gets picked now (even if these are uncharted waters in some senses). I don’t think this is a legal issue, and there can be a good case that party officials are acting for the best interests of the party, and a democrat partisan could make the case that electing a Democrat is what is best for the nation.
There is actually an interesting and unresolved Title 11 legal issue, and my guess is that it is the most probable reason for the way this all went down.
The issue is with regards to whether Biden can simply transfer all his campaign contributions to anyone when dropping out of the general election.
The general view of election law experts is that the case is strongest for Harris (as the Vice Presidential candidate on the ticket, her name is arguably already listed in the same "committee" (nb: it's an election law term of art). The case is legally much weaker for literally anyone else.
That money issue alone - given how much has been collected and how late in the game we are - makes Harris the only practically feasible replacement. If it was anyone else they'd have to refund that war-chest and start from zero vs Trump. Yes, a lot of those donors would just bounce the money back to the nominee, but not all of them, and it would take too long. The Democratic party simply will not tolerate that and would never forgive any other potential candidate who tried to make a run anyway.
So Biden had to go, and Harris had to be the one to take his place, and the party insiders' view is that everyone who is serious about maximizing the chances of a Democrat win should just shut up, trust the party, go along with what's happening, not ask questions or raise a fuss, obey orders, and salute the new boss.
Right.
I agree! It was the general argument that “parties are not bounded” what I answered to.
Arnold sees Biden as having remained in office too long. But his condition is no "current thing;" he was clearly and obviously cognitively impaired even before the 2020 election, impaired beyond the character deficiencies that marked his whole political career. The time to have gotten angry was back then when he was foisted off on the country by underhanded means. His ouster is just the belated recognition of that reality. Now his party will try to foist off Harris in similar fashion, obfuscating her record, misrepresenting her character and denying her political extremism.
I'm not sure by what underhanded means you think Biden was foisted in 2020.
Personally, as much as I agree with your description of him, I still saw him as the best of the Democratic candidates.
Two comments:
1) Duh! I like reading you because most of your pieces I find interesting/different, and *not* obvious. This one is stating the incredibly obvious. And for those of us paying attention, it was quite obvious more than a year ago.
2) You fail to excoriate the mainstream media for doing close to the exact same thing. Ok, fine, they only had about 80% of the same info. OTOH, they were not only *not* making the public aware of Biden’s status, they were actively hiding it, and attacking those who claimed otherwise. THEY were playing us just as much as Biden’s entourage - and arguably more so - as you can make the case that the entourage’s first duty was to Biden, while the press’ duty is supposedly (ha!, I know) to reporting the truth.
"We are being played." - You are saying nicer than the way I'd put it. We are being screwed. And the other party is the same.
It’s the Democrat Demonization Strategy, where the elite demonize a person or group, and most Dems go along, many vociferously adding to the demonization, even with lies.
Kling, Applebaum, Mounk, Sam Harris, & most Dem media support the demonization.
If you’re opposing a real demon, in a war against evil … all is fair.
Those who accept and support the demonization are the ones being played. Kling has accepted being played, a small but important bit, wrt Trump, for 8 years, and has too much pride to honestly compare his Trump complaints with the same criteria being used against Hillary, Biden, or Kamala.
Trump is no demon, neither are Israeli Jews, tho Hamas is close.
The Demonization Strategy needs to be identified and laughed at. And opposed.
Sorry I slept thru Arnold’s rant on Monday, hope it gets posted.
Spot on ! So we are left with the classic-and all too familiar- choice
between " the lesser of two evils or the Evil of two lessers".
I simply disagree that he’s not capable of completing his term.
Less than a year ago he ran circles around congress to get them to raise the debt ceiling.
Six months ago he got them to agree to an immigration bill and funding for Israel and Ukraine.
Trump deep -sixed the former, and so they voted for the latter after loudly saying last fall they would never do it without a border bill.
Literally yesterday hostages came home.
If that’s all the staff’s doing, they’re remarkably good at it, certainly much better than the GOP candidate.
I think you are a fool if you think he is personally doing any of that. We don't elect the president's staff, we elect the president. And if she is no longer mentally competent to manage her staff, no matter how great her staff is, they need to go. Look up the story of Wilson sometime after his stroke, do you really think it was legitimate that his unelected wife and CoS ran the entire country hiding it from even the VP?
When the history of Biden's admin is written, and it turns out we have a Woodrow Wilson situation, I'll re-evaluate.
But until them I'm looking at the actual *results* of what's coming out of his administration.
Give it a try sometime.
We don't elect administrations, "results" came out of Wilson's administration as well. We elect a single person and if she's incapacitated, or effectively, it doesn't matter how "good" her staff is as they aren't implementing her will but their own at that point. I do generally (not always) judge an administration by their results BUT that is because I assume, as one should, those results are a direct result of the President communicating and directing them or relieving them when they fail.
It's another reason I despise the FDR administrations push to create what is effect, even today, an unelected shadow president known as the FLOTUS though I will admit with some glee I look forward to First Lady Harris especially if they rebrand it as a male name given it's just a title you know, gender, identity, etc. is fluid and doesn't matter per the Dems hence why would he feel offended being given a formal title just because it historically was feminine .
Biden was a.remarkably good.president. According to Paul Krugman, he.was among the best there ever was. And John Kennedy - aho was the best - was wracked with very serious health issues. Indeed, it was these health issues that made him the singularly great man he was. He didn't care who he had to stand up to and felt free to speak his own - well informed and exquisitely educated mind. Not afraid to deny the CIA US warplanea and marines in the Bay of Pigs and the generals such as Curtis Lamay when they told him he had to bomb Cuba during the missile crisis. I get your point - the sight of Romney rushing to Trump's beckon to apply for Secretary of State was certainly revealing, and John McCain hugging George W was about as debased as I've seen the craze for power drive anyone. But there can be other things to consider when trying to evaluate a superior's capacity to govern.
What did Romney's action reveal other than a desire to mitigate?
You don't think Romney would have been as good or better than Tillerson?
I don't know when Romney went to Trump but Tullersom probably wasn't a high probability until at least late November. You don't think Trump could have picked someone worse than Tillerson?
Personally, I appreciate Romney asking for the job.
I was surprised he wanted it is all. He always projected a persona of a serious politician.
I don't follow. Seems to me regardless of who is President, Secretary of State is a serious position.
Not if the president isn't serious. And not for an administration that isn't even seriously democratic.
Going back to the original article, Mr Romney's first act should have been to advise Trump to resign.
Romney was dealing with the situation as it was, not some fantasy of what he would like it to be.
Again, regardless of who the President is and whether he is "serious," the best Romney can do is what is most likely to improve the situation. Asking Trump to resign does exactly zero.
Refusing the offer would've said it.
There are lots of selection effects that lead to this outcome. The democratic party, as highlighted by the shenanigans and proposed shenanigans around their primaries, are more than willing to portray their selection process as one driven by the party rank and file while instead using an occulted process to select candidates. Unlike with actual elections bound by federal laws, federal regulation, state law, and state regulation, primaries are internal affairs that might as well be Calvinball. Although actual elections, like real life, involve lots of law breaking, there are lots of formalities and adverse parties to be worried about that can temper the brazenness.
The Democratic rank and file would have probably preferred a Bernie or a Warren. Neither of them would take particularly well to being driven by The Experts and their clients (their clients being VIPs in the power centers of American life). They would have ideas, often ideas in line with the passions and interests of the rank and file, who are distinct from the experts' clients. Allowing a Warren or a Bernie when you have the option of a Biden is violating your fiduciary duty to your important clients who have important interests in controlling various parts of the American government that are in theory controlled by the president. Those duties trump patriotism for a great many people in Washington. Actual patriots are often seen as gravely mentally ill but possibly useful.
While the demos in our system does not have meaningful control over much, their enthusiasm is very important for the legitimation of the system. Without at least a core of enthusiastic minions, you otherwise get the famous surliness and tendency towards sabotage of chattel slavery or late Communism. You want the Radiohead model of enthusiasm: you want your minions to be visibly fitter, happier, and more productive in service to your ends. If Trump is better at mustering enthusiasm for service to America's richest occulted oligarchs, then that is the better guy for the job. If Biden cannot command mass enthusiasm on command, he is not a better candidate despite his other positive aspects such as utter slavish submission to his dark masters.
Trump has the same kind of Bernie/Warren issue of possibly having ideas, but most of his "ideas" are just personality conflicts. This is reasonably easy to solve because you can just have a rotation of people who all have the same program that are just ready to replace when he wants to fire someone. That's not always practical because eventually you wind up like Trump did in his later administration in which he was appointing basically teenagers to senior positions, but if you have a deep enough bench prepared for him to run through then perhaps it's not so bad.
I think it is fair to say that the Biden administration went in the same direction a Sanders or Warren administration would have, just slower. In fact, given that any administration has to deal with Congress, I'm not sure they would have been able to actually go any faster.
It is important to realize that many of the experts that Sanders or Warren would have appointed are the same that Biden did. Lina Khan anybody?
In broad strokes, absolutely, he campaigned as a centrist democrat and governed civil matters like a DSA member as you say. However, on important issues of war and peace, he (using the royal plural to indicate him and his viziers) governed for centrist clients who supported aid to Ukraine and Israel without much serious revisionism to NATO.
The most radical action that he took was to [redacted redacted] the [redacted] pipeline, but is radicalism in service of sensible conservative centrism really radical? A question for the philosophers to answer.
A Bernie/Warren government would have been under more pressure to engage in broad strokes foreign policy revisionism rather than just surreptitious footsie with Iran, “the UN," or whatever.
While I agree with your main point, I suspect that there were a lot of private conversations about what to do, and they decided a long time ago that this very scenario was the most likely way for them to continue, not just staying close to power, but actually wielding it for as long as possible. The two main (related) reasons for this are that there is not another candidate whom they both like and perceive as having a better chance, and the campaign contributions issue. They’ve been plotting this, including the timing, for a long time.
other considerations:
Any vetting process that resulted in her selection surely would have been seen as rigged. Probably true if she wasn't selected.
I think as VP, Harris has been vetted in a way no other choice has. Any candidate not selected by popular vote has risks but alternatives to her have many added risks.
Background info: Before the 2020 election Biden participated in two debates but there was a lot of talk in conservative media about how Biden didn't campaign and spent the fall in his Delaware home basement. This seems all the more relevant after everything since this summer's debate.
Aside: Why was there a debate in June? Biden wasn't even nominated yet. In 2020 and 2016 debates didn't start until September. Seems like a perfect start to a conspiracy story to get rid of Joe before the Democratic convention.
With that lead-in, here's an alternative scenario:
From day one in Biden's inner circle, it makes sense he graduated at the bottom of his Syracuse law school class. He's above average intelligence but far from as bright as most people in the room. And he struggles to speak coherently. Three years later he has less energy and his workday is somewhat shorter. He struggles with speech a bit more but it's not really different. He struggles more than usual at the June debate but that's in part how he's always been and partly being more tired from the cold/covid he is recovering from. Once the media starts commenting on his difficulties, everything snowballs and what was noticeable in 2020 and slowly degrading has now become untenable.
I see that the early debate date was chosen by "Biden." To me this just adds to the likelihood. Staff said let's find out early if he can do well in a debate or if we need to replace him.
It is interesting, and ironic, that you used a quote from Anne Applebaum to support your criticism of what you call the 'Biden entourage.' In her discussion with Mounk, Applebaum apparently goes on to argue that it is Donald Trump, not the Biden entourage, that poses a threat to American democracy (and by implication is willing to destroy the country to achieve and maintain power), and early in the discussion, Applebaum claims that the 2014 US-supported (and likely engineered) coup in Ukraine replaced the democratically elected president of Ukraine with a 'more democratic political system.' Sure. The particular excerpt you quoted references what Putin is allegedly doing to Russia as a result of the war with Ukraine, even though it is widely acknowledged that the Russian economy and Russian living standards appear to be holding up surprisingly well, while the proxy war of which Applebaum is one of the most prominent supporters is destroying Ukraine. I don't think Applebaum would like the way you are using her words, but perhaps that is intentional on your part.