Joe Biden: what were they thinking?
Commenter “TommyJay” asks:
What were the Dem leadership and their minions thinking when they engaged in this massive coverup of Sloe Joe’s feebleness and disfunction?
Good question. along with the related one of “why did they think they could get away with it?” Short version of the answer: they thought it was their only option.
If we go back in time to the 2020 campaign, it was obvious that a second Donald Trump term would be a truly nightmare scenario for the Democrats. They felt they absolutely had to win. The only thing they lacked was a healthy, vigorous candidate who could do it. Bernie Sanders become – to their horror – the frontrunner but he was too old, too obviously leftist, too ethnically Jewish. He simply wouldn’t do because they felt he would lose the election. Kamala Harris was great on paper in terms of identity politics but seemed to have zero electoral appeal even to Democrats, much less Republicans and/or Independents. The others in the running were hardly doing much better.
The Democrats’ only hope became Joe Biden, whom they knew they could label a moderate compared to Sanders. Whatever cognitive problems he had – and he clearly had them even in 2020, although not as severe as they later became – the Democrats wagered they could cover up and/or minimize them in the highly unusual COVID campaign season. The others were pressured to drop out, Biden became the nominee, and then there was a full court press to rig the election through the cooperation of the MSM and the intelligence community, which (among other things) managed to suppress and discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story when it surfaced near the election. Biden’s cognitive problems offered an opportunity for control by others who were to the left of Biden himself, which they considered a feature rather than a bug.
Remember after the election, how the right was betting that Biden wouldn’t last? That he’d retire by June, a lot of people said, and would be replaced. I didn’t think so, for one simple reason: Kamala Harris was not ready for prime time, and as a black woman she could not be bypassed for a substitute. I believe that Biden’s handlers were surprised at how incompetent she seemed, much more than they were surprised at any of Biden’s deficits. So they were stuck with him, and stuck with her, and they never really figured a way out of that dilemma for the entire four years of the Biden administration.
As far as the 2024 campaign went, my guess is that they didn’t really try to talk Biden out of running at first, even though his cognitive issues had increased, because they still didn’t have a winning replacement. They hoped to take Trump out by lawfare anyway, and that would solve the problem. They tried to do that; oh how they tried! But the lawfare didn’t work and the Biden/Trump debate loomed. Did Biden do worse in that debate than they expected, or exactly as bad as they expected? I don’t know, but that’s the point at which they suddenly were forced to acknowledge – because it simply could not be denied any longer – that Biden couldn’t run for president in 2024 and had to be replaced.
Things were in a state of flux for a little while, and it was during that time that Trump was wounded in an assassination attempt. What didn’t kill him made him stronger as a candidate. About a week later Biden withdrew from the race, and Harris became his nearly immediate replacement. The Democrats didn’t see any other way to deal with the mess, and they still had to pretend that Biden had dropped out for other reasons because to admit he was too cognitively challenged would be to admit that they’d covered it up for a long time. Therefore the message the campaign put out was that Biden was stepping aside to make room for youth. And Harris was also left with few options but to go around pretending Biden was cognitively intact, as well, because as his VP she had to have known and been part of any coverup.
From start to finish the entire thing was determined by the fact that Democrats had no good candidates to run as alternatives. They hoped that the MSM’s cooperation would help their sleight of hand fool the public one more time and Harris would become president. Fortunately, it didn’t work.
Now they have some ‘splaining to do, and the agreed-on narrative du jour is that they – the press and the Democrats, that is – were fooled by a bunch of canny political aides to Biden. And additionally, that Biden was too selfish and foolhardy to drop out in a timely fashion and give Kamala a chance to blossom and shine – although anyone who actually watched Harris in interviews would have been aware that time was not her friend. The tack they’re taking is ludicrous, but I’m hard-pressed to think of a better one. The truth makes them look like knaves and fools; the lie makes them look like knaves and fools. So knaves and fools it is.
Democratic politicians and operatives are liars by default. The media used to employ people who were not liars by default, even if they favored the Democratic Party. They also had more influence on people’s thinking. The whole charade ran on everyone lying and on Democratic voters being so indifferent to propriety or national welfare that they did not care. Eventually it came to a point when the liars thought they’d lose the small population of swing voters, so they had to hit the eject button.
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Any high government official, any lawyer, any (Democratic) judge, any Regime Media figure, anyone in educational administration, partisan Democrats on faculty, anyone in public health, anyone in the mental health trade, and anyone employed in public relations are properly assumed to be lying. It’s what they do.
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We used to be better than this.
It’s knaves and fools all the way down!
I don’t see how they could have done better either.
Frankly I’m surprised Trump is still alive.
the system works very well ‘from a certain point of view, not merely the Democratic party, but the other tentacles of the Apparat like the Media, the Security Services, the word syzgy comes to mind, because it’s a nearly seemless merger, even most of the domesticated opposition, so Kabul capitulation, yeah regretable, but it had to happen, inflation wasn’t happening it won’t last, and noticing it is racist,
many of the candidates in 2020, were for show, they get their piece of the action, like Warren, or Swalwell, (the last is the answer to a ridiculous trivial pursuit question,)
some get the
preferred successor role, despite their lack of popularity, because diversity, same with the Cabinet positions with Buttigeg, some like Blinken, had been associated with the Old Man for 30 years, and nothing like his own man, in the organization, in fact he deferred to his putative underling Robert Malley,
Um, no.
Knaves all the way down the line.
But even THAT’S not it.
They’re evil.
Pure, unadulterated, manipulative, malice-aforethought evil.
The bigger problem is all their supporters (not far off 50% in 2024 – 49.9% Trump; 48.4% Harris) that go for straight party ticket. If the Devil himself showed up (I suppose that’s redundant) without the mask, these fools would still vote “D”.
I’ve still not figured out TDS – I can’t get a straight coherent answer of why from those infected – but it’s a real and serious problem, especially when evident in positions of authority from DMV to the Supreme Court.
The Ds have no one for 2028 … and perhaps neither do the Rs.
If we survive as a nation until then (are we still a “nation” or just an un-unified political division?).
The Democrats don’t like elections. Neither primary nor general elections. Biden’s primary win was rigged. There was no primary for Kamala.
They rigged the 2020 election and thought they could do the same in 2024. Fortunately, Lara Trump and Michael Whatley organized enough of a ground game that the vote was too big to rig. That won’t discourage them.
The 2026 and 28 elections will see even more rigging by the Dems. Count on it. No matter the success of this Trump term (and I think it will be quite successful), they will do anything to win. They’re working on it right now.
Art Deco and Barry summed up what I was going to say. At the top of D party are the cynical evil people. As DT brings up, it’s the millions of TDS sufferers who are the real problem. The ones I know are not power hungry, cynical, do anything to win people, but they fall in line like sheep.
The Hur-Biden interview audio released. Damn sure “they” weren’t thinking this.
https://www.axios.com/2025/05/16/biden-hur-tape-special-counsel-audio
Kamala Harris “not ready for prime time”?
Gosh! When did this blog turn into the Bee?
(But what are her pronouns?? Tell me true…)
I think there’s another key piece of the puzzle that explains both 2020 and 2024: Joe Biden could deliver Pennsylvania. No other Democrat could. Here’s what I think happened…
Joe Biden was from Scranton (I think he may have mentioned that once or twice) and a politician of 50 years from nearby Delaware. He was so tied into Pennsylvania politics that for years he was known as “the third senator from Pennsylvania”, and he had de facto control of the Philadelphia machine.
Trump won against Hillary in 2016 by breaking the so-called blue wall in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Not by much, but it was enough. Biden’s control of the Philadelphia machine could deliver Pennsylvania to the Democrats, and his blue-collar persona could bring Michigan and Wisconsin close enough to steal. And that’s exactly what happened in 2020.
2024 was looking like a repeat of 2020, but then the Democrats stabbed Joe Biden in the back. Biden, being a vindictive SOB much like Trump is, sabotaged the Democrats by quickly endorsing Harris. Then he put word out to the Philadelphia machine “Don’t go out of your way for her.”
On election night North Carolina and Pennsylvania were quickly called for Trump. That froze the cheat machines in Michigan and Wisconsin. Those machines could deliver their respective states for Harris, but that might not be enough to keep Trump out of the White House. And if they cheated for Harris and Trump still won, Trump, being the vindictive SOB that he is, *would* come after them. As they say, if you strike at the king, you’d better not miss.
Similar fears filled the minds of the cheat machines in Arizona and Nevada. With the cheat machines frozen, Trump rode to victory. Trump always had the votes to win, it was just a matter of whether the Democrats could steal it again. The Bidens — Joe and his red-dress-wearing wife — made sure that didn’t happen, at least not in Pennsylvania. Fear froze the other swing-state machines.
Part of this media campaign is to destroy the legacy of Joe Biden so they can wrest control of the Philadelphia machine away from the Biden family in preparation for 2028. They obviously can’t be honest about the reason why, so this is what they’re using to explain the infighting.
I think Biden’s control of the Philadelphia machine explains both 2020 and 2024 and also the fight we’re seeing now.
Totally unrelated:
“US Drug Overdose Deaths Fall Nearly 27 Percent To Lowest Level In 5 Years”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/us-drug-overdose-deaths-fall-nearly-27-percent-lowest-level-5-years
No comment was forthcoming, however, from “sympathetic, well-meaning” (and no doubt, amiable) President Fentanyl-Tranq…
“I’ve still not figured out TDS” — DT
That’s because Trump Derangement Syndrome is misnamed. TDS predates Trump, 20 years ago it was called ‘Bush Derangement Syndrome’, and it worked about the same way. They accused W of planning 911, deliberately working to destroy New Orleans, stealing elections, etc.
Forty years ago, it was Reagan, though the ‘derangement syndrome’ phrasing hadn’t yet been coined, it was the same mix of conscious lies and sincere lunacy. Republican Derangement Syndrome has been a thing throughout my adult life. The details of the allegations vary, but it’s variations on a theme.
It’s a bit more _intense_ with Trump, simply because he’s effective and also because Trump sometimes stokes it intentionally as PR.
…”the press and the Democrats, that is – were fooled by a bunch of canny political aides to Biden…”
Isn’t it interesting though, that these Masters of Deception are still unnamed, unlisted, and unexamined? Why, this is a hoax worthy of a Peter Ustinov movie. You would think the investigative reporters at our Tribunes of Truth in the Progressive Media would be picking this one apart in great detail, if their assertions were true. Who were these Masters? Tell us, and then tell us what they did. Take your time, be thorough – we have 3½ more years to listen to the Inside Story. Maybe the Progressives could learn something that will help them in 2028.
I think at this point that, between neo’s and mkent’s thoughts, most of the essentials are captured.
I was also thinking that (and this was already touched upon by someone in the threads on this subject, I’m pretty sure) Biden and those around him were probably thinking about how it would come across if he had resigned, for example. The money, time and effort spent by thousands of people to get him (and them) to that point, and then just to have it end with a whimper like that? Unacceptable. So he soldiered on.
I’ve just finished up reading Hoover’s book The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilsor, which discusses some of the goings-on around Wilson’s loss of capacity, stroke, etc. in 1919-1920. I think a number of the same factors apply. It’s trite to point out the Wilson affair as an antecedent to the Biden Marionette mess, but still, I think there are interesting parallels.
Don’t forget Scott Presler in PA, JJ.
The inner circle of Biden should be subpoenaed and questioned under oath about the use of the autopen. There is a high probability that many documents that Biden “signed” were not only not signed by him, but were not authorized to be signed by him.
I am not lawyer, but that has to be illegal; passing off a bogus document (i.e., not authorized by the president) as a legally authorized document.
All it will take is just one of Biden’s inner circle to spill the beans and the autopen abuse will be exposed.
Speaking of demokrats; they are malevolent, malicious evil people whose only goal is the achievement of power. They will use any and all means to attain power, including assassination (i.e., murder).
After listening to the Hur interview, it’s clear why they didn’t want the audio released. I think it would have had the same effect as the debate performance. The audio exposes Biden’s impairment in a way the transcript doesn’t. He sounds exactly as Hur described him — a forgetful old man, incapable of standing trial and incapable of handling his duties as President. I don’t think anybody listening to the interview would come to any other conclusion that Biden was suffering from moderate dementia.
From the Democrats point of view it would probably have been better to leak the audio shortly after it was recorded. Biden could have announced that he would not seek a second term, after having done such a great job at saving the country from the evil Trump. Harris would still be a problem but I think the Dems would be in better shape as a party if they did not have to all pretend for another 8 months that Biden was perfectly fine.
Now that it’s suddenly OK for everyone but the demented ladies of the View to acknowledge that Joe was impaired, the Dem politicians who defended Joe’s mental state look like idiots. The stage is set for someone with no connection to Biden/Harris to take over the party. Should be fun to watch.
Arguably, Republican Derangement Syndrome started with Goldwater. It accelerated with Nixon.
Thanks for the reminder, Marisa. Scott Pressler did great work in Pennsylvania.
Thanks to mkent for his analysis of how the Dems failed in their efforts to rig 2024. It rings true. Lesson learned – win the early swing states and the rest will follow? I hope that’s true.
The GOP had organized over 150,000 Republicans to harvest votes, get people registered, and work as poll watchers. Along with the legal beagles necessary to file injunctions and challenge poll irregularities. A more organized effort than in past years. I don’t think that story gets told or recognized.
If you’re young and willing, you could get involved in your local precincts for 2026 and 28. My wife and I used to do that sort of work, but we’re too old now. We still give money (although paltry sums) to favored candidates. If you want to win elections, it helps to do whatever you can, as well as vote.
Re: Why Did They Do It? — Victor Davis Hanson
Hanson has been asking similar questions lately. Not just Democrats running a wax effigy as president and manipulating the US from behind the scenes.
* Why did Democrats destroy the border?
* Why did they create the most nihilistic problem that we will be living with for decades?
* Why did they clear the 2020 primaries so Biden would win? It was risky to do that.
Why? Why? Why?
VDH doesn’t claim to have the answers. We all have guesses, but the Democrats have yet to explain. Probably they won’t.
–Victor Davis Hanson, “Biden’s Enablers Never Told Us Why They Did It.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb0SKImNZ64
It’s long seemed strange to me that we’ve never had any open discussions of these issues, especially the borders. Even Republicans seem reluctant to press for answers.
DT wrote “are we still a ‘nation’ or just an un-unified political division?”
I think in the last 20 years or so we have been transformed from a nation into just a location.
There is something rotten in
DenmarkAmerica.Probably someone else mentioned this but the coverup wasn’t really about Biden. It was about the people making decisions on Biden’s behalf, who badly needed the illusion that Biden was the one in charge.
The Dems do everything at the behest of “the groups” as Ezra Klein called them, and the Deep State and media are always on their side, partly because so many of them are related by blood or marriage or at least went to the same colleges or served in different roles a la Jen Psaki or George Stephanopoulos.
They don’t need Biden to be compos mentis any more than the Party in 1984 needed Big Brother (um, spoiler alert, I guess) to be real.
But not having totalitarian control they can’t LOOK like it doesn’t matter who they slot in as President. The machinery works the same way no matter who’s top billed.
I listened to 3 minutes of the Biden-Hur tape and that’s all I could stand. It’s like a webcam mounted on a turtle:
https://youtu.be/ugM76taxz2E
“What were they thinking?”
The Democrat base is reliable, no matter what, despite being sold a 3rd rate fiction about what happened. Biden was sharp as a tack. Kamala lost because of sexism and racism. Trump is a Russian agent/Fascist/Hitler/Authoritarian destroying Democracy, the Economy, the Constitution killing children by gutting Medicaid and, deporting US citizens. It almost sounds like a cult.
Niketas, I read your link to the Ezra Klein-Michael Lind interview on “the Groups”. It was long but fascinating. I didn’t agree entirely with either one though Lind was far more astute. Some of Klein’s excuses for Obama reminded me of old-time commie stooges saying “If Stalin only knew!”.
Even more arguably, Republican Derangement Syndrome started with Lincoln.
Ace is on a roll today.
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/414861.php
“This Guy Read Jake Tapper’s Cover-Up Book So That You Can Boycott It”
That quote from Niketas is good but I think it’s a case of not wanting to acknowledge something because your worldview (and probably paycheck) depend on not recognizing it. The Democrat Party, probably from the time of FDR, has been a transactional coalition united only by their combined ability to extract resources from their opponents. This is what united Southern racists and Northern progressives in the FDR coalition, and continued to unite various disparate minority groups with white progressives (and many habitual voters) through the end of the 20th Century. The economic shocks of the 2008 crash and COVID might be fracturing the FDR coalition as it looks like working class citizens of all races are moving in the direction of Trump’s GOP. The ability of the Democrats to deliver the goods, the only force that actually bound the party together, has collapsed and sticking with the coalition is looking like a losing proposition.
Big Brother was real, the Resistance was fake, as Winston Smith found out, now Yeghoda, Yezhov, Berya, were all Big Brother at one time,
our system operates more like Huxley’s system, (your namesake) with a touch of bread and circuses,
They thought they were going to be able to cheat the trans-racial boozer into office, where they wouldn’t be held accountable for anything.
THAT was the plan.
Something I don’t understand is why there are no decent Democratic candidates. There doesn’t seem to be a reasonable grownup anywhere in the party, at least on the national level. Is it because the party has been so captured by the far Left that it can’t support anyone but far Leftists — and, by definition, no far Leftists are reasonable grownups? That’s the simple explanation, but it doesn’t answer how the Democratic Party became so vulnerable to control by a small, extreme faction in the first place.
I’ll stick with my original opinion of all of this. The original plan was to install Biden and then after 2 years have him step down and have Kamala take over and have a 10 year term. With that in mind the first 2 years would be to prepare her to take over and then have 2 years of her own term to campaign on in 2024. They probably figured that if they had 2 years they could get almost anybody to the point where the public could accept him or her as president.(Think Hollywood studio system.) Yeah, unfortunately they found out the mean of “almost”. Kamala was the exception, after 2 years of trying to get her to appear presidential they finally realized how stuck they were.
HC.
Good point. Why do “they” accuse?
Next point; Why does the other “they ” believe?
I could make a case that Biden winning in 2020 made a second Trump term worse for the Dems than if Trump won in 2020. It gave him and his team four extra years to plan for the second term and how to best achieve DT’s goals.
Although the comments here add various tweaks, I think Neo’s summary analysis is excellent.
@Mrs Whatsit: My question, too. Well, back in the day, I probably asked the same question re Bob Dole.
I’ll modify Big D’s excellent take- it’s not that anyone thought that Kammie was so bad that she could not take old Joe’s place.
I think it’s that Jill decided that she like being First Lady and a part of the Power. She liked living in the White House, having all the servants, all the glory (who wouldn’t?). It was Jill that put the kibosh on the Great Plan to have Joe step down on 2 years + 1 day of his term. It was Jill who decided that Joe would run again. It was only after the debate, when the other Dem Powers sat Jill and Joe down and threatened to start leaking Truth (about the entire family) that they decided to take the easy way out.
Prove me wrong.
Something I don’t understand is why there are no decent Democratic candidates.
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A scrum of people with actual skills, accomplishment, and experience set up campaign committees in 2019. These included Michael Bloomberg, Andrew Yang, John Delaney, John Hickenlooper, and Steven Bullock. The Democratic electorate glanced at Bloomberg and ignored the rest. Democratic voters are not interested in skills, accomplishment, and experience.
Well, back in the day, I probably asked the same question re Bob Dole.
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Dole was a Capitol Hill apparatchik more inclined to stewardship than (say) Glitch McConnell. You weren’t likely to be served up interesting policy initiatives in a Dole Administration, but there’s no justification mentioning him in the same breath with Sundown Joe, Hellary, BO, Willy’s fellatrix, John Edwards &c.
Is anybody working on the magnum opus of corruption: “The Biden Family Business”?
Neo I think that is as good as any synopsis of the 2020 – 2024 election.
I said often was sure Sundowner wouldn’t survive his term. I still think given a cognitive test he wouldn’t have passed and therefore should have been forced to resign a couple years ago.
The problem to me is the system that required the Puppeteers to be the ones who call if that test occurred and had no reason to upset their apple cart.
Now that the press finally feels that they can tell the story of old demented Joe, I wonder if there will be any curiosity to answer the question of who was actually making the decisions in the “Biden” administration.
well Tulsi Gabbard was a decent one, now she’s a Trump appointee, but not before she was hounded by TSA, for reasons, driven from her seat, she did some useful work, training with the Kopassus in Indonesia, shes likely at odds with several decisions like endorsing al Sharaa, and probably the approaches to King Salman, and the Quatari Emirs,
Andrew Yang was pretty good, but he was too iconoclastic for their taste, this moloney fellow,
“Something I don’t understand is why there are no decent Democratic candidates.” – Mrs. Whatsit
When seen through our eyes, they don’t seem impressive. Accomplishments, character, ideas? Those don’t matter for the Democrats.
Since the end of WWII, the left in this country has been intent on creating a socialist paradise. They have gradually infiltrated academia, Hollywood, the MSM, the public school system (the NEA), and every level of government bureaucracies.
The Democrats that are willing to express their goals most clearly are Bernie Saunders and AOC. And there’s a pretty big audience for those ideas. (Even though they repel us.) However, the audience isn’t big enough yet to openly campaign on those socialist principles. That’s why they chose a seemingly moderate Joe Biden.
In 2028, they will go with someone that can be presented as a moderate and yet controlled toward the left. Josh Shapiro, Rahm Emanuel, or Gretchen Whitmer might suit their purposes.
I think AOC will be a candidate in the Democrat primaries in 2028. And she will make a good showing because there are at least30% of the citizenry who believe the myth of an egalitarian society where big government redistributes the national wealth. We know it doesn’t work, but too many are still stuck on that false hope.
I expect Gruesome Newsom to be a candidate and would not be surprised if he does well or even wins the nomination. He’s a smooth liar and has a charisma similar to that of Bill Clinton. Yes, we know he has no accomplishments worth mentioning and is a phony. The true believers on the left don’t see what we see.
The Democrats have a dearth of what we see as good candidates, and they are stuck on supporting open borders, high taxes, the end of fossil fuels, men in women’s sports, a woke military, and other terrible ideas. It appears that they’re in trouble. They see it as the need to double down on rigging elections and using the MSM to spread lies. No matter how weak they may seem, we shouldn’t underestimate what they’re capable of.
Neo your post was excellent as are the comments as well. I think it boils down to the Democrats being “today problem” thinkers. People often react to problems as today problems-hurry fix it! Or tomorrow problems-I need to come up with a solution, but I can take my time with it.
I always wondered about this in regards to the filibuster. I recall thinking at the time do the Democrats think that they will be in power forever? They weren’t and it bit them in the ass.
So the Democrats only seem to think about their “today” problems without looking down the road.
@ Gregory Harper > “Gregory Harper on May 17, 2025 at 12:10 pm said:
Now that the press finally feels that they can tell the story of old demented Joe, I wonder if there will be any curiosity to answer the question of who was actually making the decisions in the “Biden” administration.”
No, because those people are either still powerful, or have the potential to return to power.
Besides, I suspect most of the upper-level press knew, and approved, or at least were willing to keep their mouths shut (unless lured into an O’Keefe Honey Trap, but those are mostly lower-echelon apparatchiks).
@Mrs Whatsit: Something I don’t understand is why there are no decent Democratic candidates
Part of this goes back to the disastrous Obama years:
_________________________________
Under President Obama, Democrats have lost 900+ state legislature seats, 12 governors, 69 House seats, 13 Senate seats. That’s some legacy.
–Rory Cooper
https://x.com/rorycooper/status/661906137562923009
_________________________________
Many of these Democrats were Blue Dogs — moderate Democrats.
The net result was that the Dem bench got smaller and went further left.
@ JFM > ” I recall thinking at the time do the Democrats think that they will be in power forever? ”
Probably so. They had all the media (until the rise of independent podcasters & Substack etc); they had the schools; they had the bureaucrats; and they had many of the GOP leaders (some of whom were even willing to openly support Democrats, although most just vote for Dem policies or content themselves with 86ing conservative Republicans).
As for biting them back, that’s only temporary AND the media only mentions something like that if they can blame it on Trump or Republicans OR play the “okay for us but not for you” game, as they do on everything, including the filibuster.
J.J., thanks, you make excellent points. You’re right that their goals in choosing candidates are entirely different from ours. It’s the strangest thing how fiercely they are doubling down, rather than making any effort to understand what went wrong. The Democrat human beings whom I know — as opposed to party functionaries — are, in fact, decent human beings and grownups besides, yet they just can’t seem to see the gap between who they truly are, as shown in the way they live and raise their kids, and what they profess to believe politically. I don’t know, it’s a mystery.
And huxley, yes, thanks, you make a wise point about Obama’s decimation of the Democrats. I’ve wondered about that, and thought that without that wholesale destruction of all the “reasonable grownups,” there might have been leaders who could have grown by now to national prominence and kept the party from its current disaster status. It’s not that I want them to win — their ideas, at least the ones they have now, are lunatic and destructive. But I used to be a Democrat myself, and still love quite a few Democrats in spite of everything, and I wish they could somehow have found a better path.
It’s not TDS, it’s the Democrat Demonization Strategy. The Dems target Reps, and now Jews, and often the rich. Then demonize the target, much like Nazis demonized Jews, and commies demonize capitalists. Those who suffer do actually believe that the target is evil, like Hitler, and the demonization is even good.
They’ll keep up demonizing until they’re laughed at so as to not be taken seriously. Those liars who are demonizing are the problem.
Thanks to mention in reminding me about Biden & Pennsylvania.
They did it because they knew they could get away with it. When you have the MSM, social media, academia…
Turley:
“Biden not the only loser revealed by shocking Hur audio”—
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jonathan-turley-biden-not-only-loser-revealed-shocking-hur-audio
Concluding grafs:
[Emphasis mine; Barry M.]
Where is the rest of the Hur recording? Why just the snippet ?
Does Tom Arnold have the tape?
Never mind..
@miguel:Big Brother was real
Winston Smith can remember back to the late 40s/early 50s, and can’t remember any other name for him but Big Brother, or any mention of him before the 1960s. Had he been a real person Smith should have remembered things about him like his real name, before he took over and could call himself whatever he wanted and make everyone go along–had Castro had that kind of power there would be people thirty years later who remembered a name other than El Jefe.
The Party doesn’t need a specific leader anyway, that’s the whole point of the ageless and anonymous Big Brother. The Party already wrote Big Brother into the history of the 1930s, which would make Big Brother something like 80 yet they portray him as in his 40s, they’re not even trying to create a plausible legend. The Party tries to create an eternal present.
the Resistance was fake
The one Winston Smith joined was fake. Hard to see how there could have been real ones, but perhaps.
West TX (et al) …
I recall reading in at least one place that re-election was on the minds of the Biden kitchen cabinet from January 2021. I never thought the Kamala gambit made much sense, especially the claim Biden was a stalking horse to get her in the Oval Office. Subsequent reporting has been that Jill hated her which likely would have stymied a swap, in addition to the baksheesh that Hunter and co were gathering. Even Obama was a best lukewarm to her and was in favor of a primary or open convention (if you accept the spin on his actions). The Democrats greased the skids for Biden’s nomination in 2024, and certainly didn’t seem to have any standing plan for replacement when the debate turned into a disaster.
I think PJ O’Rourke put it succinctly in 2010,
“They Hate Our Guts”
I was really referring to O’Brien, rather than Big Brother, yes there are some inconsistencies, like how could Big Brother have arisen before the great war that birthed the superstates, (Orwells nod to Burnham) why would so much of airship one, have been under nuclear attack for so long, then there is the unpersons, Aarronson and Rutherford, as well the third one, who were once party members,
the Brotherhood, probably is an echo of the Trust from the Lenin days, which Stalin dismantled, in the first round of mini purges that claimed Savinkov and Reilly
but in the bigger picture, who was going to call out the scranton apparatchiks nakedness it wasn’t going to be any of the so called mainstream press,,
“Why Did They Do It?”
Possibly, the pipeline from the donors, NGOs, foundations, law firms, advocacy groups ran straight to the White House and Biden’s team. Your father’s or grandfather’s Democratic Party no longer exists.
I just now read this great post and commentary. I have some things to say but, gotta run… again. Thanks for the VDH, Klein, et al. material everybody.
Regarding Derangement Syndrome, I think the modern form of it first began to emerge in the 1970s with Nixon. It accelerated with Reagan.
The thing is that the 1970s is when the fundamental _cultural_ divide emerged in America (and across the West), a cultural divide that also overlaps a class divide. Thus politics began to take on the overtones of a _religious_ dispute. Personal emotional security, and fundamental issues of personal identity, began to be in play.
At the same time, a ruling elite emerged from the colleges in the 60s and 70s alienated from the general public in their own nation-states, and no little bit contemptuous of them.
A toxic brew.
HC68,
I agree.
Mrs. Whatsit.
I suppose it depends on the definition of “decent”. If you mean competent and politically capable and knowledgeable in dem politics, capable of getting to presidential-level competition, that’s one thing.
But a “decent” person would have to buy the Dem platform all the way up–and down to the local.
So I guess it depends.
“They did it because they knew they could get away with it. When you have the MSM, social media, academia…” — Delilah
Yes. That’s the key to the power of the Establishment (which is primarily Democratic, but has a Republican auxilliary). There’s an old joke in politics that “if it wasn’t for the media, Massachusetts would vote like Texas and Texas would vote like Genghis Khan”.
Of course the media in this sense also includes academia, and almost all of our institutions. The ruling class has used them to push their own agenda since forever, that’s what makes them the ruling class (and there is _always_ a ruling class). But since the 1970s, the current ruling elite agenda has been running at cross-purposes with that of the commoners.
The downside, for the ruling class, is that as they use the institutions to run contrary to the needs, interests, and beliefs of the general population, they’ve been burning through their credibility and social capital, to the point now that practically no institution is trusted or respected. The ruling elite is thus getting somewhat panicky and desperate.
The various lawfare attacks on Trump were not signs of strength, they were signs of fear and panic, trying to suppress a possible Trump return _and_ trying to send a message to other would-be outsider candidates not to run. The message was ‘don’t run or we’ll destroy you!’ But Trump survived and was strengthened.
Have you noticed that ‘Maryland father Kilmar Garcia’ has almost vanished from the media discourse? A few weeks ago he was all they talked about, now they’re trying to change the subject, because for all the efforts of the media, the truth of the situation got out anyway and it was becoming a political liability.
Likewise, the scramble right now to find scapegoats for the Biden senility coverup. This has become a real problem for the Dems, and they’re flailing.
Which is not to say they’re beaten! But they do feel threatened in a way that they haven’t in their living memory…and they’re getting scared.
It’s a very fluid, unstable situation.