Monday, November 21, 2022

Our So-Called Democratic Politics

By now the whole world knows. President Joe Biden is cerebrally impaired. He was cerebrally impaired when he ran for office two years ago. He has not gotten any better, Foreign leaders have taken the measure of the man and of American democracy and have come away thinking less of it and of us. 

Scott Johnson describes Biden for the Powerline blog (via Maggie's Farm):


SLOW JOE TURNS 80

President Biden turns 80 today. We wish him a happy birthday.


I should like to think that 80 is not too old to be president, but Biden gives evidence in every public appearance that it is, at least in his case. His handlers sought to conceal his decline by keeping him in the basement during the 2020 presidential campaign. In office, his handlers have sought to conceal his decline by a variety of stratagems. Lest he get lost in a fog during public appearances, for example, his handlers provide him with cards specifying step-by-step instructions in capital letters. And yet he still gets lost in a fog during public appearances. The cards can only do so much.


The Daily Mail notes Biden’s milestone birthday here. The Daily Mail observes matter-of-factly: “President Joe Biden is about to become the first ever octogenarian US president.” There is a reason for that. Some say the rent is too damn high. I say the man is too damn old. In connection with the G20 conference in Bali last week, Arthur Herman observes infirmity in Biden’s China policy.


But then, why did so many Americans allow themselves to be duped by Joe Biden? Assuming that they were.


The simple answer is that they thought he was more presidential. The more complex answer is that Donald Trump was subjected to constant vilification, demonization and defamation-- to the point where people thought he was the Devil. 


Rather than have a deliberative debate over issues and ideas and policies, we have descended to the point where politics feels like a cosmic, even a Biblical conflict between Good and Evil. Leftists stake out the ground of charitable giving and virtue signaling.


If by any chance you were wondering why liberal democracy does not appeal to very many people around the world, this mini-analysis tells us. It tells us that we do not have a liberal democracy, but have a politics that more closely resembles Biblical conflict.



1 comment:

  1. I am not sure whether you intended your concluding phrase about Biblical conflict to be taken literally or metaphorically (I suspect the latter), but I think it is more accurately characterized as literal. The entirety of the leftist, "woke" (I grow so tired of that phrase, but it's an apt descriptor) is to supplant and replace everything Biblical with its opposite. It began oh so subtly, but with each victory, gathered strength; perhaps it could now be characterized as "That Hideous Strength." I do not recall a time in my life when the attack has been so direct, intense and powerful as now, when we see how libertine debauchery is trumpeted by some (many?) as a positive good; when sexual predation on children has been so unabashed; when the cult of Inana/Ishtar has been so overt. The liberal West, having so long tolerated the expression of degeneracy in the name of tolerance and anti-censorship is now being overwhelmed by its foes, like an organism whose immune system has been overwhelmed by an attacking virus. I do not hold out much hope for a recovery by the sick patient, but I do find it ironic and not a little satisfying that the invading virus will die along with its host. Perhaps that is the last and best service that our dying civilization can provide to the rest of the world.

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