Biden Slips a Cog: Second Time as Tragedy, Second Time as Farce, or Both?
Posted on July 2, 2024 by Lambert Strether
By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” –Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
As a former humanities major, an English professor manqué, and a humble blogger pressed for time and words, I strove to avoid and did not yield to putting the word peripeteia in the headline, and in the end succeeded by substituting “plot twist” (from the invaluable TV Tropes):
One of the basic building blocks of plot, a Plot Twist is a sudden, unexpected change in the fortunes or situations of the characters, setting, or plot.
Plot Twists are usually based on the assumption that there is something going on that we, the readers/viewers/players, don’t know about; if we had known about it, it would hardly be surprising. When it is revealed to us, we are surprised and shocked. This includes hidden aspects of particular characters’ backstories or their personalities (“I never would have thought Alice could kick Bob’s head into the locker!”)
Sometimes even when we do have all the information, the twist can come as a shock due to a sudden, unforeseen action by other actors in the plot, the setting or place it’s occurring in. We could see an action that we’d long predicted but not all its ramifications, so the shock value is still there. (There is also the “hidden aspect” of Jill Biden’s character, which we’ll get to.)
Here for your viewing pleasure is the plot twist in question (repeating from here). Biden’s slippage, in his June 27 debate on CNN with former President Trump:
Never thought thought that "because you'd be in jail" could be eclipsed but this just topped it. The most devastating 30 seconds in presidential debate history. pic.twitter.com/W2HpKwPR2L
— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) June 28, 2024
https://twitter.com/i/status/1806526336397132032
Whether or not Biden “slipping a cog” is “shocking” (or perhaps “shocking, shocking”) is “unexpected” or not (2020; 2024), it certainly has shock value from “setting or place”: seen, live, on national television, by 51.3 million viewers, and never to be unseen[2]. So, from the standpoint of sense-making, “Plot Twist” is pretty good. However, the Aristolian peripeteia is much better, as we shall see[1].
In this post, I will present some sense-making tools for the dramatic series of events that followed and will follow Biden’s emission of grinding, clunking, and clashing sounds on the national stage. A caveat: That doesn’t mean I’ll actually be able to make sense of the situation, for reasons I will explain. However, we can at least make sense of what we area allowed to see as “the narrative” plays out. To help with that, I will first consider Biden’s slippage as a farce; I will then argue that Marx’s “tragedy” vs. “farce” epigram, though witty, is false; and I shall then consider Biden’s slippage as a tragedy, with particular attention to the individuals who surround him. Throughout, I will take up issues current in the news flow; just not using the frames many are accustomed to.
Biden’s Slippage as a Farce
Imagine you are sitting in the audience at a play, watching the characters speak their lines on the stage, enjoying the spectacle. Suddenly the scenery collapses, along with the “legs” that hide the wings, and everything that’s going on backstage is revealed! Hilarity ensues. Until order is restored, you see frantic stagehands, managers, costumers, make-up artists, maybe even intimacy coordinators and investors running around waving their hands and shouting. Something similar happened following Biden’s slippage:
What’s been fun has been to see people speaking openly and honestly, and with passion, under the belief that what they say might matter. And that they are free to say what they think.
This rip in the blanket will be quickly sewn back up, but this genuine space for authentic…
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) June 30, 2024
Of course, this “genuine space” will be quickly suppressed. However, the imagined spectacle I just posited reminds me of a wonderful farce called Noises Off, which I saw in London back in my traveling days. Noises Off is a play within a play, and it too collapses the distinction between stage and backstage, between on-stage and off. Here is a sample from the script (video of the full play, starting in the same place). Use Monty Python voices in your mind for the characters:
In this rehearsal, we see a process surely much like that Biden insiders must have experienced when they “overprepared” their candidate. After all, “I open my mouth, and I never know if its going to come out three oranges or two lemons and a banana” describes Biden’s performance to a T, doesn’t it? (Dotty speaks “openly and honestly,” which is one reason Noises Off is so entertaining.)
My OED defines farce as “a dramatic work intended only to excite laughter,” and really, what else can we do? Wikipedia goes a little further, and defines farce as, among other things, “characterized by heavy use of physical humor” (Dotty’s sardines; Biden’s slippage. For this reason, farce is considered the lowest dramatic form, with tragedy the highest). Farce also includes “situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd,” “ludicrous, improbable, and exaggerated characters; and broadly stylized performances.” Finally, in farce the characters are static; they are implacably who they are. We don’t watch Fawlty Towers for Basil Fawlty’s character development, after all. All these characteristics apply to the dramatic incidents following Biden’s slippage which I will now present.
(1) Situations that are highly absurd. Donor hysteria:
A debate watch party in Los Angeles on Thursday night happened to feature Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff, Pritzker, Whitmer and Beshear. There were other high-profile attendees – by a few answers in, Rob Reiner was screaming about losing and Jane Fonda had tears in her eyes, according to people in the room.
(2) Physical humor. Via alert reader randy, from Politico, What’s wrong with the picture:
Just like the sardines! (“Ron, which way do I hold the phone? Did I hold it that way before?”)
(3) Situations that are extravagant:
Camp David: Biden family spent morning not having a summit but in hair and makeup for a shoot with Annie Leibovitz, Vogue photog who shot Biden/Obama/Clinton in March then suggested doing something informal with the Bidens. Family suggested this week, bc Hunter & family in town.
— Katie Rogers (@katierogers) June 30, 2024
(4) Static characters:
I will respect the limits of presidential powers that I have for three and a half years. But any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law.
I concur with what Justice Sotomayor wrote today:
"With fear for our democracy—I dissent."
So do I. pic.twitter.com/YmrPBMQhgY
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 2, 2024
Four minutes, no questions. No action. Just as static as Basil Fawlty.
So much for farce. Let us now turn to The Bearded One.
Marx’s Epigram is Wrong
The country has had an impaired President whose condition was kept from the President at least once before now (if we omit both FDR and Reagan in their last terms[3]). President Wilson:
Following his attendance at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Woodrow Wilson returned to the United States to campaign for Senate approval of the peace treaty and the League of Nations Covenant. However, the president suffered a stroke that October which left him bedridden and partially paralyzed. The United States never did ratify the Treaty of Versailles nor join the League of Nations, which had initially been Wilson’s concept. At the time, non-interventionist sentiment was strong….. Edith Wilson and others in the President’s inner circle (including his physician and a few close friends) hid the true extent of the president’s illness and disability from the American public. Edith also took over a number of routine duties and details of the executive branch of the government from the onset of Wilson’s illness until he left office almost a year and a half later. From October 1919 to the end of Wilson’s term on March 4, 1921, Edith, acting in the role of First Lady and shadow steward, decided who and which communications and matters of state were important enough to bring to the bedridden president.
The historical parallel between Wilson and Biden (or, more precisely, between Edith Wilson and Jill Biden) is clear: The presence of “an inner circle” — that is, an extra-constitutional entity at the head of the executive branch. (Article II, Section 1: “The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of Ameria.” We elect one person, not that one person’s family, friends, or milieu.) Thinking about this topic makes me queasy: I’m more used to using tools like Ferguson et al.’s industrial model, or class analysis, or institutionalism. In blogging as in life, I’m less than comfortable with small group dynamics, let alone individual personalities.[4] Presumably, the humanities can help me with that! But here we are; in a crisis, things correlate, and I suppose they do correlate in the persons of people who happen to be “in the wrong place at the wrong time” and embody the titanic forces at play.
Small group dynamics entered the chat just before the debate on June 18 with a short Daily Mail story: “‘The only people who could force him out would be Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,’ one Democratic strategist told DailyMail.com. ‘It would have to be the four of them collectively'” (first time I’ve heard a Democrat use the word “collectively” in a long time). The interlocutors on the Biden side are not named, but presumably they are a small group too). Small group dynamics make their next appearance on June 22 in the New York Times:
with dozens of people close to the president reveal a truth at the heart of Mr. Biden’s political life: While he is surrounded by a diverse and multigenerational crowd of campaign operatives, policy experts and cabinet secretaries, he reserves his full trust for a small circle of insiders who are the definition of old school.
(The three are Mike Donilon, Ted Kaufman, and Ron Klain. Mike Donilon’s brother, Tom, is married to Jill BIden’s former chief-of-staff. Klain, of course, set the course for Biden’s Covid policy of mass infection without mitigation before Jeff Zients took over. Kaufman, among other things, headed the Biden-Harris Transition Team.)
Another small group story came on June 29, from Axios, this one closer to the bone: “Behind the Curtain: Biden oligarchy will decide fate:”
The only way President Biden steps aside, despite his debate debacle, is if the same small group of lifelong loyalists who enabled his run suddenly — and shockingly — decides it’s time for him to call it quits. Dr. Jill Biden; his younger sister, Valerie Biden; and 85-year-old Ted Kaufman, the president’s longtime friend and constant adviser — plus a small band of White House advisers [who?]— are the only Biden deciders.
So, although everybody who is anybody agrees that Biden trust and works in a very small group, nobody is quite clear on who the group members are (Franklin Foer, who wrote a book on Biden’s White House, writes “The group around President Joe Biden is familial to the core,” but doesn’t name the group members (!)). I’m inclined to believe that Axios got it more right than the Time because Jill Biden is part of the group:
Prepping for the G7. pic.twitter.com/drPmb2vBwI
— Jill Biden (@FLOTUS) June 9, 2021
However, Joe Biden is also, as it were, clan leader of the Bidens, who are all lending each other no-interest loans and wetting their beaks in the money stream generated for them by Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling operation. Dear Hunter! Surely they must have a representative in the small group as well, and Hunter’s presence makes sense from that perspective.
I’ve been trying to think of a word for this extra-constitutional entity, this small group that would play — or perhaps is already playing the same role in the Biden Presidency that the group around Edith Wilson played in Wilsons. The Axios URL shows the original headline was something like biden-debate-replace-advisers, but the editors jacked it up to read “Biden oligarchy.” But that’s wrong; oligarchy is an entire political system. (“Biden oligarchs” might have been OK, but to me, an oligarch is a member of the only small group that really matters: The squillioniares, and although Biden et al. may service the squillioniares, they are not, themselves, squillionaires.) I thought of cabal, milieu, gang, clique, crew, faction, team, troop, club, coterie, posse, and finally settled on the term “circle,” since a circle has a center (Biden), connotes repetitiveness and stability, and has allied terms “social circle” and “inner circle.”
So to repeat, everybody agrees that Biden has a tight circle, and must be approached through it, but everybody is much less clear about who the members of that circle actually are. To me, that’s an interesting result!
Oh, and the subhead: Marx’s epigram is wrong, because although the Wilson and Biden circles as extra-constitutional entities are historical parallels, the Wilson circle, so far as I can tell (Wilson-era historians please correct me) was neither tragedy nor farce, and the Biden Circle is now mired in both farce and tragedy, as I shall now show. (Note that I will not map current events to an Aristolian plot line; I am simply appropriating the concepts and twisting them to my purposes.)
Biden’s Slippage as Tragedy
We have already spoken of Plot Twists; here is the more rigorous Aristotelian theory. From the Brittanica:
The most powerful elements of emotional interest in tragedy, according to Aristotle, are reversal of intention or situation (peripeteia) and recognition scenes (anagnōrisis), and each is most effective when it is coincident with the other. In Oedipus, for example, the messenger who brings Oedipus news of his real parentage, intending to allay his fears, brings about a sudden reversal of his fortune, from happiness to misery, by compelling him to recognize that his wife is also his mother.
We can see that Biden’s Cog Slippage was both peripeteia and anagnōrisis. The reversal of fortune: The Biden campaign wanted and early debate because they hoped both dispatch Trump and to show that Biden’s cognition was unimpaired (as they successfully did with the SOTU). Instead, to anyone but a party loyalist, the debate was a disaster; it revealed precisely what the campaign hoped to conceal. The recognition scene, multiple levels: Biden himself (“‘I don’t walk as easy as I used to, I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to,’ he said, as the crowd chanted ‘four more years'”); Biden’s circle; much of the Democrat Party; and many, many millions of viewers all recognized the Cog Slippage as serious and undeniable.
Another Aristotelian term: hamartia. Again from the Brittanica:
Hamartia, (hamartia from Greek hamartanein, “to err”), inherent defect or shortcoming in the hero of a tragedy, who is in other respects a superior being favoured by fortune.
Aristotle introduced the term casually in the Poetics in describing the tragic hero as a man of noble rank and nature whose misfortune is not brought about by villainy but by some ‘error of judgment’ (hamartia). This imperfection later came to be interpreted as a moral flaw, such as Othello’s jealousy or Hamlet’s irresolution, although most great tragedies defy such a simple interpretation. Most importantly, the hero’s suffering and its far-reaching reverberations are far out of proportion to his flaw. An element of cosmic collusion among the hero’s flaw, chance, necessity, and other external forces is essential to bring about the tragic catastrophe.
I believe that the tragic flaw common to Biden and his circle is loyalty. From Politico in 2020, “Biden Rewards Loyalty“:
The best way to get a job in the Biden White House is to have once worked for President-elect Joe Biden
That much has become clear this past week, with 13 of the first 14 White House appointments going to former Biden staffers. Several were high-ranking officials on the 2020 campaign or were in the vice president’s office but many also go back decades — to his Senate office or even his 1988 presidential run. Biden’s transition team is also full of Biden veterans, suggesting many more are likely to pop up in his administration.
The hires are part of a larger dynamic in Biden-world: he values loyalty.
President Barack Obama’s Defense secretary, Leon Panetta, who also served with Biden in Congress, described Biden’s approach to politics as “street smarts” versus “Harvard smart.” He said that “part of that street ethic is loyalty to people and loyalty to friends.”
Biden can sometimes put loyalty above optics, even when it’s politically risky — a dynamic to watch closely for in the administration when a scandal inevitably hits.
Loyalty as one of Biden’s central values goes back to Biden’s family upbringing. From Marie Claire:
Jean Biden passed away in 2010.
When Jean passed away, she was surrounded by loved ones including her great-grandchildren. “At 92, she was the center of our family and taught all of her children that family is to be treasured, loyalty is paramount and faith will guide you through the tough times. She believed in us, and because of that, we believed in ourselves,” the Bidens said in a statement. “Her strength, which was immeasurable, will live on in all of us.”.
“Family is to be treasured, loyalty is paramount and faith will guide you through the tough times.” Couldn’t describe the Biden circle better (and not in a good way). From People:
“My dad used to say, ‘Family is the beginning, the middle, and the end,’ ” Joe shared in a speech at the White House in 2023.
As Harry Truman is said to have said: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” Certainly it’s A Good Thing not to be surrounded by betrayers and schemers. And loyalty, like courage, is a real virtue (of course, some Nazis had courage, so it’s not the only virtue). But the loyalty in Biden’s circle seems to be so strong that they can’t bear to take the car keys away from him, when they clearly should.
Here, from a source outside Biden’s circle, is a description of Biden’s fate:
Good morning everyone pic.twitter.com/TxxA87Twn8
— Lindsay Ballant (@lindsayballant) June 30, 2024
This is the part where “far-reaching reverberations are far out of proportion to his flaw.” No doubt the people in Biden’s circle think of themselves, and want to be thought of, as good, as do most of us. But the elder abuse they are visiting on Biden is not good, and that’s their tragedy, brought about by the tragic flaw they share with Biden.
Conclusion
There is much else to write; extra-constitional entities making decisions for the executive branch could certainly be seen as tragic by a constitutional scholar[5], but I must stop here with a final Aristotelian term: catharsis. Once more from the Brittanica:
In criticism, catharsis is a metaphor used by Aristotle in the Poetics to describe the effects of true tragedy on the spectator. The use is derived from the medical term katharsis (Greek: “purgation” or “purification”). Aristotle states that the purpose of tragedy is to arouse “terror and pity” and thereby effect the catharsis of these emotions…. The interpretation generally accepted is that through experiencing fear vicariously in a controlled situation, the spectator’s own anxieties are directed outward, and, through sympathetic identification with the tragic protagonist, his insight and outlook are enlarged. Tragedy then has a healthful and humanizing effect on the spectator or reader.
We can only hope. I’m here for the pity and terror, but I don’t see when or how catharsis will take place in 2024.
NOTES
[1] My use of Peripeteia is not the hotdoggery it may seem; the term is known in the gaming community, as one would expect it to be.
[2] All the tweets I saw from the fraction of the political class that wants Biden to drop out medicalized the slippage (“dementia,” “senility”). All the tweets I saw from dull normals and muppets spoke of signs they saw before they had to “take the keys away” from an elder family member. Here is the single thread I saw — not from the political class — that mentioned the possibility that Biden had suffered cognitive damage from his two Covid infections. See NC here: “A sociopathic elite is one thing, that we’re used to; but a sociopathic elite with brain damage is quite another.” Interestingly, Biden comment on boxing:
My dad had an expression. He said, “Champ, it’s not how many times you get knocked down. It’s how quickly you get up.”
I'm told there's even a song about it. pic.twitter.com/0DG2lj1Zz7
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 28, 2024
I’d say the brain damage counts for something with boxing too!
[3] To my surprise, CBS: “Physicians diagnosed Reagan with Alzheimer’s approximately five years after he left office but the date of the onset will likely be pondered by political historians and medical experts for years to come.” Leaving the medicalese of “dementia” aside, it’s not clear to me that Reagan ever reached the “take the car keys away” stage. Of course, Reagan had a better staff, an even more compliant press, and better hagiographers than Biden has ever had.
[4] I vehemently oppose the “great man” theory of history.
[5] There are rather a lot of extra-Constitutional entities playing roles just now, as if we had an unwritten Constitution like the U.K.: Political parties, the intelligence community, even the press…
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/07 ... -both.html
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The Emperor has no mind: The scripted “overthrow” of Biden
Joaquin Flores
July 3, 2024
You can follow Joaquin as XF on Telegram @NewResistance
Both candidates performed as we had expected. And therein lies the rub, Joaquin Flores writes.
The first 2024 U.S. Presidential debate between incumbent Joe Biden and challenger Donald Trump was, in itself, somewhat uneventful. It was the aftermath which gave us the big surprise which now dominates headlines across the country – Democrats want Joe Biden to drop out.
The uneventfulness of the debate itself runs contrary to the current buzz in the corporate-owned legacy media, but it is an important truth to remember as we try to parse out what indeed is the strategy of the American political elite for Election Day come November.
Besides the hilarious exchange between a mumbling bumbling Biden and an uber-confident Trump over declared height and golf handicaps, both candidates performed as we had expected. And therein lies the rub.
Biden performed at least as well, if not better, than anything we’ve seen in the past two years, perhaps the past four. The week-long break at Camp David which Biden enjoyed, no doubt under medical supervision and with a whole team of personal trainers reminiscent of Ivan Drago’s entourage, was probably a successful intervention. We can imagine the scene at Camp David: Hard facts being dished out by Biden in training (like Drago’s 2100 psi punches), interrupted by long syringes into his arm filled with Risperidone (instead of anabolic steroids).
Does Biden clearly have dementia? Yes. Has it been known for years? Yes. Was this among Biden’s top performances in the past four years? Also, yes. Risperidone is a wonder-drug for controlling psychotic and dissociative episodes associated with Alzheimer’s, but its side effects include the very Parkinsonism that we so often see with him.
So what’s going on inside America’s deep state, or the DNC, or among the donor class, or the CIA, or any and all of the above? This is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.
If there was anything like a surprise, it was the performance given by Donald Trump. He was polite, unobtrusive, and lacking in the over-the-top sardonicism which most definitely characterized his approaches in both the 2016 and 2020 debates. It was perhaps aimed at the very demographic which, in the present year, are ‘undecided’ voters. The odd debate rules which cut off the mic of the candidate ‘not allowed to speak’ absolutely aided Trump, (even though by most accounts it had been put in place to assist Biden), and perhaps this factor also played a role in the ‘taming’ of Trump.
Now these undecided voters are themselves a strange lot, which almost certainly guarantees that they are in the very category which concerned citizens would almost like to see banned from voting, or at the very least, pass a literacy test. As Americans, we have already had four years of Trump, and four years of Biden. If any would-be customer at the ice-cream line is still asking for tiny pink plastic spoon samples of either candidate, perhaps it’s just that ice-cream categorically isn’t for them, and they ought to stay home.
Be that as it may, Trump came off cool-headed, and collected. Naturally, both candidates are prone to cite figures and statistics which reflect particular ways of parsing the numbers, that in turn may or may not be genuine reflections of actual reality.
It wasn’t a surprise that senile Biden had difficulties remembering figures, facts, arguments, proper nouns, and English syntax, throughout the debate. Or that he would simply blank out at times, mouth agape, spittle forming at the corners, looking confusedly at his podium, his shoes, or imaginary objects in his periphery.
The insufferable Cenk Uygur, an unconvincing actor cum two-bit salesman, went so far as to blame CNN for using a split screen when Trump was speaking. This is because as Trump was speaking, instead of just cutting to/framing Trump, they continued to show the candidates side-by-side.
Cenk wasn’t upset that we have an unfit president, but that CNN didn’t bother to hide it. It was reminiscent of the ongoings in abusive households when the abusers want the surrounding community to think everything at home is kosher.
CNN, by the way, is a strange media organization in its relationship with Trump. A recording released by CIA asset/operative Tucker Carlson a few years ago revealed CNN’s then-president Jeff Zucker referred to Trump as ‘the boss’ in a phone call with Trump fixer, Michael Cohen as far back as 2016.
This suggested different things to different people, and could mean on the one hand that Trump was just another establishment politician, or, on the other, that there was indeed a split in the establishment and that counter-hegemonic forces up-high were backing Trump from within, i.e., “patriots are in control.” The hyper-reality simulacrum in the U.S. these days is certainly off the charts.
CNN’s high-intensity, unrelenting denunciations and paranoia over Trump over the years, which even made MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow blush, had the “reverse” (i.e. predictable) effect of launching Trump to hero status, or at least helping him considerably along the way. It’s almost as if the blowback was the goal.
Given the reality of things like this, Cenk’s rant may point to something larger at play. His take seems to have been that CNN’s role in this was just too convenient for Trump to not have been a matter of complicity or criminal negligence. While Cenk would probably publicly say ‘negligence’ if pushed, other more sinister possibilities no doubt rattled around his brain much like his peanut-sized brain rattles in his skull.
It wasn’t just that the camera also stayed on mouth-frothing, mind-blanked Biden while Trump spoke. It was that Trump was allowed to use his answering and rebuttal minutes to speak to any subject he wanted without interruption. He was furthermore allowed to ‘lie’ (speak inconvenient three-quarter truths) without being fact-checked. Lastly, the several-minute simulcast delay in the live broadcast (only seconds are technologically required) was believed by both DNC and RNC insiders to be an ‘out’ which would allow Biden-friendly forces at CNN to edit, in real-time, the incumbent’s performance so that we at home didn’t see the ugly truth: The Emperor Has No Mind.
After four years of following an active order to gaslight the American public and the world about Biden’s obviously deteriorated condition, the same print, internet, and television stenographers for power, in the harmonious unison of the Vienna Boys Choir, began suddenly to enchant us with the truth, in glorious vibrato, that Biden was not fit to run.
“And did Biden’s feet, in ancient times, walk upon Washington’s grass so green?”
The synchronised chorus used a particular word: PANIC. MSNBC said panic. WaPo said panic. The NYT said panic. The DNC is in ‘panic’. It actually isn’t, at least not because of this. Paradigmatically, yes – but this chapter in the broader story of the collapse of the Democrat Party, is characterised by its planfulness, not panic. The broader panic is that they are losing credibility in the eyes of the powers that be, whomever they are.
Somehow, and for some reason, something everyone not suffering from TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) knew all along, was squeezed out of the toothpaste tube as if something new. Now, 40% of the voting population came to know something that the other 60% has known since April, 2019. The toothpaste can’t go back in the tube.
There is nothing natural about this, and yet the scripted nature of the whole ordeal is the most obvious point – a point so clear, that our subject here and in the forthcoming installment(s) – will absolutely not be dedicated to establishing such basic facts.
What we want to know is what is going on in the DNC, the CIA, AIPAC, the Deep State, the Donor Class, the crony Capitalists, the Technocrats, the secret Communists, the Bankers, the Ruling Class, the Globalists, the Intel/Info Elite, (insert your own power-analysis here) or whoever or whatever is running things in the U.S. (as it’s rarely if ever been measly elected officials, whom only on the brightest of days we can cleanly elect in to office). As far as terms go, the Ruling Class probably covers it all.
First, we will need to understand the relationship between competing strategies rolled out by the various would-be system managers – power juntas – and how these are presented to the ruling class as the various options: Team A with plan A, Team B with plan B, and so on, within the rubric of a broader agreed-upon grand-strategy, under which all competing management teams must frame their specific strategies, stratagems, and tactics.
Since the early 1990s, a period marked by the rise of ‘third-way’ politics under Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, the Western political system has been rebranded along the aesthetically and notionally progressive lines expected by that generation. However, this rebranding lacked genuinely progressive elements, (as defined by the old left), focusing instead on austerity, job outsourcing, strike-breaking, the importation of cheap third world labor, pink-washing in the polity, and regulatory tyranny masked as environmentalism. Metastatic cancer, after all, technically ‘progresses.’
We can add to this two other related phenomena: a.) the rise of the World Economic Forum, mirroring the ‘third-way’ ideology of New Labour in the UK, and the corollary NDLC in the U.S.; and b.) rise of the so-called ‘Rules Based Order’, an approach to IR based on unipower/unidirectional mandates which stand opposed to international law and treaties derived from mutual consent between sovereigns.
Second, we will need to analyze the particular managerial juntas in Beltway/MIC/IC power circles, which are the various technocratic management teams which jockey for power and position within a fixed and arbitrated system of the ruling class.
Third, and providing there may be some additional requirements to numerate, we will need to look at more paradigmatically fresh grand strategy, and a whole new potential vector for competing juntas to propose specific plans within the paradigm – which the ruling class may have to entertain, being promulgated by a new team outside the framework of the various failed strategies of the prior management juntas or teams. That much, hypothetically, would refer to Team Trump.
That third question is also fascinating, because it raises the question of whether and to what extent the Western ruling class is able, planful, part of, or prepared to execute new strategies within a new grand-strategy, in the aftermath of the failure to destroy Russia, contain China, launch a bio-medically induced economic reset, and more.
In conclusion, the first 2024 U.S. Presidential debate between incumbent Joe Biden and challenger Donald Trump, while uneventful in itself, has sparked a seismic aftermath dominating headlines across the country: calls from within the Democratic camp for Biden to step aside.
Contrary to the mantra we are being hit over the head with, the debate’s lack of surprises underscores critical truths, and poses for us even more difficult questions, as we analyze the American political elite’s strategy leading up to November’s Election Day. The real intrigue lies in deciphering the DNC’s internal dynamics, and the broader competing geopolitical strategies at play and the various managerial juntas that promote them. It is here that we find the real ‘panic’.
Looking forward as we continue our investigation into “The Emperor Has No Mind”, the unfolding drama forces us to try to understand the DNC’s response, the influence of intelligence networks, and the potential for paradigm shifts in Western strategies in the wake of rising multipolarity and the end of the U.S. as a uniquely global hegemon.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... -of-biden/
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New US govt official quits citing Biden's 'funding and enabling' of Gaza genocide
At least a dozen US officials have resigned since October in opposition to Washington's continued support of Israel's campaign of genocide
News Desk
JUL 3, 2024
(Photo Credit: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The White House on 2 July was hit by a new resignation from an official opposing President Joe Biden's unrestrained support for the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
“I am resigning today from my position as a Biden administration appointee in the Department of the Interior. As a Muslim American, I cannot continue working for an administration that ignores the voices of its diverse staff by continuing to fund and enable Israel's genocide of Palestinians,” Maryam Hassanein, the former special assistant and assistant secretary for land and minerals management, said in a letter posted on social media.
“Instead of using US leverage to stop the killing, President Biden has continued funding this violence, while fueling hate crimes against Palestinian Americans by repeating anti-Arab tropes and outright lies,” Hassanein's letter adds.
Her resignation came just hours before 12 former US government officials who quit in opposition to the Israeli genocide of Palestinians issued a joint public statement recommending the White House “change course,” calling Biden's policy on Gaza “a failure and a threat to US national security” that “dehumanizes both Palestinians and Jews.”
“This failed policy has not achieved its stated objectives – it has not made Israelis any safer, it has emboldened extremists while it has been devastating for the Palestinian people, ensuring a vicious cycle of poverty and hopelessness, with all the implications of that cycle, for generations to come. As a group of dedicated Americans in service of our country, we insist that there is another way,” the joint statement reads.
“Our nation’s political and economic interests across the region have also been significantly harmed, while US credibility has been deeply undermined worldwide at a time we need it most, when the world is characterized by a new era of strategic competition … Who does not now laugh when Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken describes the ‘rules-based international order’ while simultaneously undermining it in favor of Israel?” the statement goes on to add.
Several US military and government officials have resigned since October in protest against Washington’s support of Israel. In February, US airman Aaron Bushnell self-immolated in protest to the official US position outside of Israel’s embassy in Washington, DC.
“I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” Bushnell said in a live stream before the act. After lighting himself on fire, he could be heard yelling “Free Palestine!” through the flames before collapsing.
https://thecradle.co/articles/new-us-go ... a-genocide
