July 8, 2021 at 2:04 p.m.
So just who is running the country?
So just who is running the country?
Obviously, the people - the voters - still run this country to some extent. That's why Barack Obama's declaration after his victory in 2008 that "elections have consequences" was so problematic for conservatives: It was true, one of the truest things the former president ever said.
Don't think so? Well, would we have ever had Obamacare if the Democrats didn't control the presidency, the Senate, and the House after the 2008 elections? No way. Because, as Obama said, elections have consequences.
Of course, President Joe Biden and the Democrats also control the government now, and so far they haven't been able to pass the sweeping legislation they once envisioned, though the big-ticket spending items they have passed are bad enough.
Still, they have been waylaid on such things as getting rid of the filibuster and packing the Supreme Court, not because of Republicans but because voters in West Virginia and in Arizona sent moderate Democrats to Washington instead of fellow-traveling Democratic radicals.
Elections have consequences.
To be sure, this is only true to a point. There is also an entrenched ruling class that competes constantly with the people for control. Woke corporations, multinational globalists, Big Tech, Big Media, Big Pharma, the military-industrial/security state apparatus - all these special interests have partnered for years with the growing administrative state to advance a political agenda, democratic processes be damned.
For 30 years the Democratic Party has slowly morphed into the political expression of that ideology, the political wing of corporate globalism-liberalism, just as the media is its communications' wing.
The political battle in this nation is not so much between left and right as it is between that ruling class and the rest of us. Left and right fissures dance around the margins, and, indeed, for the sake of this analysis, this ruling agglomeration is neither left nor right but capable of going after both to preserve the elites' push for power.
Deep down all of us have known this was true for a long time. But this coalition of self-appointed authorities exposed itself clearly after Donald Trump's stunning victory in 2016, and then brazenly and rawly exercised its coercive and unconstitutional powers during the Covid-19 pandemic.
At least we know in this new world who our real opponents are.
Right now no one has won or lost the battle and no side is hegemonic. On the people side of the equation, conservatives battle liberals and identity groups tussle for turf, while on the other side Big Pharma and Big Media are not always aligned, just as Big Tech and the Democratic Party are not always aligned.
As so we have what might be called a coalition government - the people's representatives chosen though electoral skirmishes between the left and right and other various ideological and socioeconomic factions, governing in coalition with a patchwork of ruling class interests who lobby and otherwise press their favored politicians to pass their agenda.
The people - through their power over Congress and the presidency - manage to keep things in check, more or less.
This is just the way the world really works, and has worked for a long, long time. All of which is why it is so concerning to wonder right now just who is in charge of the executive branch of the federal government. To the naked eye, no one is. It certainly isn't Joe Biden. Grandpa Joe or Creepy Joe or whatever you want to call him is not running the government and everyone knows it.
This is a man who forgot the name of his defense secretary and where the guy works. This is a man given to leaning over his lectern and whispering answers to questions in a creepy voice. This is a man who thinks Latinos aren't getting vaccinated because they are afraid of being deported, meaning he thinks all of them are here illegally.
This is a man who confused the heroic Tuskegee Airmen with the victims of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. More than once! This is a man who couldn't remember GOP leader Kevin McCarthy's name just after meeting with him, and who, trying to remember the Declaration of Independence, said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women are created, by the, you know, you know the thing."
Yeah, the thing.
And he freely admits he can't really find his way out of a paper bag, constantly saying he can't answer questions or do this or that because he will get in trouble with his handlers. He once left the lectern and headed straight toward a doorless wall until he was intercepted by a handler who could safely extract him from the room.
At this point, the only person who apparently doesn't think the president is suffering from some kind of cognitive issue is Vladimir Putin, not that he would pull our leg or anything.
All this has become so obvious that major media are beginning to ask questions, namely, just who is running the country?
If you think it's Kamala Harris, think again. There isn't much going on with the vice president, either, though we assume she's just in over her head rather than in over her years. Even the liberal Los Angeles Times ran a piece last week criticizing Harris for a lack of any significant engagement in the Senate and being effectively ineffective.
She finally made it to the border in late June, some three months after Biden appointed her to manage the mess there. But that's OK, Biden was probably too busy trying to figure out where he was to worry about where his vice president was, much less know her name.
So, then, just who is running the executive branch of the government? Some people have made jokes about it - we have joked about it too! - but it's a deadly serious question.
For one thing, the nation's commander-in-chief needs to be at the ready in case of a national emergency, be it a natural threat or an enemy threat. Absolutely no one has any confidence that Biden would or could call the shots in a military crisis especially, and who in their right mind would trust him with the nuclear code.
Second, the American people deserve to know who is making the policy decisions and setting the policy agenda inside the White House. It is troubling, to say the least, that Biden, long a warmonger, a friend to big banks, and allegiant to moderate neoliberal social policies, has now veered so far to the left in his short tenure - way to the left of Barack Obama, it should be noted. It suggests someone behind the curtain is pushing the levers.
Say what you will about Donald Trump. One may have loved that he was running the country, or one may have been terrified about that, but at least everyone knew who was in charge. Now we wonder when nap time is in the Oval Office.
Finally, a void doesn't stay a void for very long. The elected president, even the most devoted to the ruling-class coalition, still responds to public pressure and keeps things in check.
But if there is no one there to respond to public pressure, that void will certainly be filled by the special interests of the nation's ruling elite, upsetting any balance of power and threatening the republic's foundations.
For now, someone or some people are clearly trying to run the country. We just don't know who they are.
Former President Donald Trump has some ideas. He believes a group of people is running the show by committee - people with ties to Obama or to Hillary Clinton or to both.
That's unsettling. Government by committee never works very fast - pretty important in a national emergency - and when it does act, it usually showcases inertia, a lack of innovation, and dreariness, stirring brilliant ideas into a pot of mediocrity and boiling it all down into a stew of the pedestrian and forgettable. Just look at Oneida County.
Meanwhile, Joe is out and about eating ice cream cones and being cooed over by the press. He's still trying to teach them the Declaration of Independence: "... all men and women are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, et cetera."
The press loves it - isn't he so adorable - and so do the people, whoever they are, who are actually running the country.
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