I fully agreed with Aldous' "Farewell to a Mediocre President" piece. I'm also someone who was not excited about Biden running again, who was convinced by Ezra Klein's piece in early 2024 that Biden needed to step aside, and who argued heavily against simply replacing Biden with Harris once he finally did (https://gordonstrause.substack.com/p/2024-the-pre-mortem).
Having said all that, I find this article maddeningly and deliberately obtuse, particularly when it suggests that the "Trump is an existential threat to democracy" case is somehow undermined by the Biden candidacy.
First, if you believe that Trump is a threat to democracy and it's critical for him to be defeated, then there certainly was a reasonable case to be made for sticking with Biden. Incumbency comes with great advantages and an open race to be his successor had the potential to create fissures within the Democratic party and undermine its unity.
So while I became convinced earlier than most that it was the wrong decision to continue to stand behind Biden (and then a mistake to transition to Kamala), I was never 100% sure that I was right. One could certainly come to a different conclusion, while still being fully motivated by then belief that a Trump candidacy would be catastrophic to the country. I'm guessing that folks on both sides of the Biden debate would fully agree with my assessment of Trump:
Second, when folks like me talk about Trump being a threat to democracy, we're literally talking about the fact that Trump has the potential to put the country into an Orbanesque spiral that could truly mean the end of free and fair elections. That is fundamentally different and scarier than having a President who is debilitated. While it wasn't good for America that the last year of Wilson's Presidency was fundamentally run by his staff, it also wasn't a threat to America's future as a democracy. When someone like Aldous purposefully tries to elide that difference it makes for a very frustrating read.
Educated people that are so media gaslighted and Astroturfed never fails to impress.
"Trump has the potential to put the country into an Orbanesque spiral that could truly mean the end of free and fair elections."
LOL.
Yet your globalist Regime heroes canceled a viable popular candidate in France and also canceled an election in Romania. Of course, that was after they had their COVID authoritarian orgasms.
Sorry pal, you rant about Trump being a threat to democracy is the stuff clearly identifying you as a non-thinking entity.
A little better Frank. At this rate, you may actually post something substantive one day. Congrats on the progress!
Anyway, I'm not exactly sure who you consider "globalist Regime heroes", but as it happens I actually agree with you about France (and probably Romania though I haven't followed events their closely enough to really form an opinion). Noah Millman has a typically good take here on the Le Pen decision:
My view is that of a global cabal of professional management class elites, with money ties to the CCP and backing from Wall Street and the US deep state and DC swamp, that have filled their personal accounts and power positions largely from the benefits of the US-funded Global Order... and are desperate for the globalism project to continue on because they are completely tooled into it as their money and power-making sandbox. Their agenda is collectivist authoritarianism. COVID made them show their cards. They are completely illiberal and anti-Western principles of liberalism (classic liberalism which is really libertarian paternalism) and democratic capitalism.
Orban, Milei, Meloni and Trump are all the democratically elected Churchills of our time leading the WWIII fight of the allies against this global collectivist authoritarian tyranny. The attempt to paint them as moral extremists guilty of the crimes of the enemy is an age-old propaganda tactic of authoritarian tyrannical power take-over attempts throughout history.
Trump is a threat to democracy-killing bureaucracy. So is Orban.
Thanks for laying out what you believe Frank. Think there is far too much there to either debunk or prove in a Substack comments section, but I do have two last questions:
- Is there a specifc essay or writer you would recommend that you think best encapsulates your views?
- Can you name a few members of the "global cabal of professional management class elites...whose agenda is collectivist authoritarianism"?
I don't understand how the Democrats can rail about how Trump is such a danger to democracy, and at the same time expect a demented old man and an inept VP to win another election. Then when the demented old man fumbles the debate, they allow the inept VP to take his place. In spite of Trump being raked over the coals before, during and after his presidency, he still takes the Oval Office because the Democrats fielded such lousy candidates. What did they expect?
The one thing the Democrats must do is create a better version of itself. They could start in California by rejecting Harris and Becerra as candidates for governor. Biden administration officials need to be held in contempt by members of their own party. Newsom and everyone in his administration should do not deserve to be promoted to higher office. The California Democratic Party meets this weekend in Anaheim. A thorough overhaul of the party that put Trump back in office should be the top item on the agenda, instead of another rinse and repeat with the same set of incumbents, ineffective policies and entrenched interests.
There are no bright-line thresholds in mental decline. When the President experiences a serious injury or illness, it’s easy to point to the moment they become unfit to serve, but aging isn’t like that. For that reason, it’s important that we place a fairly conservative age limit on offices of significant public trust, including not just the Presidency, but Supreme Court justices and maybe even Senators. If you can’t finish your term before, say, age 72, you shouldn’t be allowed to run in the first place.
To MAGA acolytes, Trump represents the epitome of leadership and political savvy. To Democrats and Independents, Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024 were nothing more than acceptable mediocrity put forward by the party as excellent choices for president.
While I keep hoping it's time to let Biden by bygone, the main thrust of this essay still has to be top of mind: the White House Politburo (a Pulitzer for whoever came up with that phrase) and all its counterparts throughout the democratic party have to be the focus. And, of course, they can't be since that would require a self-consciousness that the party finds impossible to acknowledge, much less correct.
I do have to add that the author's astonishment that the 25th Amendment was not seriously considered isn't astonishing at all, and the final paragraphs explain why. If it were invoked and passed, Kamala Harris would have been our President, and with the natural media bump, possibly a likely electoral winner.
Biden was bad, but his party had already done enough damage to its credibility, and even they could see nothing good coming of putting Biden out to pasture prematurely. President Harris might not have been as awful as President Trump, but she would have given us as many eye-rolls and sighs as Trump ever has.
"What this all speaks to is the entitlement of a political operation that believed the norms and ethics of government were a yardstick only to be applied to the other side." This is the standard operating procedure with escalating privilege to the party in power and with the politically aligned commentators using this logic to support more extreme expressions of majority privilege enhancing executive power.
One thing that can be extracted from the context of the Biden administration and understood at last as a political fact of life is that Section 4 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment exists only in theory except when the president is approximately comatose. No vice president will ever lead a revolt of the Cabinet against a president who is conscious and determined to remain in power, much less count on winning a second struggle over the president's formal protest (as per the provisions of Section 4).
I think that’s very unlikely, though. Since an incumbent president is the de facto leader of the party, it would take a rare set of circumstances to bring it about.
I fully agreed with Aldous' "Farewell to a Mediocre President" piece. I'm also someone who was not excited about Biden running again, who was convinced by Ezra Klein's piece in early 2024 that Biden needed to step aside, and who argued heavily against simply replacing Biden with Harris once he finally did (https://gordonstrause.substack.com/p/2024-the-pre-mortem).
Having said all that, I find this article maddeningly and deliberately obtuse, particularly when it suggests that the "Trump is an existential threat to democracy" case is somehow undermined by the Biden candidacy.
First, if you believe that Trump is a threat to democracy and it's critical for him to be defeated, then there certainly was a reasonable case to be made for sticking with Biden. Incumbency comes with great advantages and an open race to be his successor had the potential to create fissures within the Democratic party and undermine its unity.
So while I became convinced earlier than most that it was the wrong decision to continue to stand behind Biden (and then a mistake to transition to Kamala), I was never 100% sure that I was right. One could certainly come to a different conclusion, while still being fully motivated by then belief that a Trump candidacy would be catastrophic to the country. I'm guessing that folks on both sides of the Biden debate would fully agree with my assessment of Trump:
https://gordonstrause.substack.com/p/the-return-of-donald-trump-a-tragedy
Second, when folks like me talk about Trump being a threat to democracy, we're literally talking about the fact that Trump has the potential to put the country into an Orbanesque spiral that could truly mean the end of free and fair elections. That is fundamentally different and scarier than having a President who is debilitated. While it wasn't good for America that the last year of Wilson's Presidency was fundamentally run by his staff, it also wasn't a threat to America's future as a democracy. When someone like Aldous purposefully tries to elide that difference it makes for a very frustrating read.
Exhibit A of why the Democrats suck so much.
MAGA eloquence never fails to impress.
Educated people that are so media gaslighted and Astroturfed never fails to impress.
"Trump has the potential to put the country into an Orbanesque spiral that could truly mean the end of free and fair elections."
LOL.
Yet your globalist Regime heroes canceled a viable popular candidate in France and also canceled an election in Romania. Of course, that was after they had their COVID authoritarian orgasms.
Sorry pal, you rant about Trump being a threat to democracy is the stuff clearly identifying you as a non-thinking entity.
A little better Frank. At this rate, you may actually post something substantive one day. Congrats on the progress!
Anyway, I'm not exactly sure who you consider "globalist Regime heroes", but as it happens I actually agree with you about France (and probably Romania though I haven't followed events their closely enough to really form an opinion). Noah Millman has a typically good take here on the Le Pen decision:
https://gideons.substack.com/p/disqualification-is-not-a-democratic
Meanwhile, I'm curious what you think of Orban. Are you a fan? Why or why not?
My view is that of a global cabal of professional management class elites, with money ties to the CCP and backing from Wall Street and the US deep state and DC swamp, that have filled their personal accounts and power positions largely from the benefits of the US-funded Global Order... and are desperate for the globalism project to continue on because they are completely tooled into it as their money and power-making sandbox. Their agenda is collectivist authoritarianism. COVID made them show their cards. They are completely illiberal and anti-Western principles of liberalism (classic liberalism which is really libertarian paternalism) and democratic capitalism.
Orban, Milei, Meloni and Trump are all the democratically elected Churchills of our time leading the WWIII fight of the allies against this global collectivist authoritarian tyranny. The attempt to paint them as moral extremists guilty of the crimes of the enemy is an age-old propaganda tactic of authoritarian tyrannical power take-over attempts throughout history.
Trump is a threat to democracy-killing bureaucracy. So is Orban.
Thanks for laying out what you believe Frank. Think there is far too much there to either debunk or prove in a Substack comments section, but I do have two last questions:
- Is there a specifc essay or writer you would recommend that you think best encapsulates your views?
- Can you name a few members of the "global cabal of professional management class elites...whose agenda is collectivist authoritarianism"?
I don't understand how the Democrats can rail about how Trump is such a danger to democracy, and at the same time expect a demented old man and an inept VP to win another election. Then when the demented old man fumbles the debate, they allow the inept VP to take his place. In spite of Trump being raked over the coals before, during and after his presidency, he still takes the Oval Office because the Democrats fielded such lousy candidates. What did they expect?
Some combination of willful ignorance of reality and cowardice.
The one thing the Democrats must do is create a better version of itself. They could start in California by rejecting Harris and Becerra as candidates for governor. Biden administration officials need to be held in contempt by members of their own party. Newsom and everyone in his administration should do not deserve to be promoted to higher office. The California Democratic Party meets this weekend in Anaheim. A thorough overhaul of the party that put Trump back in office should be the top item on the agenda, instead of another rinse and repeat with the same set of incumbents, ineffective policies and entrenched interests.
There are no bright-line thresholds in mental decline. When the President experiences a serious injury or illness, it’s easy to point to the moment they become unfit to serve, but aging isn’t like that. For that reason, it’s important that we place a fairly conservative age limit on offices of significant public trust, including not just the Presidency, but Supreme Court justices and maybe even Senators. If you can’t finish your term before, say, age 72, you shouldn’t be allowed to run in the first place.
To MAGA acolytes, Trump represents the epitome of leadership and political savvy. To Democrats and Independents, Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024 were nothing more than acceptable mediocrity put forward by the party as excellent choices for president.
Sadly, Biden became popcorn TV-time
Until people responsible are incarcerated and executed for treason, no assessment of "what happened?" Is worth the paper it is typed on.
Damn this was/is so much bigger a massive democracy destroying pile of swamp corruption than anyone wants to admit.
While I keep hoping it's time to let Biden by bygone, the main thrust of this essay still has to be top of mind: the White House Politburo (a Pulitzer for whoever came up with that phrase) and all its counterparts throughout the democratic party have to be the focus. And, of course, they can't be since that would require a self-consciousness that the party finds impossible to acknowledge, much less correct.
I do have to add that the author's astonishment that the 25th Amendment was not seriously considered isn't astonishing at all, and the final paragraphs explain why. If it were invoked and passed, Kamala Harris would have been our President, and with the natural media bump, possibly a likely electoral winner.
Biden was bad, but his party had already done enough damage to its credibility, and even they could see nothing good coming of putting Biden out to pasture prematurely. President Harris might not have been as awful as President Trump, but she would have given us as many eye-rolls and sighs as Trump ever has.
"What this all speaks to is the entitlement of a political operation that believed the norms and ethics of government were a yardstick only to be applied to the other side." This is the standard operating procedure with escalating privilege to the party in power and with the politically aligned commentators using this logic to support more extreme expressions of majority privilege enhancing executive power.
One thing that can be extracted from the context of the Biden administration and understood at last as a political fact of life is that Section 4 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment exists only in theory except when the president is approximately comatose. No vice president will ever lead a revolt of the Cabinet against a president who is conscious and determined to remain in power, much less count on winning a second struggle over the president's formal protest (as per the provisions of Section 4).
Sure they will. If that president is seriously out-of-favor with their own party.
Thanks for your reply.
I think that’s very unlikely, though. Since an incumbent president is the de facto leader of the party, it would take a rare set of circumstances to bring it about.
Agreed.