Dystopias and Demagogues

For anyone interested in politics in the United States, this has been a summer of shocks.

The future is a trackless wilderness through which we must find our way.

The first shock came on June 27, the date of the “debate” between the men who were then the candidates for the Presidency:  Joe Biden and Donald Trump.  Biden challenged Trump to a debate in a video on May 15.  Channeling his inner Clint Eastwood, he said:  “Well, make my day, pal.”  Everything was as Biden wanted.  No audience.  No notes.  Microphones cut off after a statement.  Anchors from Biden-friendly CNN, etc.  Never had a debate been scheduled this early in a campaign season.  Apparently Team Biden figured that if anything went wrong, Biden could recoup in a second debate in September.

Biden and his Team miscalculated.  The debate was a catastrophe for him.  He delivered the worst public performance in the history of American politics.  He was so startlingly awful that his legion of enablers could not deny it.  He meandered.  He spoke at times in a whisper.  He was incapable of keeping a thought in his head for a full sentence.  Here is one example:  “. . . [M]aking sure that we are able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the COVID – excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with.  Look, if – We finally beat Medicare.”  What does this mean?  Only a neurologist knows for sure.

Team Biden had wanted to make the election all about Trump.  But the magnitude of his debate failure made it all about Biden.  From the debate on June 27 until July 21, Biden attempted to convince people around the nation and the world that he was not as senile as he plainly was.  Democratic strategist James Carville said of the debate, “It’s like seeing your grandmother naked.  You can’t get it out of your mind.”  (Quoted in Josh Dawsey on X, July 1, 2024)

In the succeeding days, Biden reinforced the realization of his mental decline.  On a single day, July 11, he was asked a question about then Vice President Kamala Harris.  He responded:  “Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president [mumble] think she was not qualified to be president.”  The same day, he introduced President Zelensky of Ukraine as President Putin.  He quickly corrected the latter error.  But not the former.  

On July 21, Biden put us all out of our misery by declaring that he would no longer be a candidate for re-nomination to the Presidency.  He is the first incumbent President since 1884 to be denied re-nomination.  He endorsed Vice President Harris, who, barring the unforeseen in a year full of the unforeseen, will be the nominee of the Democratic Party.  Biden has been much praised for ending his campaign, but it is praise he does not deserve. He did not voluntarily choose to step away from power.  He adapted himself to the inescapable reality that he had no choice.  He was forced to end his bid for reelection by Nancy Pelosi, the smartest Democratic Party politician of this era. 

The presumptive nominee of the Democratic party, Kamala Harris, is not particularly well known by the American people. In the days and weeks ahead, we will see a furious race to define her between her own team and Team Trump.

The United States, which is more deeply divided than at any time since the Civil War, is thus to choose between Harris and Donald Trump.

Trump is in a class by himself. Despite his numberless flaws, right now it appears that his chances of being elected are better than even.  His escape from assassination on July 13 seems miraculous.  And his choosing Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate indicates, for a variety of reasons, that he is confident of winning on November 5.  There is every reason to believe that a second Trump term would be more dangerous than the first. He himself may have little interest in or knowledge of policy, but there are those supporting him who do and who seek fundamentally to change our nation. In other words, there are those who want to use Trump to institutionalize changes that may be with us for a very long time.  The direction of these changes is fundamentally illiberal.  In a few years, we may find ourselves living in a very different country from that we have known.

It is to gain a perspective on what the new reality might be that I want to embark upon this Substack series, entitled “Dystopias and Demagogues.”

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