There is a fantastic, though now largely false, legend that Grigory Potemkin, the former lover and chamberlain of Russian Empress Catherine the Great, built beautiful fake villages (only facades) along the Dnieper River that could be moved around as the Empress marched along, as evidence of the glory of her non-existent empire.
Whatever the truth of this Russian minister’s subterfuge, we seem to be in the midst of a Potemkin situation: Joe Biden has made some ceremonial appearances but has largely avoided substantive contact with the press, and when he does speak in public, he stutters, appears to suffer from an imprecise memory, and betrays confusion.
If Biden is as incompetent as he appears to be and others remain in power, we will have experienced a fundamental betrayal of “our democracy.”
People who reportedly work with Biden say he is a very different man in private, and perhaps even smarter than his aides. The idea that Biden is everything one could want in a president has been bolstered by a Wall Street Journal article titled “Behind closed doors, Biden shows signs of declineThe study is based on interviews with 45 Republicans and Democrats conducted over several months.
Biden is currently the oldest serving president and will likely be nominated by his party to serve another four-year term. There are certainly grounds to question his eligibility. But strangely, most of the mainstream media seems content to not question his competence and to accept the actor’s claims at face value. Michael Douglas MSNBC host:“Morning Joe” ScarboroughBoth men described Biden as a “very astute guy.”
There have been other periods in history when the Potemkin spirit ruled: Edith Wilson seemed to be the driving force behind her husband, President Woodrow, in the final months of his term, and the same could be said of Eleanor Roosevelt and the advisers to President Franklin Roosevelt in his final years in office.
The Washington Post’s current motto is “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” At this point, the American public has no idea who is actually running the executive branch of government. It could be Jill Biden, Barack Obama, or Susan Rice, or some holdover from the previous administration, or a lower-level official in the current administration. If we had a press with the same zeal that investigated Richard Nixon and removed him from office 50 years ago, we might find out how competent Biden is, and if not, who is actually in charge.
If Biden is as incompetent as he appears to be, and someone else takes over, we will be experiencing a fundamental betrayal of “our democracy.” Perhaps it will get worse. The Constitution states: How to remove an incompetent presidentBut achieving these things requires action from the Vice President and the Cabinet, and for one reason or another, those officials have not indicated any intention of acting.
We could wait five months until voters have a chance to decide whether Biden is eligible, but unfortunately, we don’t have enough information to fully evaluate him. But even though a special counsel has concluded that Biden is too old and his memory is failing to stand trial for misconduct involving classified documents, the Speaker of the House of Representatives has said, “He is [Biden] “He’s not at his best, and I’ll say that generously. He has hinted to me that he didn’t really understand what he was signing up for,” and when the sharp-tongued but usually accurate columnist Kurt Schlichter can declare that “we saw him in Normandy staggering around and looking like a Mr Magoo who’d lost his edge,” we’re in a bind.
Enterprising reporters should ask Who benefits?Who is benefiting from this Potemkin presidency and what does this have to do with November? Is Biden propped up like an insubstantial Potemkin wall to hide domestic corruption or foreign conspiracies? The fabricated myth of Russian officials was a tale of faithless courtiers trying to please their former lover and sovereign, but what is going on in this country is far more greedy and far more dangerous.
