Martin Gurri: The End of Joe Biden—and the Democratic Establishment
The fish rots from the head
Martin Gurri published a bracing essay this morning in The Free Press. While he takes a few below the belt swipes at Biden (e.g., “Harris carries her own burden of weirdness but at least can be trusted not to drool in front of the cameras”), there is no countering his reverse engineering of how the Democratic establishment finds itself trying to defend a desperately incapable candidate, one they’ve trotted before the cameras at least three times, to disastrous effect, since the disastrous debate in hopes of, what? That he’d be capable of spinning the ol’ Joe magic and narcotizing the American public?
And about that mesmerization:
Virtually every time a vacancy arose, Biden, by his own admission, considered running for the presidency. In 1988, at the age of 44, he actually did so—and failed. Biden may look and feel like a president, but he has never sounded like one. Long before old age turned him into a bleary-eyed mutterer, he tended to get lost in his own verbiage. He told fantastic stories about his personal life that could be easily disproved. He plagiarized bits from Bobby Kennedy and parts of a speech by British Labour leader Neil Kinnock. Biden, it seems, was as needy as he was ambitious. His campaign resembled a prolonged pratfall. He dropped out before the first primary.
Thanks to a few very big, very lucky breaks, this human weathervane eventually found himself in the White House. Just a few years later, however, President Biden’s luck looks to be running out. A disastrous performance in last month’s presidential debate pulled back the curtain, in the style of The Wizard of Oz, to reveal the president as the sad, confused old man most of us already knew him to be. Then the attempt on Donald Trump’s life, and the former president’s courageous reaction in the moments following the incident, cast Biden’s shortcomings and infirmities in an even more glaring contrast. Biden is now increasingly alone, abandoned by the very establishment that created him. For both the king and what was once his court, a terrible reckoning has arrived.
You can read the essay here; may be paywalled for some of you.
I have for many weeks been writing about Biden’s condition. It gives me no joy to point out I was correct. I am nevertheless enraged by what Gurri’s essay shows; how contemptuously those running the Biden show behaved, how little respect they have for hearts and minds of their fellow citizens. I expect their time in the sun has set, and in the process the republic they saw themselves to be upholding but which they were in fact tearing down with each new set of lies. Do I wish they’d had more faith in the American people? I do.
I usually feel for those who’ve painted themselves into a corner. In this case, I do not. It’s too cynical, too corrupt. Gurri, too, offers no quarter as he rounds out his piece:
“I see no reason to pity Biden He perpetrated a hoax on the American people and has had the misfortune of being found out. The punishment will fit the crime: humiliation for heedless vanity. If he is forced to withdraw from the presidential contest, that will be all the world remembers of his brief tenure at the top. If Trump regains the presidency in 2024, Biden will end up detested by the very elites whose good opinion he has groveled all his life to obtain. Failure, this time, will be fixed and final, like destiny itself.”
I caught a clip of that interview last night and my first thought was "Who's the big bad orange man now?" :D Two things kind of meet at this point in my head. One was "never listen to what people say, watch what they do." and the other is "me thinks thou doth protest too much". For a group of people who said Trump is a threat to democracy, team blue has done more of the things that, to me, look like they are trying to (and failing) to dismantle democracy. Getting him kicked off twitter, and everywhere else, the trials both in and out of office, the ballot bullshit here and there amongst many others. Then I see this clip and I am like ok so now you have a guy who people are BEGGING to hand over the reigns of power, and he isn't, he is spouting off lies and insults, and hilariously, he is now orange. Reminded me of that "becoming the clown" meme. Add that to the calling a guy Hitler and an existential threat for 8 years, then being shocked with some wacko tries to kill him and I just feel like we are at peak clown world at this point. Say what you will about the shooter, but its pretty clear to me he wanted Trump dead. I know this because he actually tried to kill the man. I am super stoked he got brained before he could do more damage, but I do not doubt the sincerity of his actions. I have no fucking idea what team blue actually wants or believes in other than power at this point. Just bonkers.
The story of the mainstream press covering for Biden until all of a sudden it couldn’t is why I can’t watch or read their drivel. And like no apologies.