Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
The entire 2019-20 Biden candidacy and subsequent presidency were predicated on a rotten Faustian bargain. A hale Joe Biden would feign his aw-shucks, Joe from Scranton schtick. And an ossified working-class Joe’s camouflage would get the hard left elected—especially thanks to the changes in balloting laws that often saw only 30 percent of the electorate voting on Election Day in key states.
In exchange, the two narcissistic Bidens would bask in the power and attention of the presidency. From the start, Jill and the media would orchestrate deep cover for Joe’s escalating dementia as well as the true intentions of the now-in-power radical Democratic Party with its neo-socialist agenda. The former Obama acolytes would get their long-dreamed-of third presidential term. And this time they would enact a truly radical agenda while their string puppet mumbled to everyone that he was just old, familiar Joe working for the middle class.
The problem, inter alia, with the ruse was that it was based on a complete lie to the American people. Joe Biden was nowhere near cognitively competent. He could not campaign “normally” in 2020. And it would be impossible for his dementia to go undetected even in the ceremonial duties of the presidency for four, perhaps even eight, more years.
And there were plenty of other problems that transcended even Biden’s mental confusion.
First, the new Obama agenda—hyperinflation, open borders, woke crime theories, destroying deterrence abroad, green extremist mandates—was further to the left of the American people than in 2016.
And worse, it was nihilist and destructive. By the August 2021 Kabul withdrawal humiliation, Biden would never again win 50 percent approval from an increasingly exasperated public who felt they had been had by the mannequin Scranton Joe and his false 2020 calls for “unity” and “healing America.”
Second, Joe Biden, senator, vice president, quid-pro-quo sudden multimillionaire, was never a “nice guy.”
His (brief) 1984, 1988, and 2020 presidential runs were characterized by assorted gaffes, plagiarism, and racism (the first “clean” and “articulate” black presidential candidate, “junkie,” “you ain’t’ black,” and the corn-pop sagas).
He always displayed a short-fuse, mean streak (cf. his 1988 angry and falsified defense of his law school and stump speech plagiarism) and bullying (his 2020 slurs of “fat,” “lying dog-faced pony soldier,” etc.).
Biden’s scowls and outbursts grew as he seemed to come alive only when slurring and slandering half the country as “semi-fascists” and “ultra-MAGA” deplorables. So, in the recent debate, Biden at least admitted that he had written off half the nation that voted for Trump.
Third, if Trump was an exaggerator, Biden was a long-time mythologist, fabricating his bio, family history, and Trump’s record (from the yarn about cannibals eating his uncle to inheriting a completely unvaccinated country and 9 percent hyperinflation in 2021).
Fourth, there was a creepy side to Joe Biden—from stories of swimming nude in front of female Secret Service agents and the Tara Reade days to his 2020 apologies for sexual buffoonery and his fixations with pre-teen young girls, expressed by embarrassing crowd call-outs or blowing and touching “inappropriately” their hair, shoulders, and necks. Most Washington women knew in advance to avoid Joe’s too-long hugs and bizarre air blasts on their hair and ears.
In short, there were plenty of reasons why Joe Biden never got far as a presidential candidate, given he was a blowhard, cruel to people, a fabricator, of questionable ethics, and eerily interested in young girls—a far cry from ol’ Joe from Scranton, who, in a debilitated state, was supposed to offer the moderate veneer to a Jacobin agenda.
And now? Biden’s dementia has become so overt and so impossible to hide that the entire “crooked deal” has blown up. As a result, in the eleventh hour, there are very few pathways to salvation—as there never are when everything is birthed on a lie and its media-assisted cover-up.
Bidengate is far worse than Watergate. The media this time around was not exposing the wrongdoing of a conservative president but instead serving as a force multiplier in deceiving the very American people it was supposed to inform. “Democracy Dies in Deceit” is now the Washington Post’s de facto motto.
Remember, the left is worried only that Biden is so challenged that he cannot win an election. But they are not bothered that he has no business continuing in his dementia as commander-in-chief and putting the country in real danger each day he occupies the oval office—a bitter paradox that is beginning to infuriate the American people.
So, can Joe Biden just press ahead, sleep more, and fulfill his Faustian obligations? Or is he not in a doom loop? The more he rests, sleeps, and avoids the media, the more the public considers him an inadequate, one-quarter president. Yet the more he might welcome more exposure, interviews, press conferences, debates and town halls, the more his ensuing dementia becomes apparent to the public. So, his handlers haggle over the choice between an ensconced virtual president versus an all-too-real, obviously senile one.
Some House liberal presidential historians cite a failing FDR in 1944 who was visibly ill during the campaign and from a variety of serious ailments. They chirp in that Roosevelt nevertheless mocked his critics, got reelected, and entered his fourth term on January 20, 1945. But they forget; the end of the story negates their very point. FDR dropped dead in office, as his critics feared, just 11 weeks later, and as historians seem to pass over.
What if Biden does an FDR, ignores critics and runs—and likewise somehow wins?
Unlike a failing Biden, had FDR not given into intense pressure from the Democratic donor class, the big-city machine bosses, the Southern segregationists, and the liberal print media, and thus had he not removed then-current Vice President Henry Wallace as his running mate, then the wartime commander-in-chief overseeing the Okinawa campaign, the Potsdam Conference, the decision to drop the atomic bomb, and dealing with an ascendant Joseph Stalin and the postwar Soviet Union monster would have been socialist/communist President Henry Wallace.
But unlike FDR, Biden still has no plans to remove Vice President Kamala Harris. Most certainly, then, soon the next president of the United States in 2025-6 will be an unelected and more incompetent successor: President Kamala Harris. And that thought terrifies seasoned Democrat donors, insiders and politicos as much as it did in 1944.
More realistically, Biden is far more cognitively challenged than FDR was in 1944. The chances that he will stay cogent for the next five months and win the election are quickly vanishing. Even the Biden-inspired, now discredited lawfare campaign against Trump has not just failed but boomeranged by increasing Trump’s popularity.
And if a stubborn Biden stays on the ticket and more likely loses, he will destroy what is left of the vestigial Democratic Party of the once triangulating Clintons. He will forever discredit the old-boy hierarchy and final obstacle to the full and overt manifestation of a Democrat, woke European-socialist party of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, the Squad, and the DEI caucuses.
Note Biden has already taken down with him most of the Washington-New York media, who only now confess they participated in suppressing real evidence of Biden dementia—and this from the same “journalists” who used to insidiously shout “25th Amendment” during the Donald Trump years.
Biden and the apparat that presses on with the current farce might well lose more than the presidency—by losing both houses of Congress and ensuring Trump an unobstructed legislative trajectory to implement a complete reversal of the Obama-Biden years.
Yet, if Biden should step down voluntarily, pundits have run through the endless ensuing problematics. They are considerable: will his successor be on the ballot in all 50 states? What will the Party’s leftist base do if the identity-politics-selected Harris is pushed aside (and what will it do if she is not and steps up to the presidency?).
And how would a successor to Biden emerge in a free-delegate luche libre at a Chicago carnival convention, with chaos both inside the convention hall and a more violent “Death to America!’ bedlam on the streets outside?
So given all these nihilist alternatives, the two Bidens’ choice for now is to bark at the public. They will insult their own toadish media and deny the obvious. They will put the country’s interest dead last and connive that Joe can scowl, scold, lie, and yell at his critics—with not a care that our enemies abroad will conclude this is a golden Biden moment to do something stupid that may not come again.
Excellent and disturbing article. It seems the Democrats are experiencing their own “Joe Frankenstein” moment. They didn’t factor in how self-interested he is. Joe has a deep capacity to rationalize, believe and convey that whatever he does or wants as somehow being virtuous. Extremely valuable to any politician who has been in public life for decades. The Republicans still have to bring their A game.
We get what we deserve.
We could not keep up the effort to remain a virtuous people, as the founders would have put it.
We devolved from a society of free adults who govern themselves, to a society of overgrown adolescents who expect others to do for them. And there are plenty of grifters like the Bidens who are happy to do for everyone else, and fill their pockets.
It’s practically impossible to re-establish such a standard, to expect people to take responsibility for their own lives. They find it too easy to be eternal children and let someone else be the grown-ups.
Meanwhile, the bad actors around the world have seen their chance. Even if we could fix our internal problems, it might be too late. Waiting for the archangel to descend.
“A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”
Fox News was right again. They’ve been talking about President Biden’s cognition for more than four years. It was cringey and disrespectful… however, it was an honest interpretation of reality. Pushing back ignorance isn’t as easy as it used to be.
Good Morning VDH and Staff,
I would like to read about the Nixon presidency and the true reason’s for his resignation. Can you recommend any books or articles that I can read? Both of my parents are Democrats and they explained how corrupt he was. I also did a research paper in high school and noticed the same negative message.
Thank you,
Sheryl Quintero
Charles Burris has thoroughly vetted this topic at lewrockwell.com
Exactly right
I follow your wise & scholarly essays. I’m reading ‘The End of Everything’ to expand my perspective. I wish my ‘woke’ former friends could break out of their braindead ideas. The Lord Blesses us with you in this very sad time.
Things could start to turn around in 2025–if we can survive until then.
Yes they could. Trump knows the players, the territory. That and the support of good people can bring a rebirth of freedom.
Story of a failed presidency:
The Lonely Lie
Once there was a lonely lie
That crawled off by itself to die.
But, before it even left the room,
Its offspring had begun to bloom.
Soon the truth had lost its place
And it quietly left in sad disgrace.
It’s crowded now in that small room
And honor there you can’t presume.
Love this!
Over 60 years ago, after Western Civilization 101, and the Tale of Two Cities, I had a basic understanding of the French Revolution, Robespierre, and the Reign of Terror. I’m needing clarification of the, “Jacobin Agenda.” It seemed to be leading to a totalitarian state, but it failed, and I’m not sure what replaced it until Napoleon took over.
Cognitive issues aside, can we not dispel the fanciful notion that Joe Biden is a good and well-meaning man? A good and well-meaning man does not disavow ANY of his grandchildren, nor does he repeatedly look at his watch upon presentation of caskets bearing American military personnel, nor does he enrich his family via shady overseas “business” dealings. When it comes to character, integrity, and honor, it’s strike three and out for Biden.
” A good and well-meaning man does not disavow ANY of his grandchildren…”
And that he and his wife have no shame in their disavowing a grandchild and doing it in such a public manner shows the depth of their repugnant nature, their total self-serving ways and means and the lack of any redeeming qualities.
But, remember: IF he is on the ballot, he WILL garner 40% +/- of the legitimate vote.
To quote Pogo (out of context) “We have met the enemy…and he is us.”
Biden impressed me during the Clarence Thomas lynching (confirmation hearing). I’ve never seen anybody so rude and demeaning. He was a real jerk.
DeMOCKracy: what Joe Biden makes of democracy when he claims he’s the only one who can save it.
Bidengate and the Doom Loop
In twenty nineteen, Joe set out on his way,
A Scranton façade in a grand play.
With Jill and the press,
They covered the mess,
While the left’s grand agenda had sway.
Joe’s presidency was built on a deal,
Where truths were concealed to appeal.
He faked being hale,
But the ruse would soon fail,
As dementia’s veil would reveal.
The agenda of Obama took hold,
With policies brash and bold.
From borders to green,
The changes were seen,
And the public grew weary and cold.
Biden’s past was a tale full of gaffes,
Plagiarism and racial missteps caused laughs.
With outbursts and sneers,
He confirmed our fears,
A mean streak that followed his path.
The lies about Biden did grow,
With myths spun to soften the blow.
His creepy ways,
In his past days,
Made many in D.C. say no.
Now Bidengate’s blown up in shame,
As dementia claims his fame.
The media’s aid,
In the crooked charade,
Leaves democracy tarnished in name.
With Biden’s end seeming near,
Kamala’s rise brings fear.
A new election might call,
For chaos to befall,
As the Democrats face their career.
The Bidens bark loud at the end,
Insults and lies they extend.
As enemies gloat,
In this grim anecdote,
The doom loop seems harder to mend.
Jim,
Bravo! 👏
Jim,
You’re most talented, gifted.
Thank you,
Craig
The robot and I collaborated.
I’m gradually turning into a cyborg.
More great insight by VDH. The last paragraph says it all.
It seems no one is addressing the fact that unless he is impeached, he will retire with immense amounts of perks that are rewarded to retired X-presidents and spread to his family members in certain areas of great perks for life. The American taxpayer pays for these perks for the lives of X-presidents and perks for the President.
It is too late now to stop President Biden and his family from receiving the perks of a retired President because our Congress on both sides failed the American Taxpayer immensely by not impeaching a long time ago. And whoever said crime does not pay was grossly wrong.
So when will the court systems, Congress, and Senate stop depleting the pockets of the taxpayer by keeping to reward crime?
What you say is sadly true, but there’s one condition you didn’t state: The retired President had to have been a Democrat, or, at least, a Republican in name only.
He runs, Trump wins, he dies before Jan 20. Harris gets to be lame duck for a day, a week, two weeks? My favorite scenario. Still can happen.
Yep, good analysis of the Biden mess, created by the Democrats…
I hope Biden stays in the race and loses in a landslide to Trump and that the Republicans take control of the Senate and increase the majority in the House.
By the way, I wrote BIden before he was inaugurated and suggested that he maintain Trump’s policies if he sought a good legacy. He may or may not have seen my plea, but he clearly did the opposite and his legacy is trash and belongs in a landfill……
In my opinion, we are in the greatest danger since 1776. We have an absolutely depraved leftist establishment which worships nothing but power, willing to destroy everything to hold that power. We have Vichy GOP members willing to use their positions to enable the insanity of a leftist culture which has slipped its moorings. The invaders are here and we face a 1000 years of darkness. We are screwed.
Spot on! The media is totally missing the big issue of the incompetence of the current commander in chief and focusing instead on his viability as a Democratic candidate who may not be able to ” beat Trump”. Their true anti American colors are vividly on display . This point needs to be driven home by the conservatives.
I fear that Trump will somehow lose in November. So far, he is playing his hand well. We can’t get overconfident. We need every vote we can get. The Democrats will do everything to hold on to power. Rush always said to have hope and not get down on ourselves. Can we trust that voters will see the light and that the vote count will be honest? I pray for it.
Agreed. I am reminded of the quote that many attribute to Stalin, “it doesn’t matter how people vote, only the people who count the votes matters”.
What I see as the major difference between Trump and Biden is that Trump loves the country while Biden loves himself.
For 4 years under the Trump administration the working class prospered while Trump took no salary as he donated it back into government agencies.
Biden on the other hand enriched himself via his family’s selling access to a Senator, a VP and may have continued under his administration. We have pretty solid evidence Biden was corrupt as a Senator and VP.
Hello Dr. Hanson,
I am most bothered by the fact that everyone knew Biden was cognitively compromised, even in 2019 when he was first running against Trump. The people on the right were saying it out loud. Everyone working with Biden knew, the press had to know, and most despicably, it was known on the world stage.
Someone has been running this country who is unknown and not answerable to the American citizenry. Our entire government is a lie. And the American people deserve better.
Whoever is pulling Biden’s strings has been systematically destroying the United States. I can’t name a single part of American life that hasn’t been touched in a terrible way.
We knew Biden was compromised and we were told to shut up. Our country is in ruins, and we’ve been told to shut up. We still don’t know who is running our government and the people who do know aren’t telling.
How can we be expected to think we will have a valid election? How will we be able to come out of this? It’s very hard to hear democrats still saying Biden should remain as the candidate…and the president.
I admire everything you do for our society. Your writings outline American life as it really is. Your TV appearances and analysis of current events are welcomed as no others. I apologize for being so negative. It is hard to see a guiding light, but I am trying.
Thank you,
Jan K. Vroman
The president in this case was always a figurehead. They haven’t got to the point where they throw him indeed the bus yet for the disaster at the border. All his “bad policies” were always Democrat policies. His lack of “being there” only made it all easier.
Truer words were never spoken!
My sentiments exactly!
Amen and Amen
In other words, we’ve suffered defeat in a silent, non-violent, insurrection.
Agreed.. Just wish somone would call out by name the handlers who are running the country.
Succinct synopsis.
In the current Democratic Party, Cultural Marxism has replaced just about all traditional American values. Marx has replaced Washington, Jefferson, Madison et al in the Obama, AOC, Biden groupthink. The left’s utopian wet dreams are spouted as the salvation of democracy; wrap your head around the logic of that if you can. Meanwhile the Republican Party and Trump attempt to counter this message with a well intentioned enthusiastic sophomoric campaign, ignoring the truly evil intentions of their adversary. Its past time that republicans must trust the American people to grasp the subtleties of this historic struggle.
A quote from Ghandi best explains the current Democrat Party debacle to those of us who have endured Biden/Obama/Jarrett/Rice/Hillary Clinton/Pelosi/Schumer et al: “When I despair I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fail. Think of it – always.”
The thought that he will be followed by Trump is the one thing that might keep foreign enemies from doing something stupid. I worry more about domestic enemies.
He’s not the commander in chief, but rather the real lying dog-faced pony soldier.
Great analysis, as always.
That’s what scares me the most. The enemies of the United States have a window of about 190 days, in which they can do just about anything without fear of a competent response.
And I would not put it past the Democrats to get the United States into a shooting war. Either as a political game before the election, or out of pure spite after losing it.
If Kamala becomes president, she will be president over those who understand her brand of Ebonics, not the majority of Americans. It took me a while, but her statement was saying: ‘when they get rid of America’s past that has held them back, they will Excel.’ That is a communist doctrine: delete history to control the future.
Don’t forget that Cadaver biden ran also for president in 2008 briefly. He visited my hometown in Iowa, where I met him at a local cafe. (I was not invited to the event – I just showed up). I found him to be the dumbest politician I have ever met in my lifetime.
Democrats are between the Rock & the Hard Place. But where have their lies put the rest of the country?
Please, please please Victor do not make one sentence into a paragraph.
Part of the Biden pattern is to buy “friends” with taxpayer money and to get repaid via the family conduits when the “friends” give back a percentage. The “friends” are rented, not bought, and will become enemies when convenient for themselves.
I agree that Biden’s condition puts the Democrats in a political mess. But aren’t we in equal danger as a country from any of the alternative Dem. candidates? The whole party seems to lean heavily left now.
Who know’s what will happen. One thing for sure is that ol’ Joe wont make it. Jill is on her own little power trip so it may be a ‘weekend at Bernie’s’ type scenario. All I know is that when people are desperate they do desperate things. I fear for President Trump. The Dems are capable of anything so if Trump isn’t taken out permanently then there will be a wild ride come November as the Dems manipulate another win just like we have seen in the UK and France. Elections are not what they used to be people. As the systems have been hijacked for ‘the greater good’ at whatever cost, we are in for some dark times ahead. There’s only one solution; good must prevail. ’
My brother is firmly on our side of the aisle, so I was surprised he took my bet that Biden wouldn’t make it four years after campaigning from his basement and winning 2020 with the fraud, and the media was told to hide Biden’s implosion, and our citizenry unfortunately made it easy. They then wrung out Joe and called for the debate cuz he was truly falling apart and lawfare wasn’t working on Trump, and the media was instructed to be scathing to put an end to Biden before his China ownership came out, and also they are stealing attention from the worldwide Covid lies and vaccine storm on the way. But I did NOT know many people are so blind, like Joe Scarborough; he was told to hide Biden’s zombie state but why did he hide it so ferociously, making part two so embarrassing? Is it possible the media is more corrupt than ever because they’re also dumber than ever, or is there something in the vaccine, you know, that Biden was ordered to mandate?
Biden and the Dems in July 2024 reminds me of Hitler and the Nazis in July 1944 after D-Day and the at the beginning of Belarus Offense thinking they could still win the war. Part hubris, part delusion, part stupidity and a whole lot of desperation. All we need is for the Chinese to invade Taiwan and for the stock market to crash to be check and mate for not only old, demento Joe and the Dems but for this nation. Maybe then the Dems can declare martial law, cancel the elections and enact a dictatorship like Venezuela. A lot can happen in only 3 months.
Here is another brilliant VDH analysis, this time capturing what so many out here have seen and felt for the entire appalling career of Joe Biden. But among the important minions not yet mentioned in the sorry mess of sycophantic cover-providers and ego massagers surrounding him are the select group of flattering, big name, mostly Ivy league historians and self appointed presidential scholars who have actively help build and abet the massive fraud that is Joe Biden and his presidency, not only through media appearances, but in the mind of the subject himself.
Something big is going to happen.
That’s what our intel people do.
Don’t get duped. Watch for false flags.
Your first impression of an unusual event may be incorrect, on purpose.
Regard everything with skepticism.
Just wait. It will happen.
They have not given up yet, not by a long shot.
I agree, a false flag event, a crisis or an attempt to take out Trump as a last resort.
Thus the reference to a “long shot”. These soulless people are capable of anything, and have proven it many times.
The party has wanted Kamala as POTUS for 10 years.
She has a creepy record as DA of SF — releasing known violent illegal aliens (see Bologna family 2008 murders).
And as AG of California in Sacto of destroying for-profit schools so that Obama’s two best friends Marty Nesbit and Tony Miller, plus his biggest donor Penny Pritzker, could purchase the University of Phoenix in 2016 without any remaining competition — “smash and grab” cronyism so bad even Dick Durbin and Liz Warren remarked on it, as did liberal publications, in 2016.
Also as AG of California, she allowed a proto-BLM black shakedown group that oddly called themselves the “Knights of Templar” to operate out of her office. The trial that would have exposed her fell apart when the prime suspect died “suddenly.”
LA Times 2016: “…The case against three people accused of operating the bogus Masonic Fraternal Police Department — a supposedly ancient force that claimed to work in 33 states and Mexico — partly collapsed on Monday when the charges against one defendant were dismissed and the organization’s so-called chief (Brandon Kiel) suddenly died…
“…Much of the notoriety derived from Kiel’s role within Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris’ administration…”
And by the way, Kamala’s sister Maya Harris West is married to Tony West — Eric Holder’s Associate Attorney General during Obama’s years — if Obama is running the show behind the scenes, Kamala is in line.
Congrats, Michael. You are the first person I’ve read who has commented on Harris as AG of CA. She utterly screwed huge numbers of mostly seniors, in the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of CA, and one of the ten biggest in US history to the time. She isn’t capable of being elected dogcatcher, let alone POTUS.
The name “Kamala” has that same “Obama” exotic ring to it. Modern and especially young Americans are internet technology dependent, so the media will ram her down the public’s throats with a silicon boot, comparing her ethnicity to Obama’s but a female version, while portraying her as a healing savior for these bad times in the same manner in which they sold Obama. And 30 million illegals will be rewarded with amnesty after they shamelessly vote.
The day after the debate, I reflected on the schadenfreude I was experiencing on the lefties who painted themselves into a corner.
Then out of nowhere, my conscience crushed me with the realization that my smirk was completely out of place. Afterall, these same lefties have gone well on their way to destroying our beloved country. Yes, they’ve painted themselves into a corner, but the fact is: THEY’VE PAINTED THE U.S. into a corner with:
1) millions of illegal migrants, some of them embedded terrorists within our borders
2) trillions and trillions of debt…how will we ever dig out of this hole?
3) inflation of over 20% since 1/20/21…crushing businesses, middle and lower class earners
4) fentanyl deaths by the thousands and those who are hooked are draining our social net resources or running rampant with crimes committed against us
5) Ukraine mess…what a disaster!
6) Middle East mess…yet another disaster!
7) Iran with nuclear capability…has happened or will happen any day…a lurking disaster!
8) China emboldened…Taiwan is “dead man walking”
9) Men in women’s sports…children with gender dysphoria being butchered, scarred for life
10)FBI, CIA, CDC, NIH, EPA, on and on…complete destruction of their credibility with citizens
11) two-tiered justice system rampant throughout the country
12) our #1 international advantage, natural resources being hog-tied due to so-called “climate change”
Indeed, it is Xi, Putin, et al with schadenfreude now!
Spirited comment, Jerry. Stick with it.
If you started a vineyard you should call it “The Grapes of Rath”.
Now that is funny! Obvious, but funny.
Biden will not run, Harris will be the nominee. She will distance herself from Biden’s policies and claim the border work she did took a while but is now a success. She will be backed up by the lying left wing media. That, along with likely vote manipulation, will make it a close election (when it should not be).