Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Biden
President Biden was forced, unceremoniously and unwillingly, to abdicate from his impending reelection nomination. Since then, we have neither seen nor heard much from our sitting President. He has vanished, poof, gone.
This is quite unusual if not alarming. Unlike prior to the June 27 debate, the left now makes no effort to hide Biden’s debility. Indeed, it accepts the reality that an infirm Biden might not be able to finish out his remaining six months. Yet it still cannot decide whether the nation’s exposure to a President Harris prior to November 5 would lend her the advantage of incumbency or (more likely) ensure her defeat given global exposure to her puerility.
In the past, when a vice president took over the party nomination from his sitting president boss, the lame duck president was nonetheless evident and in charge until the duration of his tenure.
When Lyndon Johnson belatedly decided not to run for reelection in 1968, he claimed that he needed to devote his full attention and remaining months to finding a solution to the then-raging Vietnam War. Indeed, Johnson sought to steal interest away from his often-underappreciated vice president, Hubert Humphrey, and the latter’s ongoing (and failed) bid as the Democratic nominee to replace Johnson.
Ronald Reagan was still very busy in 1988 in his last six months as president—even as his sitting “a thousand points of light” vice president, George H.W. Bush, became the Republican nominee and was fixated on campaigning to replace Reagan.
At times in late 2000, during the waning days of Bill Clinton’s administration, a restless, lame duck Clinton seemed almost to compete for the spotlight with his then vice president, party nominee, and would-be Democratic presidential replacement Al Gore.
The vanishing Biden caught another case of COVID in mid-July shortly after his disastrous and historically early presidential debate with Trump. And in the subsequent month, Biden simply disappeared.
He is rarely seen, more rarely heard, even as Iran has promised a theater-wide war against Israel, Putin has more frequently threatened to escalate Russian attacks to existential levels, and the economy has witnessed dramatic stock shocks, dismal job news, and increasing talk of an impending recession.
Americans have wondered what happened to their president. Apparently, Biden was deemed unfit by his party bosses and donors to remain its nominee but still considered hale enough to continue for half a year as America’s president.
Rumors swirled that a depressed, embittered, and unwell Biden was in seclusion licking his wounds, acidic over being betrayed by his erstwhile allies—the Obamas, former speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, the left-wing squad, a traditionally obsequious and in-the-tank left-wing media, and perhaps his replacement, the machinating Vice President Kamala Harris.
Biden gave a so-so endorsement of Harris. After that pro forma act, he has somehow evaporated in a fashion that has left the White House even more vacant than during the octogenarian Biden’s prior three years of customary three-day workweeks.
Will or can Biden campaign this summer and autumn for Harris?
And if he were mentally and physically able to do so, would it help or hurt her?
Are his policies—especially those toward Israel at the brink of a war with Iran—unchanged, or will he shift somewhat to help the Harris cause with pro-Hamas/anti-Israel voters in Michigan?
Or perhaps in his sullenness, will Biden remain indifferent to Harris, or at some point, reassert his lost authority even if, or perhaps because, it might prove injurious to her candidacy?
So, for the present, no one knows who is in charge of the United States.
Is it the three-year consortium headed by the omnipresent Obama tandem that had heretofore used Biden as a convenient waxen effigy?
Or is Jill Biden still playing the Edith Wilson role for a non compos mentis and invalid presidential husband?
Or is our de facto Commander-in-Chief the new presidential candidate Kamala Harris? She seems ebullient in welcoming to her team both Obama old-hands and Biden defectors eager for new jobs and billets, in “The king is dead; long live the king!” fashion.
The next six months may be the most dangerous in our modern history. Key geostrategic decisions concerning an opportunistic world eager to fill the widening American void will be made by whom, if anyone, and in what manner?
Harris
But stranger still is the month-long vaporization of Vice President and the now de facto Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. How weird that she sought to hog airtime and attention as vice president (although not via interviews or impromptu remarks), but once she gained an even wider portfolio as the Democratic presidential nominee, she recoiled from interviews and went into hibernation.
In the last month amid the frenzy of the Biden collapse, her coronation, and the selection of her running mate Tim Walz, a mute Harris has made up all the ground Biden lost as the prior nominee.
She is flooded with hundreds of millions of dollars in left-wing tech and Wall Street cash. All are eager to donate given their money will no longer be wasted on a sore loser but might now earn something in return from a future president.
So, a silent Harris is rising in the polls, once the Biden albatross was cut away and relieved Hollywood/Wall Street/Silicon Valley grandees poured in their riches.
Harris has been instructed to xerox the successful tripartite model of the 2020 Biden victory:
One, keep the incoherent and cackling Harris away from the public and journalists, and ration even her teleprompted and staged speeches.
Two, erase 30 years of left-wing demagoguery and socialist activism. Replace her radical chic with faux-centralism of the ol’ Joe Biden from Scranton sort.
In shameless fashion, Harris is now running ads bragging she will hire more border guards, and secure and stop illegal immigration—this from someone who called for ICE to disappear, championed illegal immigration and an open border, and demonized any who sought to secure it. In some sense, she is even appropriating much of the Trump agenda for the next three months.
So, her message to the public is simply, “Before June 27, I was for what you, the public, hated and never gave a damn about the consequences. And now I am going to fool you for 90 days into thinking I am your real border czar— on the expectation that I can delude you a third time once you naifs elect me and I destroy the border again.”
Three, count on 70 percent of the electorate not voting on Election Day without serious audit.
When will Harris give an unscripted interview? In a month as promised, two months, or after Election Day? When will she dare to speak to a neutral audience? Or mix it up with Donald Trump in no-holds-barred debates? When will she be asked, as incumbent vice president, why she doesn’t begin her promised agenda right now during the last six months of the Biden-Harris tenure?
No such candor will follow until she falls 5 points in the polls behind Trump and is thus forced to speak.
So far now, why would Harris confirm to the electorate that she indeed quickly exhausts her five-hundred-word vocabulary, turns off listeners with adolescent cackling, and is a puerile left-wing ideologue mouthing stale platitudes?
The Trump challenge then is to keep hammering her extremist record, her dangerous agenda for 2025 and beyond, and her weird, indeed historic refusal to mix it up with journalists and to speak ex tempore.
Harris knows that Biden thrived by remaining mute and when he could not, he crashed in the polls. So, she accepts that she too would rather be attacked as evasive, afraid, and cowardly than lose when confirmed as childishly incompetent—given the state media can far more successfully reconstruct her silence as incidental to her mellifluous oratory.
As for the objection that surely Harris cannot pull off such a surreptitious candidacy for 80 more days, Harris would surely answer, “If Biden pulled it off for over three years, I certainly can manage it for 10 weeks.”
Walz
Ostensibly, Tim Walz is a boon to the Trump campaign. His home state Minnesota will likely not be in play in 2024. His strange selection only confirms that Harris is proudly “woke” and a far-left “woke” “radical”—as she herself once put it.
Otherwise, we are learning very quickly that Walz is as erratic, error-prone, and dishonest as Harris. He too is already heading for seclusion from the media. The man of the people from the countryside has scoffed, in self-incriminating Mike Bloomberg fashion, that rural Minnesota is little more than “rocks and cows.”
In mere hours after his nomination, he has grown mute about his past and politics except for teleprompted rah-rah speeches—avoiding reporters, interviews, and unscripted moments.
Why?
Because, in less than a week, the nation learned that Walz lied about his military rank, lied that he had deployed to Iraq, and lied that he had carried a weapon in war. The more we learn about Walz’s record as governor in Minnesota, the more it trumps even the disastrous tenure of Gavin Newsom in his imploding doom-loop state that Walz apparently saw as a model for a once can-do stable Minnesota.
The Insurrectionary Radical Mind
Add it all up, and the president, the vice president, the Democratic presidential candidate, and the vice presidential nominee all either cannot or will not speak casually and publicly to elected representatives, reporters, or the people themselves.
Worse still, they retire from their responsibilities of public engagement because these selected officials accept that the alternative of transparency is nearly suicidal to their own agendas. No one is now in charge of America—neither the ghosted president nor the campaigning vice president candidate who both act as if they hold no office.
It gets far worse still. Joe Biden was created by a soft coup of sorts in March 2020 when all his unpalatable left-wing radical rivals mysteriously vanished in unison at a time when an inert “centrist” Biden had not yet won a single primary.
Then Biden was dethroned abruptly 38 months later by the same inside plotters who deemed his sock puppet role was no longer viable—but only after their sure loser in November had become more a liability to the left than any longer a useful, empty vessel of governance. But as for his fitness as a man of the left to continue ruling us, he was just fine.
It continues to get even worse.
Then the same donors, the same politicos, and the same obsequious media grandees pivoted yet a third time. On the morning of June 27, a fit-as-a-fiddle Biden needed not to step down both because of his brilliance and dynamism—and the unthinkable succession of the Harris mediocrity.
By late night June 27, it was decided that a now suddenly enfeebled and unelectable Biden could be forcibly removed. Harris was Phoenix-like just as quickly reborn as the second coming of Obama—glib, in control, cool, and competent.
We are now witnessing yet a fourth coup from the party that warns us that democracy dies in darkness.
They have removed their once robust now demented nominee, nullified 14 million primary voters, repackaged and selected Harris in his place who has never won a single primary—and now plan to continue in power for another four years by silencing the outgoing president, secluding the vice president and muting the Democratic ticket itself.
In sum, leftists endlessly conspire not only because they have little confidence in the people, but because they have absolutely none in themselves.
The article was well written and informative, except for the two date errors: most likely typos.
Once again I find myself in synoptic agreement with Professor Hanson, and would add to the laundry list of Walz’ failures the blind eye he turned to the Minnesota Somalis who defrauded the US Government out of $250M COVID food relief funding, his “Assistant Coach” embellishment, tampon distribution to high school boys bathrooms, and his malfeasance as director of the Minnesota State Teachers Retirement Fund: hoodwinking investors by hiding the actual management fees. Merely exposing the unethical machinations of this triumvirate of Biden-Harris-Walz isn’t enough; lacking a sense of shame they’re immune to this line of attack, as are their ideological and willfully μωρός syncophants.
Verumipsum
I’d ad to this his c. 30 trips to communist China with students-not clear on who paid-CCP? And personally with his wife-she who liked the riot smells – for their honeymoon I believe. Chinese offices in his state I think too. Also odd he has no retirement account, owns no property & more. “WEIRD”
My fear for the US is that presidents will from now on will be installed, not elected, and will feel no sense of responsibility to the people they govern. “You are not listening to us” is the theme being played out in Britain and other European countries, and when that frustration and anger reach the boiling point, the tumbrils will start rolling. It gives me no pleasure to say that but I think we’re headed for a pretty nasty reckoning.
Well said & sadly I agree
The precedent has been set that the Presidential Nomination process is defunct. The current Democrat presidential candidate didn’t receive a single vote for the nomination from any delegate or Democrat voter. The elites of the collective anointed and mandated the selection. So why does America need to go through this process in the future? You will be told who to vote…. This is the complete destruction of Democracy. What scares me is that 40% of the American voting population is ok with letting this stand. The other question should be, the person who got the votes in the Primary was deemed mentally unfit to run, so why is this man in charge of anything? Who is running the country? We are in dangerous times America
Ronald Reagan was still very busy in 1980 in his last six months as president—even as his sitting “a thousand points of light” vice president, George H.W. Bush, became the Republican nominee and was fixated on campaigning to replace Reagan.
Ronald Reagan’s tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989.
Please correct.
Other online sources quote those same dates. What exactly is incorrect about VDH’s dates?
VDH had a couple of typos in his dates but corrected them later.
Thanks Victor for yet again placing these horrific truths in front of the American people! And yet we are told by the marxist media that Americans are applauding these suicidal events by virtue of kamala’s polling numbers. Can they indeed fool all of the people all of the time?
Biden is at the beach. Kam is on the stage. One has to wonder who is running the government. (Rhetorical of course. We know unelected bureaucrats are running the government!)
“Ronald Reagan was still very busy in 1980 in his last six months as president…”
I think we have a typo there as you mean 1988.
I think so far as the Dems are concerned, it’s now become obvious to everyone that Biden hasn’t been acting as president for some time now, so leaving him in place just leaves the same shadowy figures behind him in place.
Harris hasn’t been all that quiet. There are no shortages of videos of her asking for donations, and certainly most of the media is beating a drum for her day in and day out.
These are boom times for the professional painters of lipstick on pigs.
” Ronald Reagan was still very busy in 1980 in his last six months as president…”
I think “1980” should be “1988”?
First, Reagan’s last days were 1988, typo.
Second, Biden was forced out by God, not by Pelosi.
Third, Kamala was vaporized about two years ago, roughly when she failed to launch on the border issue.
Fourth, they’ll never shut up Walz.
As Mark Steyn says “under the watch full eyes of the compliant media, democracy dies in broad day light”
“May you live in interesting times”
Nice Abstract for the Dem playbook. Amazed at the zombies that follow this path.
I respect Mr. Hanson’s commentaries so much. He is very interesting and just speaks comfortably about his topics. I Really Like his political insight. Anyway, thank you.
VDH, once again, you are spot on. The frustrating part is, so many of the Lab rats on the right, just shake their heads in disagreement, yet refuse to get involved. My evangelical Christian church pastor proudly states: “we don’t do politics here”. To not call out evil, such as abortion, and a myriad of other things, gives implicit approval.. BTW, I’m looking for a new church.
Victor – Thanks for making sense of the news. What is the next step if Kamala Harris becomes president? Do you believe that Woke politics worldwide is leading to a one world government?
Excellent article!!! Now how do we proceed for our country?
Wise Professor Hanson,
Correct of course but I continue to worry about former President Trump’s ability to stay away from inflammatory subjects like race and ideology and name calling. Every conservative supporter with a voice has communicated that he stay on track, stay calm, stay cool and stay on message about policies and contrast. Maybe I am overboard a little but he can still snatch defeat from victory and it will be an ugly time for our country.
But the alternative is Donald Trump. If the Republican party were not takenover by him and they nominated a true conservative they would romp all over the Harris Walz, ticket. But that’s not the way things are. I’ll vote for Harris as the lesser danger.
Biden will step down and Harris will claim the ‘incumbent’ mantel for a month prior to the November election. Thus she will only have to hide her incompetence as POTUS for one month. Even should an issue arise that forces her to display her total lack of knowledge, the lame stream media will cover her backside reporting how she only had one month on the job.
Being the incumbent may gain her a few hundred thousand votes from the leftist; hopefully not enough to put her over the top. Of course as the incumbent she can institute Executive Orders that could gain her more moderate voters; such as putting a halt on the open border, suspending catch and release, etc. Certainly not wall construction as that would be too obvious to undo should she successfully steal the election in November. E.O.s that could easily be reversed if inaugurated.
Even if the democrats fail to steal the 2024 Presidential election, they can claim to be the party of the First Woman of Color President. No doubt another bargain was struck already with Joe so all members of the Biden crime cabal will be pardoned, even before any charges are brought against them. A blanket amnesty for the “good of the nation” ala Jerry Ford and Nixon’s pardon.
Professor, your paragraph re Ronald Reagan’s last six months in the Presidency in 1980 is incorrect; should be 1988.
I desperately wish for something dramatic ($100 million from Elon Musk?) to happen before it’s too late.
Three Blind Mice
Is the conservative movement (moderate conservatives and the MAGA crowd) strong and tenacious enough to become the “farmer’s wife (a. k. a. middle America)”? Will it cut off the mice tales (all their ubiquitous lies), freeing the citizens of the USA from the smothering grip of left-wing radicals?
Victor, your well-thought out essays give your more mundane followers (like me) points to help convince fence-sitters Trump is the best man to “shut the granary doors” and get America back to its former prominence in the world.
Victor – have you contacted the Trump campaign to give your advice on campaign discpline and focusing on the Kamala’s record? I continue to see Trump freelance and add-lib wasting precious time and energy achieveing nothing. Somebody needs to get through to him. There are so many glaring failures that he could focus on he would never run out of material
Kamala’s fashion makeover is on its way. Her wardrobe is dowdy, and will soon and surely be replaced with more hip and trendy threads. That will appeal to young voters who are uninformed on the issues, and who judge everything visually and superficially.
With this kind of “leadership” only God can help us.The next six months with no real person at the wheel and burnt out brakes this truck can’t stay on its wheels till it gets to the bottom of the hill.
My guess is, along with increasing senility and whatever ‘medical emergency’ he experienced in Las Vegas (probably a mini-stroke), Biden is pouting about being forced out and that’s why he has nothing to say. He dang sure doesn’t want to be questioned about it because it is the ultimate humilation: the most powerful man in the world pushed out of office by his own party.
An excellent summary of the one party that professes
Democracy but, does not follow a bit of democracy!
I only hope Mr Trump is elected!!!! Otherwise I will spend at least 179 days a year away from USA .
This is not the country I was raised in , nor, the one I raised my children in !
God help the USA !!!
Over the weekend Biden gave an interview of sorts to explain his relinquishing of the nomination for 2024 election. If one can sift through the gobbledygook and believe a man who has lied his way through 5 decades of politics, Joe is doing this for democracy and to prevent Trump, aka Hitler, from destroying the nation.
QUOTE “A number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was gonna hurt them in their races. And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic.” END QUOTE
Biden claimed that he did not intend to run in 2020 but he got into the race to prevent the nation from being led by a dictator. That is obvious quite rich in that nothing the Biden/Harris administration has truly been democratic nor has it be positive for the growth of the nation. Biden reverted to the debunked statement that Trump said there were good people on both sides, which Trump did say, except Biden and the media took it out of context insisting Trump was referring to the White Supremists. The media conveniently ignored that BLM and Antifa were also at that demonstration. Trump referred only the good people on both sides peacefully protesting the issue involving the removal of Civil War and Founding Father statues.
The lame stream media will continue to cover Harris’ backside in much the same manner!
The Democrat’s new Play is called, “How To Succeed in the Business of Coup, Without Really Trying”
Victor you are a God-send to our flailing nation. Praying for a speedy recovery from the long-COVID. Even at 80% due to sickness (as I think you diagnosed it) you are still more sagacious than 99.9% of the population. May God bless you good sir.
If you would like to learn more about Kamala Harris read Chapter 2 of Peter Schwizer’s book
“Profiles in Corruption”.
If Trump would just stopped acting like an aggrieved brat, he would win easily. However he loves to hear himself bluster on and on!
Thank you for your clear (and chilling) analysis!!
You said it all! This should be published and told to the masses just
To set them straight!
Assuming the polls show JFK jr making this race into the problem of the House to resolve by member voting for the next president, I foresee the 25th amendment being used by Harris/Obama regime against Biden by the end of October and then declaring some emergency such as another Covid scare and lockdown to rig the election or declaring martial law and stopping all voting until the national “Emergency” is over. I believe the Democrats will attempt a coup on the US and then start their process of doing away with the Constitution. Would the armed services stop them. What about the DOJ? The Supreme Court can rule against them but it has no police power.
Well, what about all those Red States and armed citizens? Will they march on DC? Would they win if they did? Somehow I just don’t have confidence in our armed forces to stop such a coup and believe they would be used against us citizens.
VDH, you know who you are also describing
in the final paragraph of your essay.
“In sum, leftists endlessly conspire not only because they have little confidence in the people, but because they have absolutely none in themselves.”
The despicable propaganda machine known as the Left Wing Mass Media.
Not only do they lack confidence in themselves, but beneath their bravado is a contempt, a self-hatred, a self-abhorrence of themselves.
I think is quite apparent why they love to talk about putting people in cages.
Well said 👍🏾 and done ✅! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 BRAVO!
Typo Sir it was March 2020 when his “competition” was quickly dispatched (not 2000).
Chess pieces are unimportant. The only competitions in which they are even given human names are elections.
Such brilliant writing skills
Regrettably, none of the nefarious, incompetent, cynical, hypocritical actions of the Democratic Party will cause Harris’ defeat, because loose cannonball narcissist Trump will show absolutely no campaign policy-centric discipline for the next three months.
Brilliant as always.
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness.” – Preamble, Declaration of Independence (of eventual United States of America)
The most important two words in this quote are: “among these”; “these” references a larger grouping of the ilk noted afterward, and “among” indicating a grouping of similarly-important items, which are left off that list due to a predilection for general brevity of the document length – in both senses of the word; the framers couldn’t list them all, simply due to the sheer volume of God-Granted unalienable rights of humankind.
“among these” includes, specifically, one’s occupational choice in caring for Life needs of both oneself and those of family. As a miner of precious metals, I’m incensed at the gradual dissolution of miner’s rights to perform my occupation of choice: the epitome of the frog in hot water parable.
As an American Citizen miner, I have the same rights as did an American Citizen miner in 1850 (well prior to the advent of gold rush fever which started some years afterwards). Beginning with the first-ever Federal/state’s laws regarding mining, no such man’s law could ever preempt the God-Granted “unalienable” rights of miners to perform their chosen occupation.
This makes mining “laws” illegal, and all rights should be restored to miners immediately; shameful.
How can “discussion” proceed with “comment” , followed by several hours of analysis and
/or censorship, and response? If the forum is simply a statement of ‘position’, rather than an exploration of opinion, so be it. Perhaps my expectations for “comments” are set too high.
What, sir, are your intentions?
I am forming a Lobby group with the intent to track down the people who spent $34 Trillion dollar (with exception of defense) and get those people to pay it back. Starting with The Neil Bush Savings & Loan Bailot! I willl go through the records and like a credit card bill collector get back some of the taxpayer’s money!!
“count on 70 percent of the electorate not voting on Election Day without serious audit.”
We’ll never secure our elections until we secure our inaugurations. November 5th is just the beginning.
considered hale enough?
Outstanding summary.
Tis better for Kamala to remain elusive while veiling her incompetence rather than to open her mouth and remove all doubt