Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Imagine if Gavin Newsom was currently Vice President amid the final meltdown of the Biden family consortium.
Does anyone doubt that Biden would then either be forced to resign by Democratic politicos (for reasons in addition to his escalating dementia), or would be impeached and perhaps abdicate Nixon-style?
The presence of the now predictable mediocrity of Kamala Harris and the impossibility, given her race and gender, of removing her, for now is about all that keeps a cognitively declining Biden still in office. The Left fears what she could do as president to the Democratic Party; conservatives are terrified of what she could do to the country.
Joe Biden’s bewilderment exempts his embarrassments from accountability in the way that Hunter Biden’s addictions excuse his past serial criminality. But the passes granted to both father and son would be now unsustainable with a viable Vice President in waiting.
Indeed, the Harris problem explains some of current Democratic strategy.
Backroom leaks and growing insider rumors of Biden dementia confirm the portrait of an often befuddled president whom the public by now knows all too well.
The aimless House Democrats’ “how-dare-you-even-consider-an-impeachment inquiry” furor, coupled with their half-hearted efforts, along with the media, to refute the actual charges of corruption of the Biden family, suggest that he will not run for reelection—but also not be impeached much less convicted or removed under the 25th Amendment.
So the Harris dilemma explains a lot: finding a way to keep her out of current power until Biden somehow finishes his first term, and thus letting the Democratic 2024 primary candidates organically abort her presidential aspirations.
There are a few problems, however, with this strategy.
One, can Joe Biden finish his first term?
That would require his staff to shorten his already truncated workday for the next 18 months to about 2-3 hours of work per day.
He would have to be kept away from photo-ops with young (especially female) children, lest he turkey-gobbles the cheek of another victim to a worldwide audience.
He can no longer read off a teleprompter without slurring his words, losing his place, or going off extemporaneously on to topics such as “Vladimir” Zelenskyy, the “Iraq” war in Ukraine, or relief over the curing of cancer.
He cannot hold half-hour press conferences given his incoherence and his angry prevarications. He still insists incredulously that he never discussed the Biden family business with Hunter, although we may soon see transcripts, recordings, and affidavits that he was in fact intimately involved in and profited from it.
The Strange Case of Hunter in the White House
Hunter is toxic and capable of leaving behind incriminating evidence or engaging in surreal behavior anywhere and anytime. Why would a former crack cocaine addict be brought into the White House, after which a bag of cocaine was for the first time in presidential history found abandoned in the West Wing?
(Partial answer: why and how would an addict leave an incriminating crackpipe in a rental car, simply abandon a laptop at a repair shop with evidence of his own felonious behavior on it, or allow his illegally registered handgun to turn up in a dumpster near a school)?
An outside, disinterested observer who read the contents of the laptop and Hunter’s wounded-fawn protestations about his unappreciated role in enriching his father and uncle, or digested his unhinged recent career as a quid-pro-quo, paint-by-the-numbers artiste, selling high-priced junk in exchange for presidential flavors, would conclude that the Bidens are apprehensive of the unpredictable Hunter. Keep your friends close, but your explosive son even closer.
Of course, they fear Hunter’s recklessness, addictions, and greed—but more perhaps his ability to take down the entire Biden clan should they distance themselves too far from him or leak that the family’s corrupt schemes were birthed by the fall-guy Hunter alone.
Aside from Joe’s cognitive decline and Hunter’s volatility, no one believes anymore Joe Biden’s patent lies that he never discussed with Hunter his lucrative grifting career. Already, the untruth has transmogrified into he never did business with Hunter—and soon perhaps he never profited from the business he did and discussed with Hunter.
No matter, by year’s end there will be witnesses and hard data showing that Joe himself discussed pay-for-play schemes with foreign entities, of the sort he long ago boasted with previous impunity before a Council of Foreign Relations event.
This is no Whitewater, Trooper-gate, or Stormy Daniels scandal, but bribery of the sort explicitly outlined by the Constitution for removal from office: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
Selling influence to foreign-government related enterprises is, of course, not just bribery but perhaps treason as well. And it involves other “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” among them tax fraud on unreported foreign income.
Moreover, it is arguable that the Biden shake-down consortium has altered the very nature of U.S. foreign policy. We will never know the full effect of the false Russian disinformation/laptop narrative, following the fake Russian collusion hoax, on Kremlin thinking. Nor can we explain why Joe Biden once urged Putin to lay off hacking humanitarian U.S. targets, or suggested that a minor invasion of Ukraine would not elicit a U.S. response, or offered to airlift Zelenskyy out of Kyiv in the first days of the war.
Nor can we explain why China was never held accountable by Biden after new information entailed the role of the Wuhan lab in birthing the Covid virus, or for sending a spy balloon across the continental U.S. with impunity. Meanwhile, the administration’s crazy talk of partnering with a supposedly non-bellicose China seems unhinged.
Finally, given the first Trump impeachment, what is the Left now going to say to House Republicans—“You cannot in this country impeach a president merely for threatening to cancel foreign aid unless Ukraine fired a prosecutor looking into his high-ranking family’s illegal influence selling?”
Equality Under the Law?
The Democrats in their Trump derangement fits so lowered the bar for impeachment and special prosecutions, that not impeaching or removing Biden under the Left’s own new standards seems almost ridiculous.
If Trump earned hysteria about 25th-amendment removal (to the point of taking and acing the Montreal Cognitive Assessment) for a halting gait on an occasion descending a ramp, how could a non-compos-mentis and chronically falling Biden not be so examined?
Moreover, Trump was impeached for 1) asking a foreign leader to examine the corruption of the Biden family with Ukraine while he put a hold on approved foreign aid to Ukraine; 2) and at the time, it was possible that Joe Biden could have been Trump’s likely future 2020 opponent.
But in contrast note that Biden 1) issued an ultimatum that a Ukraine prosecutor would either be summarily fired, or aid would be ended. And he was fired!; and 2) Biden was only a possible general-election presidential rival when Trump called Zelensky; Trump is currently the front-runner against a putative Biden candidacy in 2024.
Biden has also done far more than ask Ukraine to ensure a political opponent was not guilty of corruption, but rather sicced a special DOJ prosecutor on Trump for taking out classified papers in the manner that Joe Biden himself did years earlier, without the prerogative as a senator or vice president of declassifying such papers.
Harris Paradoxes
The open disregard for Kamala Harris is not just a Republican phenomenon. Her dismal popularity reflects that such disappointment in her is bipartisan. And now the likely machinations mentioned to keep her out of the presidency are undoing all the racial and gender pandering that explain her otherwise inexplicable appointment in the first place. At some point the Democratic identity-politics base is going to pressure the party’s hierarchy to back off and back Harris or face charges of racism.
In an odd way, the Left’s tolerance of Biden’s own cognitive impairment also strengthens Harris’s case, especially among her diversity base. Kamala utters incomprehensible sentences; Joe cannot finish them. Kamala’s public declamations are kindergarten stuff; Joe’s are more nursery school level. In theory, Kamala can be coached and improve; Joe’s declines are at a geometric rate that is irreversible.
So if someone so cognitively challenged is currently President with the full assent of the Democratic Party, for what reasons does it turn its animus on a Vice President who is still relatively young and hale?
How odd that the Left knows that both the current President and Vice President should not be in either job after 2024; and yet its own prior pandering and rank politicking have made both almost impossible to remove. And how odder that the extra-legal measures the Left took to emasculate the Trump presidency are now the low standards by which an utterly corrupt Biden can be investigated, indicted, impeached, or forced to resign.
The real problem with Kamala Harris is she has done nothing impeachable (you have to do something (anything) but Harris actually does nothing. If the Republicans were to hold impeachment hearings on Kamala Harris the Democrats would join in the chorus. It would solve many problems.
Could not be further from the Truth. She knew and knows everything and has done nothing. Just like Obama and Rice.
Brilliant as always and insightful as only you can be!
Must also praise your courage to speak the truths you see.
Sincerely,
Beth Hardwick
(Mrs. Robert Hardwick)
One reaps what one sows.
This (the Biden/Harris conundrum)is exactly what happens when decision-making is driven by emotion instead of logic and fact. Similarly, when an entire Country is dis-educated to the level of critical thought being discouraged, good, durable decision-making becomes impossible.
Leftists and democrats (redundant?) own this albatross.
Kamala has been in the loop undoubtably. What did she know and ehen did she know it?
She will be booted out with Biden because the type of money grubbing, influence peddling behavior exhibited by the Clintons, Bidens, and so many other politicians in Washington, D.C. is rampant.
The greatest American tragedy is how corrupt our FBI, CIA, and other agencies are in covering up Democratic party criminality, ethical violations, and political payouts using and being payed with taxpayers’ hard earned taxes.
Hoistable?
Perhaps it would be better to go ahead and impeach Biden. If we don’t adhere to the Constitution, regardless of the possible outcomes, then we render it meaningless.
And Harris could be reigned in a bit by a Republican Congress. Not to mention what devastating effects she would have on the Democrats chances of winning 2024.
Oh, so this is what Alice in Wonderland is like. Get me home, please, get me home!
Brilliant. Simply brilliant
And yet Joe got over 81 million votes campaigning from his basement. Imagine the scale of the landslide if he would have got out and did the conventional campaign. Once more, with emphasis, if the subject is not election integrity then the subject is likely a distraction. Just my opinion.
You seem to be presuming if Joe would have done a conventional campaign he’d have got more votes? I was thinking less! The basement was a major component of the winning strategy. That and taking advantage of Covid to materially alter the voting process.
I was being facetious. Covid was an excuse, the fix was in.
Incognito ergo sum. Mundus vult decipi. Toilet seat down. Or up if you are a democrat. Where was I ???
So great to read your writing. Victor Davis Hanson says so well what we are thinking but can’t articulate. What absolutely insane times we are witnessing.
Kamala Harris would do no worse. She is already less competent than Joe Biden and isn’t even considered Non compos Mentis or having signs of dementia. An “African American woman,” A child of an Asian Indian mother and Jamaican father born in The USA, Oakland Ca to be precise.
Well she is an absolute idiot & she MUST be stoned right? RIGHT??
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. (Newton)
Conservatives need a kick in the ass.
If Trump goes to jail, we may finally see a sustained, enraged and powerful reaction from the public that will ultimately transform America.
Also, consider the principle of “going too far”. At some point the frog needs to jump out of the pot before he gets boiled.
Which will it be? Frog legs for dinner or a newly awakened conservative majority acting forcefully and in unison to defeat the evil that has taken over this country?
This could be our last chance. What do you think?
I sure hope you’re right Jim. If the voters, after witnessing the systemic corruption, don’t back the Republican-traditional capitalist America will no longer exist and the whole world will suffer.
The “new world order” of which our progressive, marxist elites are charter members aims to subjugate, emasculate and humiliate the masses. Through fear of death they hope to coerce people that can actually do vital and meaningful tasks into servitude to perpetuate the elite’s power base and their existence. What could possibly be wrong with their self-serving scenario?
I tend to agree with your assessment but I just don’t see it happening. Too little, too late.
I think we may actually wake up (pray God it’s not too late). I say that not only because of DJT”s continued support but also because McConnell’s failing health could (SHOULD) open the door for his MAGA replacement & I just watched the man who hopefully WILL replace Romney on Dinesh D’Souza’s show tonight. Losing those two (while keeping the Barr, Christie, Pence, Haley types on the outside looking in) will only contribute to the success of DJT’s 2nd term.
Maybe we’re entering a time when what’s old becomes new again. The writer of the linked article calls it Fourth Generation Warfare. Here’s the crux of his premise:
“The origin of fourth-generation war lies not in technology nor in tactics, but in a vastly larger phenomenon: a growing and near-universal crisis of the legitimacy of the state. All around the world, the state has become a prisoner of a new class—an elite class that can’t make things work, that uses its wealth and power to insulate itself from the consequences of things not working, and which cares about only one thing: remaining the elite.”
https://chroniclesmagazine.org/recent-features/the-future-of-war/
You are absolutely correct.
Burn it down to the ground. Burn it with fire!
The Dems have ripped the veneer of respectability from political leadership that leads to trust. The outcome is an urge to reform. Regrettably their entrenched role throughout civil institutions are prepared to suppress such efforts using force of all kinds.
Readers here and the American population in general need to understand the consequences of El Guapo’s final sentence. Submit or resist?
Well said, as always, VDH. I am fascinated to see how dems handle the next months as election plans become clearer. I also hope another conservative candidate becomes viable. Biden is a mess, but so is Trump, in his own way. It would be amazing if Republicans offered a candidate that we could support with enthusiasm for 2024.
The problem is Deep State McCarthy doesn’t have the stones to impeach Biden. With the low standards the Left has set for using impeachment in their unhinged TDS fueled views of Trump Biden should be impeached by now. If he hasn’t been yet I doubt he will. I also don’t get why Rand Paul is being a coward on impeachment as well. I mean he can’t initiate it or anything but he is against Biden being impeached when Biden freaking deserves to be impeached.
“if Republicans offered a candidate that we could support …”
The clear implication in those words is that their author cannot (will not) support the current front runner.
Given VDH’s well articulated description of USA’s current leadership, such an attitude risks contributing to four more years of the same.
trump is not a mess. your face on the other hand………
There is Vivek Ramaswamy. Check out his interview with Dr Jordan Peterson on youtube.
Please accept a post in Trumps cabinet!
Trump can’t and won’t win. I’d love to see the Republican coalition that are so strongly attached to Trump finally realize that he isn’t the best way forward at this time. This realization and acceptance is the only way to save 2024. Any one of 5 candidates running could easily beat Biden. Let them win and do what is necessary to fix our DoJ and every other corrupt institution while offering an unconditional pardon for Trump. He will need it.
Jeff, you’re spot on!
GD bless Victor David Hanson!
As always, spot on.
I don’t see how Joe Biden makes it into the 2024 election, legally or physically.
Nail. Head!
When Biden* was elected, I speculated that the Democrat plan was to use Biden* as a marionette-president for just a little over two years then invoke the 25th Amendment to give Harris the ability to effectively run as an incumbent in 2024 and be president for 10 years.
Then reality set in. “President Harris” became the best argument for keeping Biden* in place, rather than the best argument for replacing him. I think she was chosen specifically for her ability to be used as a conduit for the Party just as Biden* is being used, but she has simply proved to be a not-so-useful idiot.
I half-suspect the Democrats intend to run Biden again, despite growing problems with him. It’s got to be a heady feeling to wield the powers of the Presidency free from responsibility knowing that consequences for any decision would fall on someone else, someone disposable.
This was how I felt with Biden being Obama’s VP. Obama was safe as POTUS because no one would want Biden to ascend to the POTUS slot.
Great comment!
Sad, dangerous times we live in.
Now, if we could just admit the WMD’s didn’t exist in 2004, I might listen/read to what this wind bag is saying, about anything…
Amazing that you can conveniently forget that Iraq used WMD (nerve agents) on the Kurds multiple times during the 80s… so yes, they certainly did have WMD. Because we couldn’t find it doesn’t mean it’s not buried deep in the desert… but don’t conflate the two.
Reuters reported on the witnessed transfer of IRAQI WMD from their depots in Iraq to Iran and Syria by trucks with Russian drivers in the month prior to the invasion in 2003. Three separate, detailed reports published throughout the Persian Gulf which I read with fascination at the time.
The same biological agents were used in 800 incidents in Iraq, Shia militias using IEDs on allied personnel, following the 2003 invasion. I lived in Qatar at the time-it. was common knowledge.
We are being gaslit. Who is in charge anyway? BMS
Prosecuting Biden delivers an easy out for the democrats. Does Michelle Obama run so her husband can keep running the country?
Is Harris even legally qualified to be the POTUS?
Another great VDH piece.
Many unanswered questions remain and the Biden Regime carnage isn’t over. The extent of the final damage will take a while to calculate. I don’t think history will be very kind, unless it’s heavily revised to protect the not so innocent.
Whatever the final cost socially, politically and economically one this is for sure: it’s the average American that will be stuck with the bill.
The whole house of Democrat cards is about to collapse in Wray-Myorkis-Garland-Biden impeachment as it should, but that puts Kamala in a lame duck Presidency, automatically inducing Xi to invade Taiwan, empowering the military to take charge. Barack’s only real move is to order Harris to either resign or be paddle-boarded, have Joe appoint Gavin or Hillary VP, then have Joe resign for age-related health reasons. Problem solved, so far as Democrats are concerned. They are THAT stupid? Yes.
All of this made possible by a stolen election and a compliant media.
There is always a way to take Harris out of the equation…….an incurable disease lurking that is suddenly found….cancer?? Women get cancer quite readily it seems, just like Jack Ruby, remember him?
Victor Hanson is brilliant
To be honest, I did not read your article. But it seems to me, everytime you say Harris is a disaster. That even her own party doesn’t want her. You seem to also affirm things can get worse. And you also seem to say, as bad as Biden is, he’s more competent than a much younger Harris. It also seems to implies he’s smarter than an ex-California Attorney General. Damn, Biden is smart even as he inched closer to the heaven’s door.
not buying this. just as in 2018,2020 and 2022 they will cheat steal and lie about the cheating and stealing and so everything else is simply dime store bs.
the end.
The American Left has become purely reactionary. There is no long-term planning. All there is hatred for the sane and the desire to pull down every structure that makes civil life possible—truly a monstrous force. Never give up the fight. Things seem dark right now but nothing is foreordained in contests such as these. We had to go through the process of awakening the resistance, scoping our opponent and his resources, shaping a counter-force and war-gaming various options. Finally, in a limited way we are counter-attacking in a systematic way through the courts. Let’s see what shakes out of the tree. Perhaps more opportunities will present themselves.
The point is to make us watch nothing happen.
Trump’s job, like Kari Lake, is to lose.
It’s called spirit cooking.
I think Kamala Harris was picked as VP not for diversity but as an insurace policy for Biden. But I wonder if the Dems will get rid of Biden and let Kamala finish his term. She will be able to pick a new VP, such as Hillary Clinton, and the Dem Senate will approve the appointment. Kamala will be “convinced” to resign or impeached and Hillary will become president. Remember Gerald Ford.
Very well-reasoned and irrefutably true, as far as I can see. It is so sad that logic, reason, and common sense have become so rare in our society – so much so that we are too often reduced to selecting not the best candidate, but the lesser of evils. It is hard to be optimistic regarding our future, especially with such evil and/or incompetent people in positions of power. However, I started listening to your podcasts a couple of months ago, and now have it auto downloaded on Spotify. Your clear, unambiguous thoughts offer a very down-to-earth insight that often opens new avenues of thought that I had not considered. While I appreciate Sami’s efforts to inject more positivity into the podcasts, I actually find inspiration in the fact that such a logical thinker is able to survive the woke-shark-infested waters of Crazyfornia. I also really enjoy hearing of your farming experiences that, once again, present a point of view that is rarely found in public discourse anymore. Jack also convinced me to subscribe to the Blade of Perseus, as well as his Civil Thoughts, so I am happy to have expanded my reading material.
Thank you, Professor Hanson, Sami, & Jack for your efforts on behalf of improving our society. God bless you all.
It is sweet sweet justice.
I wish that Hunter would get into such a tight legal position, that his only escape from it would be to demand to see in writing, a guarantee that he will actually GET a fair trial!! That will get him off of the hook, and also blow the criminality of the 100% corrupted legal system right out into the lime light!! It’s a twofer!! Without that guarantee, any “trial” is reduced to being either a pure gamble, and we cannot be forced to gamble against our will, or a scam that is rigged up to go a certain way, and no one can be forced to participate in ANY kind of a crime!!
Fascinating read. However, Democrats are so consumed with maintaining power, and have perfected election fraud to do so with apparent impunity, they are willing to install any kitchen appliance. Again. And then shamelessly defend whoever it is and lie into a camera with the dead eyes that only politicians and psychopathic killers possess. Compounding that fact: when those with the guns and badges are also part of the criminal enterprise, the only thing likely to change is which brand of toaster occupies the Oval Office.
I understand your point but I truly wonder how many Americans in military service would, in Pavlovian fashion, kill fellow Americans because some elitist thinks it would be a good idea to do so. Should one order American citizens to be executed so that the new beach house can be tastefully furnished?
Hmmmm? Maybe the Republicans will gather the nerve to impeach Biden and then become the “mean” righties and undoer’s of democracy. But, miraculously, they find out that the cocaine was left in the White House by Kamala. Voilà! The set up for a Newsom presidency. 😉
Good luck to all!
Camalatoe would screw up all the grifters operations on both sides, can’t be having that.
Kamala is equally suitable a puppet as Biden.
Otherwise spot on VDH.
Love your work, please keep it up.
Odd indeed.
VDH never fails to enlighten.
VDH has a very impressive mind and an intelligible ability to verbalize his thoughts. I always rely on his cognitive genius.
You should rely on your own less-than cognitive genius.
Everyone has a preference. His may not be yours. The greatness of America is the freedom to choose. Don’t defer that freedom to anyone, including him, or especially to intellectuals — someone who can make a convincing case for anything, or anyone. Just about anything under the sun, frankly.
President Harris? Wet hen salad.
My thoughts exactly (and most any clear headed practical American)! I wonder if the mass psychosis victims question why on earth they voted for these clowns? God save us from Newsom! Thank you for your sound reason and entertaining commentary as well as educational content.
Karma like Kamala can be a bitch. 2024 promises to be one for the books, hopefully sanity prevails, if not ask not for whom the belle tolls, the bell tolls for thee.
Joe Biden was picked as VP by Obama as a guarantee against replacement, and Harris by by Biden for the same reason. The Democratic Party has ratcheted-down the VP slot for its own convenience, leaving the country at the mercy of a career criminal.
If we fail to punish Joe Biden, we may be condemning our children or grandchildren to punishing the Democrats violently – they will inevitably overreach if not slapped down.
“Punishing Joe Biden” may thus have to consist of wiping out the Democrats in Congress. Which Republican can convince America of that necessity?
Thank you Professor Hanson.
Kamala Harris would be the true embodiment of what the post-coup Presidency actually is. A figurehead. They don’t have to be smart. Hopefully they aren’t crooked like Joe Biden, but they usually are left to work on rackets rather than operate the levers of government. That was all taken over for good when the National Security State vetoed JFK’s plan for peace. No President will be strong enough to take it back. That’s up to the States and the People.
The sad part is you are always spot on with your analysis and yet most dems seem oblivious or do not care about the damage being done to the country. Racism was not an issue, but became one which gave people the right to loot and pillage business in their own towns and neighborhoods, making people fearful of going there. The DA’s failing to do their job by locking up criminals made things even worse. Cashless bail was always a bad idea, nearly as bad as an open-border. then the distraction of gender-dysphoria became the next thing to cover up their prior sins, only making things worse and harming children who will never understand any of this. Not much of a future is being left for them to enjoy.
PROFESSOR VDH, as usual, your deeply insightful summaries help me fight through all the Dem/Left OBFUSCATIONS.
“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident …” I read that plain language to say that even if Joe Biden were to die, or be removed on 25th Amendment grounds, or simply abdicate, Kamala Harris CANNOT Constitutionally ascend to the Presidency of the United States (because she is not “eligible” to hold the office).
Another well written analysis professor. Just one “outside the box” thought if you please.
It may behoove Biden to step down now; admit to the crime of influence peddling, get a Hunteresque deal; to subsequently be pardoned by Harris. Could Biden risk losing the election in 2024 then be convicted of the more serious crimes of treason based on his actions? A a new administration would certainly purge the DOJ house, to possibly pursue RICO money laundering crimes that may lead to greater charges.
Harris can use the same precurser Ford used in pardoning Nixon, that the country would be better served rather than a messy trial of a former president. Such a pardon would also prevent further pursuit of others associated with the crimes and make any Obama accessory charges immune to prosecution.
PROFESSOR VDH always with deep insights and summaries. This allows me to fight through all the Left/Dems OBFUSCATIONS.
I think you just nailed it. Obama is behind all of this. He is the shadow president with Susan Rice and her sidekicks running the show from the White House. The Saul Alinsky Marxists are implementing Rules for Radicals with great success. Americans need to rise up and destroy these Communist/Marxist evil leaders.
The gates of hell are awaiting them. God bless America. 🇺🇲