Michael Shellenberger on the Tyranny of the Left

Michael Shellenberger | This morning, Jeh Johnson, the former Secretary of Homeland Security under Obama, went on MSNBC to make the case for Joe Biden to stay in the race.

"A presidency is more than just one man… I would take Joe Biden at his worst day at age 86 so long as he has people around him like Avril Haines, Samantha Power, Gina Raimondo supporting him, over Trump any day."

I’m sorry, but democracy doesn’t work that way. Americans elected Joe Biden, not Avril Haines, Samantha Power, and Gina Raimondo.

Sure: all presidents rely on unelected advisors. But at the end of the day, we expect that the person the majority voted for will make the decisions.

That’s clearly not the case with Biden. As we saw in the debate, he’s unable to speak clearly. And that means he’s unable to think clearly.

And Biden’s own aides admitted that Biden only has six good hours a day. What happens if Russia threatens nuclear war at two in the morning?

It’s fair to wonder if Biden’s incompetence is, to some extent, responsible for various disasters in his administration. If Biden’s mental capacity were 100% would he have allowed so many migrants to cross the border? So many that the border crisis threatens his presidency? Would he have approved such a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan?

Where were Avril Haines, Sam Power, and Gina Raimondo when all of that was going down? Maybe they wanted those bad policies. Or maybe Biden didn’t understand what they were telling him. Or maybe there wasn’t time in his six-hour workday to think things through.

Or maybe everyone was too scared to tell Biden the bad news. Politico this morning reported that senior Biden administration officials go to “great lengths” to “avoid provoking a negative reaction” from Biden because he has such a short temper.

“It’s like, ‘You can’t include that, that will set him off,’” said one of them. “It’s a Rorschach test, not a briefing. Because he is not a pleasant person to be around when he’s being briefed. It’s very difficult, and people are scared shitless of him.”

In other words, what we saw at the debate wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it is that Biden can’t or won’t deal with bad news. And what is being president of the United States if not dealing, day after day, hour after hour, with bad news?

There are definitely a lot of people urging Biden to step down. But what’s so disturbing is how they’re making the case based on his inability to defeat Trump, rather than on his ability to govern the country.

It’s time to get real. We’re talking about the guy who decides whether to fire off nuclear missiles. The guy who decided to sell Ukraine missiles that can hit Russia. The American people elected Biden to have that responsibility, not Avril Haines, Sam Power, and Gina Raimondo.

According to the latest polling, just one out of four Americans think Biden has the mental capacity to handle that responsibility. We are in a deeply surreal and dangerous moment.

Consider that the media reported that two days ago, Hunter Biden played a key role in convincing his father to stay in the race. Remember Hunter Biden? The guy who oversaw a vast influence peddling scheme for his dad while smoking crack and playing with guns? He’s who President Joe Biden is listening to?

Democrats are telling us we shouldn’t worry about that. The representatives of the deep state will take care of us. Who is Avril Haines? She’s the head of the Directorate for National Intelligence — our top spy chief. Who is Jeh Johnson? He’s the guy who created the basis for the Department of Homeland Security to demand censorship by social media platforms.

The Democratic Party is not democratic. It has been trying for years to incarcerate the main political opponent of the president of the United States. It oversaw the creation of a Censorship Industrial Complex. It weaponized the FBI and other intelligence agencies to spread disinformation about its enemies.

And the Democratic Party is now trying to get away with running for reelection a man who lacks the compos mentis required to do his job and is openly saying that the deep state will run things instead.

Jeh Johnson is right that a presidency is more than just one man. But it’s a role that depends entirely upon that one man. And in a democracy, we elect that man. The alternative is tyranny.

@shellenberger

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