We have had the debate and now the “big boy” press conference, and the world has consequently become far more dangerous place.
Senior policymakers in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran understand — better than Rahm Emanuel — the importance of not letting a crisis go to waste. They know that thanks to the arrogance of the Democratic Party and its collaborators in the mainstream media, America’s position is more perilous than at any time in the last half a century, at least.
The safest outcome would be for our strategic enemies to decide to abstain from anything the United States might regard as an act of war.
War councils in China, Russia, Iran, and elsewhere have undoubtedly been holding long meetings this week, considering whether to take aggressive steps in pursuit of their geostrategic interests. They assume, correctly, that the United States is currently incapable of any strong and decisive action.
World leaders and most American voters believe, reasonably, that Joe Biden is not in charge at the White House. Yet it isn’t clear who is in charge. Certainly no one thinks either Vice President Kamala Harris or Biden’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, has the strategic acumen or political credibility to take charge in an emergency. Any attempt at the unpresidented White House to coordinate a major foreign policy response would precipitate a constitutional crisis.
Several alternatives might unfold over the next few weeks — most of them bad for the United States and fatal for the Democratic Party.
The fate of a political party seems less important in the short term, but it is by no means insignificant. If the country survives these critical weeks without being crippled militarily or economically by one of our adversaries, November 2024 could be what political scientists call a “realigning election” — one of such magnitude that it wipes out the Democratic Party and transforms the political landscape for a generation.
The safest outcome, for both the country and the Democrats, would be for our strategic enemies to decide (for whatever reason) to abstain from anything the United States might regard as an act of war. The presidential election would then proceed, either with or without Joe Biden on the ballot, in relative calm, with Donald Trump all but assured of an overwhelming victory.
It seems clear now that Biden was not intentionally set up to fail at the disastrous debate. The Democrats had no secret plan to replace him. We would have seen evidence of it by now. But his press conference on Thursday night, and the reactions to it among Democrats, continue to weaken his claim to be the Democratic Party’s candidate for president. Still, with each passing day, it becomes more difficult for the party to overcome the legal, financial, and ideological hurdles blocking the smooth selection of a new candidate.
Even if the Democrats essentially hand Trump the presidency, hyperpartisans on the radical left will nevertheless regard him as illegitimate, and the “Resist” campaign will unfold as expected. But it will lack much of the urgency and wider support it might have had before Biden’s apparent dementia became the top news story around the world.
Even “acceptable” left-wing riots require a pretext of legitimacy. How can Antifa burn cities to protest the rejection of an obviously senile candidate or his questionable last-minute replacement? Very few mainstream voters of either party will support that justification for violence, and it will marginalize further the Democrats’ radical wing, while peeling away even more working-class minorities for the GOP.
But the Democratic Party would probably survive.
Other alternatives are more dire. A military action deemed unacceptable to the United States, within the next few weeks or months — perhaps in Taiwan, a NATO country, or even in our homeland — could be met with paralysis. That would lead to a severe, permanent loss of American power and credibility. This might include a drastic blow to our economic prosperity, which has long rested on the stability of the dollar and the American security umbrella. The shock to our standard of living might not take long to be felt.
Or we could be drawn haphazardly and chaotically into a military conflict that we would quickly lose in all likelihood, not only because of the political power vacuum in the White House, but thanks to the deterioration of military readiness from DEI, financial mismanagement, and a general lack of seriousness within the military and civilian leadership.
In each of these cases, the blow to the Democrats would be devastating. The strange power that woke ideology seems to hold would surely evaporate in the face of a genuine calamity. Fear, uncertainty, and hunger — all real possibilities in the case of a military and economic crisis — have a way of concentrating the mind. The fashionable nonsense that currently occupies so much of our attention on social media and cable news would be instantly forgotten if reliable access to electricity, medical care, and other basic needs suddenly became a daily concern.
Even if the full dimensions of the crisis were averted, and the United States escaped the worst of these scenarios, a close call would probably be sufficient to shake a large majority of Americans out of their complacency.
The appalling corruption of the D.C. establishment, the frivolous incompetence of the Democrats’ gerontocracy, and the sheer preposterousness of woke ideology would come under intense scrutiny. The media, universities, and the entertainment industry — which have done so much to prop up the Democrat agenda — could lose much of their influence. We might see a renewed focus on what really matters, and long-delayed (or suppressed) questions about American citizenship, the common good, and state of our constitutional government would have fresh urgency.
It is conceivable that conservatives and moderates could find a way out of what many fear has become a dead end for the American republic.
None of this is guaranteed. We might avoid a crisis altogether, and the regime could lumber along in much the same way as it has. But the recklessness and hubris into which the party of Jefferson and Jackson has descended are now on full display. The depth of the party’s irresponsibility and deceitfulness is only now becoming clear to many voters. And the political quandary the Democrats have created for themselves may get even more uncomfortable once the leftist radicals fully appreciate how badly their goals have been compromised by the party’s doddering leadership.
Even if the Democratic Party does send itself into political oblivion, it remains deeply uncertain whether Trump and the Republicans would make something of the opportunity or fritter it away with more politics as usual. And we must still pass safely through the grave strategic peril of the next several months.
Yet for those of us who had come to suspect that America’s constitutional government was passing the point of no return, there seems to be a glimmer of hope. It’s not much, but it’s enough for now.
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