The President They Have Got.

“This cannot be real life!” Confronted with the choice of recommitting themselves to the myth of Joe Biden, or believing the evidence of their own eyes, those Americans not already committed to Donald Trump will reach out instinctively for the President they wish they had – blind to the President they have got.

HOWARD DEAN knows what it’s like to be at the sharp end of an adverse public reaction. He was doing surprisingly well in the 2004 Democratic Party presidential primaries until his infamous “Dean scream” caused voters to turn away abruptly. As he watched the debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump unfold on 27 June 2024, most Americans old enough to recall Dean’s downfall would have assumed that the former Vermont Governor new exactly what he was looking at – an unprecedented political train-wreck.

Interviewed by CNN barely 48 hours after the event, however, Dean was curiously unperturbed. Indeed, he affected a lofty disdain for the whole event. Give it ten days, he admonished his interviewer, reminding her that the attention-span of the American voter was very short. Contemptuous of both his panicking Democratic Party colleagues, and a click-hungry news media, Dean was at pains to tell the American people that there was nothing to see here. So, please folks, just move along. Joe’s fine.

Dean’s arrogant lack of concern epitomises the deep-seated dysfunction at the summit of the Democratic Party. Because, in spite of his spectacular crash-and-burn exit from the 2004 presidential race, Dean would spend the next 20 years steadily climbing his party’s greasy pole – to the point where he must now be counted among what MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow calls the “muckety-mucks” of America’s political elite.

Dean’s CNN interview revealed the corruption of that elite almost as unequivocally as the debate revealed Biden’s infirmity. Dean made it very clear that the Democratic Party leadership’s response to the demonstrable weakness of their candidate will be, simply, to invite the American people to disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes.

The Biden-Trump debate did a lot more, however, than showcase the unacceptability of both candidates. On display, albeit in different costuming, was the fear and contempt of the American people that permeates the American Constitution. In spite of the first three words of that august document, its content is devoted to ensuring that the decisions of ordinary American voters cannot be translated into unmediated political action. More bluntly: the framers of the Constitution saw no good reason why the popular will should prevail over the interests of wealthy and well-educated Americans like themselves.

If Joe Biden had the slightest respect for the working-class Americans who have supported the Democratic Party consistently since Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” of the 1930s; if he was genuinely concerned about the upholding the equality of Black and Hispanic Americans; if he truly cared about the reproductive freedom of American women; then, having defeated Trump in 2020, he would have cleared the way for the younger, more vigorous, men and women of his party, by announcing early that he would not be seeking a second term.

If Donald Trump was not convinced that a good half of the American people were, at one and the same moment, as thick as bricks, and as malleable as clay, then he would not dare to affront their morals, and lie to their faces, with such breathtaking consistency.

Some historians argue that successful demagogues love their audiences, caressing and delighting them like a lover. Others, however, insist that the successful demagogue, like the successful con-man, has nothing but contempt for his “marks”. In the estimation of these “friends of the people”, anyone stupid and/or greedy enough to be taken in by the grifter’s pitch, deserves to be – and will be – grifted good and hard.

The leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties, were they genuine democrats, would long ago have modernised the American Constitution. It is scandalous that the Electoral College made it even as far as the Twentieth Century. The President of the United States should be directly elected by the American people. The idea that a candidate can win the popular vote, but not the presidency, is a democratic outrage. That it has persisted well into the Twenty-First Century confirms that the ruling elites’ contempt for “We the People” remains every bit as strong as it was in the Eighteenth.

The Supreme Court of the United States offers additional proof of how little faith the dominant factions of both parties are prepared to repose in the judgement of the people. That nine men and women, appointed for life, have the power to strike down any and every legislative initiative deemed inimical to the elite interests responsible for their appointment, cannot be deemed acceptable by any democracy worthy of the name. Unelected judges should never be empowered to strike down the laws of elected legislators. Constitutional principles are far too important to be left to the judiciary.

The endurance of these and many other anti-democratic features of the US Constitution raises the possibility that Howard Dean’s arrogant response to the Biden-Trump debate, while outrageous, may not, in fact, be ill-judged. If the Constitution’s glaring affronts to democratic principles have yet to engender a nationwide movement for its revision, then perhaps Dean’s faith in the public’s willingness to disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes is not as cynical as it appears.

For more than 200 years the American people have been encouraged to look upon their republic as “a shining city set upon a hill” – the exemplar from which all the other peoples of the world can draw inspiration. America’s Founding Fathers, far from being the landed gentlemen, slave-owners, soldiers, merchants, and lawyers which history confirms them to have been; men inspired by high ideals, but also heavily constrained by the exigencies of practical politics; are instead presented to posterity as intellectual and moral titans. They have become the USA’s tutelary deities: impervious to error; incapable of sin.

The horrors perpetrated by these heroes and their successors may be acknowledged, albeit reluctantly, by educated Americans, but only if presented to them as unconnected aberrations. All attempts to present such crimes as a feature, not a bug, of the USA’s historical evolution are fiercely resisted. Columbia, America’s symbolic colossus, her liberating lamp held high, strides resolutely to meet America’s future. Only the most impious attempt to direct the world’s attention to the blood, bones and gore besmearing the soles of the gigantic goddess’s feet.

Truly, it is easier to believe in the comforting myth than the disturbing reality. What Americans saw on 27 June was their President, a frail old man, alone on stage, unsupported by notes and advisers, made suddenly aware that he could not gather together enough of his wits to contradict the greatest charlatan ever to occupy the White House.

“This cannot be real life!”, protested The Daily Show’s John Stewart, his voice overloading with incredulous anger and grief. “It can’t! Fuck! This is America!”

It was by far the best comment of an overwhelming night. America was staring, horror-struck, at its very own picture of Dorian Grey.

By the morning after the morning after, however, America had turned away. “Joe” was back, socking it to ‘em in North Caolina. Teleprompter firmly in place, supplying the President with the words, facts and ideas that had been so evidently AWOL 48 hours earlier. God knows who’s actually running America: Biden’s speechwriters? Democratic Party muckety-mucks? The First Lady?

Howard Dean’s great insight, shared with CNN, is that while God may know who’s running the show, America doesn’t want to. Confronted with the choice of recommitting themselves to the myth of Joe Biden, or believing the evidence of their own eyes, those Americans not already committed to Donald Trump will reach out instinctively for the President they wish they had – blind to the President they have got.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 1 July 2024.

Decisive Action.

2020 Was Just A Rehearsal:  From a purely strategic standpoint, Trump’s, and the new, post-November 2022, Republican dominated Congress’s, best move would be to take Biden and the Democrats completely by surprise. If the attention of Trump’s enemies is focused almost entirely on what he might do in 2024, then the obvious strategy is to move against them as soon as the new Congress convenes. Depose Biden, and install Trump as President, in January 2023.

THE FALL OF AMERICA would unleash hell: economically, diplomatically, militarily, culturally; the whole world would be rocked to its foundations. Like the fall of Rome, the nearest historical equivalent, the collapse of the United States would mark the end of an era.

The musings of a history buff? Not really. The odds of the American Republic collapsing into chaos and civil strife – even civil war – are already better than even.

In the latest issue of the Atlantic, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Barton Gellman, puts it bluntly: “Against Biden or another Democratic nominee, Donald Trump may be capable of winning a fair election in 2024. He does not intend to take that chance.”

The Washington Post is no less pessimistic. It has just published an opinion piece by three retired Generals urging the military to begin preparing now for the “insurrection of 2024”. As befits senior military officers, their words are not minced:

[T]he Defence Department should war-game the next potential post-election insurrection or coup attempt to identify weak spots. It must then conduct a top-down debrief of its findings and begin putting in place safeguards to prevent breakdowns not just in the military, but also in any agency that works hand in hand with the military […..] The military and lawmakers have been gifted hindsight to prevent another insurrection from happening in 2024 – but they will succeed only if they take decisive action now.

These words should quell immediately any impulse to scoff at the idea that the United States could fall. The Generals’ opinion piece is not so much a straw, as a whole haystack, in the wind. The key question it provokes is daunting. Either, they are writing to warn Trump and his followers that the United States Armed Forces are prepared to stop them. Or, it is an act of desperation from military men who already sense that the armed forces can no longer be considered reliable defenders of the US Constitution.

Alarmingly, at least some of the Generals’ advice suggests that it may be the latter:

In addition, all military branches must undertake more intensive intelligence work at all installations. The goal should be to identify, isolate and remove all potential mutineers; guard against efforts by propagandists who use misinformation to subvert the chain of command; and understand how that and other misinformation spreads across the ranks after it is introduced by propagandists.

The picture painted here could not be clearer. If American democracy falls beneath the blows of Trump and his followers, then the American armed forces will not escape the breakdown of legitimate authority, nor the open recourse to violence, that will sweep across the rest of American society. The Army, itself, will split between Trumpists and Constitutionalists. Civil war will be inevitable.

The most astonishing feature of this looming threat to American society and its democratic institutions is how few members of the Constitutionalist political class can see it. From the President on down, there is not the slightest evidence that anything is being done to hasten the “decisive action” the Generals are demanding. The Democratic Party, in particular, is a rudderless hulk, riven by faction, and incapable of self-discipline. Trump and his followers, with scant regard for the Constitution or even the Rule of Law, are clearly preparing to re-write the political rules of engagement, and the Democrats just look at them, blinking helplessly in the headlights of the Republican Party’s onrushing Mack Truck.

One can only speculate what the Generals are saying to themselves – and any other Constitutionalists still willing to fight for the republic – behind closed doors. The strategic position can only be described as dire.

The mid-term elections are less than twelve months away and, right now, all the smart money says that the Republicans will re-capture both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The key question then, of course, is what will they do with the full powers of Congress at their disposal?

Some will no doubt be clamouring to impeach Joe Biden. But, unless the Republican Party emerges from the mid-term elections with two-thirds of the Senate under its control, Biden’s conviction on the Senate floor is most unlikely. Impeachment also runs the risk of finally concentrating the minds of the Democrats. As Trump, himself, demonstrated, an incumbent president has a lot of resources – military resources in particular – upon which he can call in extremis. In Biden’s case, those resources might even agree to come to the President’s rescue.

From a purely strategic standpoint, Trump’s and the Republican Congress’s best move would be to take Biden and the Democrats completely by surprise. If the attention of Trump’s enemies is focused almost entirely on what he might do in 2024, then the obvious strategy is to move against them as soon as the new Congress convenes. Depose Biden and install Trump as President in January 2023.

But, surely, there is no legal way President Biden can be deposed? If the Republicans lack the numbers to impeach him, then he cannot be removed from office until the General Election of 2024. Obviously, that is correct. But the Republicans may decide that the “legal way” is not their best option. If they can depose Biden quickly and cleanly, without warning, then they can, almost certainly, rely upon their mates in the Supreme Court to bestow an ex post facto blessing on Trump’s fait accompli. (They would no doubt plead that the maintenance of peace and national unity demanded nothing less of them!)

The Republican blitzkrieg would be swift and brutally effective. By a Joint Declaration of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the 2020 Presidential Election would be declared fraudulent and Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory voided. The Joint Resolution would, further, confirm that the Office of President of the United States had again been bestowed upon Donald Trump by a clear majority of the American people on 3 November 2020. This would be acknowledged by correcting the Electoral College vote, and by the Chief Justice administering the Oath of Office to the President-Elect. The proper constitutional order would, thereby, be restored.

Congress would then decree the immediate arrest of the “November 2020 Traitors”, leaving the House and the Senate devoid of Democrats. Trump loyalists in the armed forces would attempt to arrest all senior military officers deemed sympathetic to Biden and the Constitution. Public protest would be met by a declaration of martial law.

American democracy would thus be extinguished in less than a week – and all hell would break loose. The more numerous and much wealthier “Blue States” ( i.e. Democratic Party-controlled) would secede from the Union. A second American civil war would tear the United States apart. The savagery of the conflict would intensify. Ultimately, as Margaret Atwood anticipated in her novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, an uneasy truce would follow the use of tactical nuclear weapons by the armies of both sides.

With America in ruins, and the global economy in free-fall, ethno-nationalism and autarky would be the order of the day. To complete this grim apocalyptic picture, successive global pandemics and runaway climate change would bury what remained of humanity’s hopes. A new Dark Age would descend.

A grim prognosis. Which is why we must all hope that a great many more Americans than “three retired Generals” are, at this very moment, readying themselves for “decisive action”.

A version of this essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 23 December 2021.