{"id":1475,"date":"2024-06-28T16:01:32","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T20:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wokecapital.org\/?p=1475"},"modified":"2024-06-28T16:01:32","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T20:01:32","slug":"on-the-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wokecapital.org\/on-the-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Watching last night\u2019s presidential debate, my reactions ran the full gamut of emotions.<\/p>\n

In part, I was sad.<\/p>\n

For decades, Joe Biden was one of the least agreeable people in Washington: arrogant, smug, and generally pricktastical.\u00a0 People forget this now, given what he\u2019s become, but he was once among the nation\u2019s least likable permanent political fixtures. \u00a0At the same time, though, he was (and is) a man who has suffered an unfathomable amount of loss, which more than earns him some sympathy, in spite of himself.<\/p>\n

In any case \u2013 sympathy or not \u2013 no one deserves what is being done to him right now.\u00a0 It really is heart-wrenching.\u00a0 Watch this clip<\/a> from after the debate last night and then tell me you don\u2019t just feel awful for him.\u00a0 That poor man.<\/p>\n

In part, I was angry.<\/p>\n

Anyone who has dealt with a loved one in that condition \u2013 and I know there are many of you, probably most of you \u2013 knows that what is being done to him is not just unfortunate.\u00a0 It is unkind.\u00a0 It is downright cruel.<\/p>\n

My father-in-law \u2013 whom I eulogized here<\/a> \u2013 suffered from a potent combination of Alzheimer\u2019s and combat-induced PTSD.\u00a0 Now, I was blessed with a father-in-law who was as much an influence on and hero to me as my own father. \u00a0If someone had tried to use him \u2013 in the early but noticeable stage of his disease \u2013 for their personal or political purposes, I might have tried to tear them apart with my bare hands.\u00a0 Seeing what they are doing to Joe Biden \u2013 and by \u201cthey,\u201d I mean, in part, the people who should be protecting him, tearing others apart \u2013 incenses me.<\/p>\n

I am also, not coincidentally, incensed at what they\u2019re doing to us, the American people.\u00a0 They know he\u2019s not fit for office.\u00a0 They\u2019ve known that for a long, long time.\u00a0 Yet they\u2019ve lied to us about it continually.\u00a0 They\u2019re still<\/em> lying to us about it<\/a>. \u00a0This is so grotesque and so treacherous that I can hardly articulate it.\u00a0 Whatever you think of Donald Trump, the willingness of the Democratic powers that be to sacrifice the standing of the United States on the altar of their own political control has to just about make your blood boil.\u00a0 It\u2019s obscene.<\/p>\n

Finally, last night\u2019s debate made me feel, well, vindicated.<\/p>\n

Yes, yes.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been telling you for at least two years that Joe Biden would NOT be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024.\u00a0 And that prediction appears closer to actualization today than at any moment yet.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not even what I\u2019m talking about, not really.\u00a0 For more than a quarter century I (and \u201cwe\u201d before that) have been writing about the slow but steady collapse of the two major political parties in this country.\u00a0 Twelve years ago, I wrote the following, in which I declared the GOP officially dead and re-asserted my expectation that the Democrats would follow suit shortly.\u00a0 Please forgive the long quote.\u00a0 This story is important:<\/p>\n

\n

We\u2019re not sure that you\u2019ve heard, but this election is over. Mitt Romney has lost it. Again. We are, at this time, unable to reveal the current cause of his loss \u2013 maybe because it hasn\u2019t happened yet; maybe because the media hasn\u2019t yet decided what it will be; who knows? \u2013 but we know that this week, like last, he will lose the race. Again. He loses it every week, you see. Groundhog week. And then, when he refuses to panic or go away, he loses it again the next week\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In any case, we suspect that the reason he will lose this week will have something to do with the first presidential debate tomorrow night. He will lose the debate. Or he will win it, but not by enough. Or he will win it by a huge margin, but then he will come across looking smug, or condescending, or rich, or racist, or Mormon, or something else that is sure to cause people not to like him. By Friday, it will all be over. Again. And then we\u2019ll start fresh next Monday. The alarm clock will ring and Bill Murray will get out of bed and . . . well, you know the rest.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At this point, you might be wondering why we care. After all, we have been predicting all year that Romney will lose. So, why is it a big deal that the media is simply saying the same thing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Normally, we would begin an answer to such a question with something along the lines of, \u201cwell . . . it\u2019s complicated.\u00a0 But we won\u2019t do that this time. Because it\u2019s not\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most observers, when they discuss what is likely to happen after the election, presume that the status quo will hold. They presume that Obama will win reelection, that he will come back to Washington and get back to work on \u201cthe people\u2019s business,\u201d and that the Republican Congress \u2013 chastened by Romney\u2019s defeat \u2013 will get back to work with him. The two parties will continue pretty much as they always have, except with a little more pragmatism on both sides and a little more sense of urgency as well\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Norman Ornstein, a prominent political scientist and a resident scholar at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, is just absolutely convinced that if everybody does what he is supposed to do this fall, then come next winter, the Republicans, whom he blames for the dysfunction in Washington, will rediscover their pragmatic spirit and will work hard to do what they know is right. Right \u201cfor whom,\u201d Ornstein doesn\u2019t say.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the conflict, as we see it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

All of those who are predicting a return to the status quo after this election are people and\/or institutions who have enormous stakes in said status quo. From the media, which is insisting that the election is already over and that Romney might as well quit now; to the Washington insiders, who just want to get back to the way things used to be before the stupid Tea Partiers and their annoying grassroots BS came along and messed up everything, especially the gravy train; to the President of these here United States himself, who desperately wants not just another four years, but another four years in which he is able to do what he wants to do, when he wants to do it, without having to compromise with or \u2013 HEAVEN FORBID! \u2013 actually having to deal with the lowly and unpleasant masses of Congresspeople down at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. They all have a stake in the system as it is. They are all part of the ruling class as it currently exists. And they all like it that way. And they all want the rest of the ruling class to shut up about \u201cthe base\u201d and \u201cthe people\u201d and get back to running the country the way it should be run\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n

People are dumb. Republicans are evil (for wanting smaller government and lower taxes, of all things!). New media \u2013 e.g. the internet and cable \u2013 is also evil. And the only way back to perfect harmony is to restore the proper role of the elites, like us (i.e. Ornstein and Mann) and the real media. That\u2019s the way it should be, and that\u2019s the way it will be. \u201cWe know that if powerful opinion leaders speak honestly and bluntly, political leaders will respond.\u201d\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Except that that\u2019s not how it will be. Ornstein may not know it. After all, he has never been the sharpest knife in the drawer. And our pal President Obama may not know it. And all of the talking heads and pundits blathering on about what will and will not happen in the (likely) second Obama term may not know it. But the status quo as it once existed is over. And it is never coming back. \u201cBusiness as usual\u201d is no longer an option. And much to Ornstein\u2019s dismay \u2013 though we doubt he\u2019d ever have the insight to see it, much less admit it \u2013 it is the fault of the \u201celites.\u201d And the media war on the truth, which he tacitly endorses and which declares the Romney candidacy dead on a weekly basis, is merely exacerbating the problem, hastening the end of the world as they know it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The conventional wisdom has it that after the election, the partisanship will calm down. The Republicans, as we said, will be chastened and, equally important, the political and campaign guys will leave the White House for good and decamp back to Chicago, looking for the \u201cnext big thing\u201d and leaving the President to focus on policy rather than politics.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is nuts. Rapprochement is, quite simply, never gonna happen\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[T]he 2012 presidential election will mark the end of the old partisan order and the rise of the new order, whatever it may be\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The catalyst among Republicans is likely to be Mitt Romney himself\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As for the Democratic Party, we suspect that the reckoning is a little further off. But it is coming nonetheless. As (the economist Herb) Stein\u2019s Law has it: something that cannot go on forever won\u2019t.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mitt Romney represented the last hurrah for the establishment GOP.\u00a0 Joe Biden represents the same for the Democrats.\u00a0 The Democratic Party is now fully broken.\u00a0 Whether it nominates Biden to run in November or not, it will never be the same. It\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

And so, for the moment, am I.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watching last night\u2019s presidential debate, my reactions ran the full gamut of emotions. In part, I was sad. 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