If the White House inner circle need tips on propping up a President with evident signs of dementia, they can always call Riyadh, where there is a wealth of experience in dealing with a figurehead “ruler.” in this condition. King Salman bin Abdulkazziz al Saud has reportedly had dementia since 2013, exhibiting symptoms that are by now becoming familiar to the American public. When still allowed out in public (they seem to keep him locked away these days) he was prone to wandering off in the middle of conversations, once while talking to Obama. His short-term memory did not extend beyond a few minutes. Nevertheless, he could give the appearance of coherence in conversations, thanks to fast-typing aides whose prompts appeared on a discreetly concealed monitor.
Biden, at least for the moment, is still up to the task of reading from a screen, as evidenced by his performance in Raleigh, North Carolina, on the day after the infamous debate. His remarks were dutifully reported by the New York Times as showing that “even after five decades in public life, he can still pump his fist in the air, stir a crowd to cheer and perhaps inspire an unwieldy coalition to vote for him one more time.” But the reporter noted in passing that he was reading off a teleprompter, just as he did during his state of the union speech earlier in the year, a performance obligingly hailed by the faithful as confirming his enduring “vigor.” Surely the Silicon Valley tech geniuses supporting his campaign can figure out some means, invisible to others, of projecting words for him to read while pretending to speak extemporaneously?
When a White House Astrolger Called the Shots
Should calls to Riyadh go unanswered, there is expert advice available closer to home from veterans of the Reagan regime. Ronald Reagan almost certainly developed dementia while in office, starting in his first term according to his son Ron, and accelerating in his second. While the political establishment including the media pretended nothing was awry, executive control was in the hands of wife Nancy and her astrologer Joan Quigley. As Don Regan, White House Chief of Staff 1985-7, later reported, “Virtually every major move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House Chief of Staff was cleared in advance with a woman in San Francisco [Quigley] who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise.” In fact, Quigley didn’t do a bad job, especially in steering Reagan to negotiate with Soviet leader Gorbachev in the waning days of the cold war.
Inept Leadership
The problem today is that, in contrast to the wise counsel provided by Quigley, the team, principally wife Jill and the Donilon brothers, that surrounds Biden is markedly inept, as starkly evidenced by the decision to feed him to Donald Trump without a teleprompter. Jake Sullivan and Antony Blinken, custodians of our national security, have managed to embroil the U.S. in a war in Gaza that is controlled by a foreign leader, Bibi Netanyahu, who has no apparent interest in supporting the current administration. Their other war, in Ukraine, is going badly but they seem to have abjured any thought of negotiations even as we slide ever closer to nuclear confrontation with Russia. No one seems to be paying attention to the parlous state of the financial system, where Wall Street megabanks have once again made massive bets on derivatives, just as they did with disastrous consequences prior to the 2008 crash.
Dump Biden and Save the Machine?
So will the Democratic Party machine grit their teeth and maintain support for Biden as their candidate? It should never be forgotten that the prime motivation of anyparty leaders is to maintain their power over the organization. Winning elections is a secondary factor. This was all explained in highly lucid form in many books and articles by the late political reporter Walter Karp until his untimely death in 1989. “The whole purpose of party organizations at every political level,” he wrote in his 1973 book Indispensable Enemies, “is to sift out, sidetrack and eliminate men of independent political ambition, men whom the party bosses cannot trust.” So, reviewing developments through a Karpian lens, it seems possible that the Democratic party leadership, which we can take to include the Donilons, Chuck Schumer, Hakim Jeffries, Jim Clyburn, and assorted donors, may jettison Biden and elevate Kamala Harris. The New York Times, the voice of the establishment, has signaled this development with an editorial calling on him to step down, and a reporting commending Harris as “crisp.” Harris would be unlikely to prevail against Trump, but she would pose no threat to the power of party elders while her ethnicity and gender would be helpful in warding off any leftist insurgency. After four years of Trump, one of the ambitious aspirants, perhaps Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer, can take over.
This assumes we survive that long, which is by no means certain.
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