I was originally going to write this essay about Nancy Pelosi’s proposal (on 10.8.2020) for a Presidential Fitness Committee that would have the ability to remove an “unfit” president from office, demonstrating her blatant disrespect for the voters and our system of government. However, I was “blessed” with two more examples of prominent Democrats displaying a similar disrespect for the electorate without a hint of shame. On Thursday (10.8.2020), after not responding to a direct question in both the first presidential debate and the vice-presidential debate, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris fielded questions from reporters about their plans to add two seats to the Supreme Court to gain a liberal majority. Joe Biden responded with the title of this essay, “you’ll know my opinion on court packing when the election is over”. On Tuesday (10.6.2020), Michelle Obama tweeted a 26-minute monologue in support of the Biden/Harris campaign that included the wonderful line, “we cannot afford… to waste our votes on a protest candidate”.
I believe both parties hold their electorate in low regard. One of the reasons Donald Trump was able to take over the Republican party was that the voters had long been abandoned by their politicians. All he had to do was come in and talk about the trade deals that ravaged the working class of middle America, and the voters were his, despite all the politicians and media scoffing at his lack of class and civility. However, up until the Trump campaign/presidency, it seemed like both parties were paying lip service to feign respect, but now the Democratic party seems to be incapable or apathetic to maintaining such a guise. Hillary Clinton hinted at it during her presidential campaign, referring to half of Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables”. There have been plenty of examples in this election cycle, but the three I introduced happened in such quick succession and I wonder how much they are actually to the detriment of the DNC.
Nancy Pelosi spoke to the media after the death of RBG and explained that they would not take the nomination of a new SCOTUS justice by Trump lying down. When asked what she would do, she said, “we still have arrows in our quiver”. They did not, but Nancy seems to be familiar with the Machiavellian phrase “never let a good crisis go to waste”. After the president was diagnosed with Covid-19, Pelosi hinted to reporters that they would be talking about the 25th amendment soon. This amendment provides succession strategies in the event a president is unfit to serve for health reasons. It seems to me that the spirit of the amendment indicates that it be the vice president and/or the cabinet that determines what is to happen if a president is incapacitated, but Pelosi has proposed an alternative: a committee of physicians, psychiatrists and former public officials like former presidents or Cabinet secretaries selected by congressional leadership.
Yes, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and second in the line of succession to the presidency, has proposed that a body of unelected officials be given the ability to veto the results of the democratic election process for POTUS. The media covered for her, saying the bill had “virtually no chance” of being written into law and that it was merely an attempt to cast light upon the lack of transparency surrounding the health status of the president. I don’t necessarily buy that second part, though. Before the debates, Nancy Pelosi insisted that Joe Biden not debate Donald Trump, citing Trump’s proclivity to lie. She clearly has no problem suggesting that voters be deprived of what they deserve whether it be a chance to see both major party candidates interacting with each other in a debate or our ability to vote in a president without worrying about him being impeached for health reasons by people who were not voted in to office.
As I explained before, Joe Biden’s latest response to the question of him packing the Supreme Court is: “you’ll know my opinion on court packing when the election is over”. Can I ask you to please just take a moment and think back to a time when a politician withheld their policies until they were elected into office? Take your time. Yeah, I don’t remember a time either. I wish I was a bit better at writing with anger and frustration, because what I am about to say probably does not display how I feel. It is completely inappropriate for Joe Biden to ask people to vote for him and withhold information about how he plans to act in office. On the sitcom The Office, when they are interviewing to replace Michael Scott, Will Arnett comes on to interview and declares to the panel that he has a three-part plan to increase their profitability. When asked what the plan is, he is surprised and does not want to share it because he does not want them stealing it. That was funny because it was fake. You know what is not funny? Living this in real life when the person interviewing is hoping to become president. The amount of nonsense future Biden voters can stomach blows my mind sometimes.
Finally, we get to Michelle Obama. Michelle Obama seems to be the culmination of the lunacy found on the left side of political spectrum. There is no doubt that she is intelligent and educated, but I have seen people express desire for her to run for president or be considered for a SCOTUS justice. If we ever needed cancel culture it would be for people who seem to think Michelle Obama would make a good SCOTUS nominee. Those people have lost the plot, and we need to help them find it.
I digress. Michelle Obama (it is annoying that I cannot refer to her by just her last name, because it would sound very much like I am referring to Barrack. #smashthepatriarchy) released a long video explaining to people that there has never been a more critical time to cast a vote for the Democratic party. I think the whole video was weak, but it shows the DNC establishment’s inability to respect and thus connect with disenfranchised voters. Michelle specifically calls out voters who feel disenfranchised and claims that she “knows their pain”, but they should still vote Biden. She then utters the phrase “waste your vote on a protest candidate”, without any trace of the requisite embarrassment or shame. There is no such thing as a “protest candidate” and the only person who can determine if a vote was “wasted” is the person who cast that vote. The absolute gall required to refer to a third-party candidate as a “protest” candidate should, in my mind, be enough to break off enough voters from the Democratic party to prohibit them from holding office ever again.
There you have it. Within a week, three prominent members of the Democratic party displayed overt lack of respect for the electorate and our system of government, and no one seems to care.
P.S. I made a point about Joe Biden in which I expressed amazement at what future Biden voters will put up with. I wanted to say, I am aware of the parallel between that and what Trump voters can stomach. I wonder if how I feel right now is similar to what concerned people felt as they watched the Republican party fall to Donald Trump and then his unexpected rise to the presidency. If true, I need to be careful not to make the same mistakes and be able to confront the rationality of what I see as lunacy. This post-script seems to be at least 50% a mental note for myself.
P.P.S. In an earlier draft of this essay, I talked about Alexandra Ocasio Cortez (AOC) in comparison to Nancy Pelosi and I wanted to include it here. I really do not like AOC. I think she subscribes completely to Critical Race Theory (whether or not she is aware) as well as the most politicized science on climate change. She seems to have little qualm with enacting more authoritarian-style measures to accomplish her goals. HOWEVER, I also love AOC, because unlike Nancy Pelosi, I believe that she wants Americans to live a better life and I believe that is her primary goal. AOC is very young, and I am hopeful that she opens herself up to new mindsets and gains more and more wisdom as time goes on.
P.P.P.S. I want to write a full essay on a comparison between Joe Biden and Gaius Marius, but I don’t think it would be tremendously interesting, so an extra-long post-script it shall be! Gaius Marius is one of my favorite figures from Ancient Rome. He was a general who was known for getting down in trenches and digging with his soldiers, but also was hyper-ambitious and played politics to an incredible extent. Up until Marius, the Roman military had gotten by on its “x-factor” which seemed to manifest in sort of endless tenacity. Most nations at that time would muster an army for one big battle, and if they lost, that would be the end of the war and sometimes even the nation. On full display in the Second Punic War, Rome would muster army upon army after crushing defeats at the hands of the legendary Carthaginian general, Hannibal Barca. About 100 years later, Marius instituted a series of reforms for the Roman military that buttressed this “x-factor” with the best equipment and training at that time. The post-Marian legions (these are the legionaries you see in video games and movies) would go on to conquer the world like a tidal wave until Rome began to crumble and weaken from within.
Gaius Marius served in the highest Roman Republic office of Consul a record 7 times. His last consulship, however, is the only part of his political career I would relate to Joe Biden. Marius had retired from political life and was living in Africa, but politics in Rome did not retire and his rival, Lucius Sulla, gained consulship and then was sent to Pontus to fight a war against Mithridates VI, the Poison King of Pontus (an amazing character). Cinna, another political rival to Sulla, teamed up with newly-unretired Marius to take the Consulship by force by killing all of those in Rome loyal to Sulla. While Marius had been a formidable figure his whole life, the Marius that arrived in Rome for his seventh consulship was a shadow of his former self. It was clear that Cinna had called on him only for the popularity he would bring to his cause. Only 17 days into Marius’s consulship, he passed away, for reasons that are only guessed at. Sulla would return to Rome and finish that civil war with a period of violence and terror.
Joe Biden, much like Marius, is not what he once was and is only running because of his association with Barrack Obama and the apparent normalcy that existed pre-Trump. Running feeble old men for the highest office in the land is a symptom of the dangerous partisanship that has gripped this country.
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For whom the bell tolls 