“America’s democracy is teetering” – yeah, right!

 

It’s bitterly amusing – as well as infuriating – to watch the Washington Post trying to spin the political situation in America into some sort of threat to democracy.

President Biden paused last week, during one of the busiest stretches of his presidency, for a nearly two-hour private history lesson from a group of academics who raised alarms about the dire condition of democracy at home and abroad.

The conversation during a ferocious lightning storm on Aug. 4 unfolded as a sort of Socratic dialogue between the commander in chief and a select group of scholars, who painted the current moment as among the most perilous in modern history for democratic governance, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting.

. . .

The diversion was, for Biden, part of a regular effort to use outside experts, in private White House meetings, to help him work through his approach to multiple crises facing his presidency … Biden, at these tabletop sessions, often spends hours asking questions and testing assumptions, participants say.

. . .

One person familiar with the exchange said the conversation was mostly a way for Biden to hear and think about the larger context in which his tenure is unfolding. He did not make any major pronouncements or discuss his plans for the future.

“A lot of the conversation was about the larger context of the contest between democratic values and institutions and the trends toward autocracy globally,” the person said.

Most of the experts in attendance have been outspoken in recent months about the threat they see to the American democratic project, after the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, the continued denial by some Republicans of the 2020 election results and the efforts of election deniers to seek state office.

. . .

“You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy,” Biden told the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. “You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-American.”

There’s more at the link (if you can stomach it).

Let’s begin with a straightforward, simple fact.  President Biden is, if not senile, at least exhibiting symptoms in public that appear identical to that condition.  The video evidence is overwhelming – I’m sure you’ve seen some of it from time to time.  Here, for example, is a clip from Kentucky on August 8th, less than two weeks ago.  His actions and movements are of someone whose brain can no longer adequately control his body.

There have been innumerable video clips of President Biden forgetting what to do next, saying something unpronounceable, or wandering off instead of engaging people.  I don’t criticize him for this:  I pity him.  He’s being manipulated and exploited by others who are using him as a figurehead they can control.  I’d call it elder abuse at the very least.

Given that reality, do you really expect me to believe that he’s mentally competent, verbally coherent and physically in sufficient control of himself to the extent necessary to call meetings of advisers and experts, such as the Washington Post describes, and pay attention during them?  Like hell he is!

Note, too, that the quotes about the meetings are all from “multiple people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity”, or “One person familiar with the exchange”.  How very convenient.  We can’t ask them questions, because we don’t know who they are – if they actually exist, that is, and aren’t simply partisan propagandists masquerading as insiders.  Based on such “sources”, the Washington Post can print literally anything, safe in the knowledge that nobody can prove them wrong.

The irony is also rich in comments about what was discussed.  For example:

“A lot of the conversation was about the larger context of the contest between democratic values and institutions and the trends toward autocracy globally,” the person said.

Oh, yeah?  How about the “democratic values” demonstrated by the wholesale electoral fraud that stole the 2020 election?  (Don’t tell me there wasn’t any.  The evidence for its existence is so overwhelming that only a fool – or a cold-blooded partisan liar – would pretend it didn’t happen.)  How about the “autocracy” demonstrated by the thoroughly corrupt Justice Department in its partisan prosecution of the January 6 protesters, its high-handed and unprecedented raid on President Trump’s residence, and in so many other ways?  The moral blindness exhibited in the article is breathtaking.

I don’t understand how the Washington Post can be so naive as to expect any informed observer of the US political scene to swallow this pablum.  It’s so blatantly false as to defy reality.  Yet, somehow, somewhere, the newspaper obviously does expect us to swallow it.  It’s a mindset that simply cannot conceive of anybody refusing to “see things our way” . . . but the rest of us stopped doing that a long time ago.  Every day we see more and more proof that reality simply does not correspond to the propaganda being spewed out by the Post and similar sources.  As a result, we simply don’t believe them.

Can the Washington Post ever regain credibility as an honest reporter of the news?  Absent a total eradication of its editorial and managerial structure, and a restaffing with people who value honesty, integrity and journalistic ethics, I doubt it very much.  It’s far from alone in that, of course.  Most mainstream media have the same problem.

America’s democracy is indeed teetering – and the Washington Post, and other mainstream media of its ilk, are a big part of the reason for that.  They’ve lied, obfuscated, propagandized and cried “Wolf!” so often that they’ve destroyed our trust in them, and made themselves irrelevant.

Peter