I responded at length to a comment from our loyal leftist gadfly a.morphous, and thought the response worth promoting:
I am pretty sure I did not even imply that the Biden Administration is a sham. It is illegitimate, to be sure, but that's a different thing: that an oligarchy is illegitimate does not mean it is a sham; does not mean that it is not really an oligarchy or not really in command of the organs of social control ‒ which is of course to say, at bottom, to the organs of administration of violence upon the people.
Nor in writing my last had I even been thinking that the Administration has been ineffective. Indeed, now that I am thinking about its effectiveness, it looks to me like one of the most effective in history. It has done immense damage to America. It is the reciprocal of the Milei Administration: in a matter of weeks, it managed to turn massive prosperity into speedy pervasive systemic increase of poverty and malaise (that term so familiar from the Carter Administration, which was *so much less effective* than the Biden Administration in pushing the agenda of the Left). No mean feat! Albeit, only too common with Commies.
The Biden Administration has proven itself masterfully effective at deploying the instruments of violence at hand to the organs of the government it controls in the service of the destruction of its enemies, and all under the color of ostensible due process of law.
But then, all the efficacy of the Biden Administration has done is to accelerate immensely the damage that American democracy had for long ‒ as having been for long implacably leftist ‒ already been doing to America. The Biden Administration has been ruthlessly effective at full speed pedal to the metal damn the torpedoes implementation of insane policies ‒ truly nutty stuff, like rejection of voter ID, of sex, of the 1st Amendment ‒ that until their fruits began to appear had been at least thought not totally whacko by about half the population (a fact that speaks ill of half the population (more on that in a moment)). Not Joe himself, of course (he has since before he began his 2020 campaign been but a cipher, the poor man; has been obviously, manifestly demented (anyone who has watched a parent or grandparent through the process sees the signs perfectly well)), but those who pull his strings, who hold the reins of power. That's why they kept him in his basement throughout the 2020 campaign, while Trump was out on the hustings day after day, filling enormous arenae to massive overflowing. Trump was on full public view, the whole time; with all his faults.
He's a flawed person, of course, albeit picaresque and larger than life: morally defective, sloppy, wild, prone to exaggeration, misstatement, mistakes, and so forth … unlike professional politicians, who do much better at all that sort of thing (i.e., they have *all* the faults of Trump (and more, for unlike him they are also famously corrupt in the conduct of their political offices), but sub rosa; whereas Trump has them out in the open, shamelessly). The reason people love him ‒ let me clue you in to this ‒ is that unlike *everyone else in mainstream public life,* he is unafraid to say whatever the hell he thinks on the spur of the moment, no matter how much trouble doing so might create for him, and no matter whose ox is gored (even his own).
It is obvious to everyone that Trump can't be controlled. He's a force of nature. This is his appeal. He just does not care what anyone thinks, does not care about the boundaries of polite discourse, does not care about the rules of what may not be mentioned. He says out loud what millions think only to themselves, and never let on to anyone, lest they be destroyed. So he gives voice to the voiceless.
The voiceless read this or that of the latest daily inanity from within the Beltway or Hollywood or their local high school, and think, "Wait, this is nuts; but then, wait again, for if I say to anyone that it is nuts, I might be destroyed, and with me my kids; so, better be quiet." Trump just says it. So he releases the political energy of a relief of massive, deep, pervasive cognitive dissonance. People who have been thinking for years, "No, wait, this is nuts, but I better keep my mouth shut," they hear him say what they would like to have been able to say, and they respond with something akin to joy. The release is that intense.
Politicians try like all of us to look OK. Trump doesn't try to look OK. He is happy to look less than perfect. It is a classic, and at bottom honest, therefore charitable, stratagem of good negotiation: don't be afraid to appear less than perfect (as indeed you are) to your adversary; for, your forthrightly admitted imperfection will render you to him less formidable, more human, more *like him,* thus more to him agreeable; and, so, will disarm him, and increase the likelihood that you will reach a true agreement with him ‒ true peace.
The problem with democracy is that it can't work for good ‒ for prosperity, peace, harmony, and so on ‒ unless the demos be itself in the first place preponderantly wise, prudent, righteous, enterprising, based, foresightful, charitable, reasonable, self-controlled, and so forth. Otherwise, democracy is the rule of knaves and villains and fools.
Democracy works great so long as the demos is composed mostly of philosophically astute saints. It never is. So, democracy can't work in the real world, with men as we find them to be. This has been known by political science for 2,500 years at least. That's why our Fathers ‒ all of them astute political scientists ‒ bequeathed us a republic, rather than a democracy (it is why we still have the Electoral College). We have not kept it.
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