Briefly Noted: Presidential Electoral Politics

Today’s another yard work day, but …

It seems like a good day to talk about presidential politics pointing toward the 2024 election.

American Greatness today has a post that makes the obvious case for the Dems dumping Zhou:

Don’t Be Surprised If Joe Biden Is Not the Democrats’ 2024 Nominee

The formula for Biden’s entire term has been for him to stick to the script, read from the teleprompter and say as little off the cuff as possible. But now it’s clear he can barely even do that.

That appears to be a pretty inarguable proposition on its face, so I, for one, certainly won’t be surprised if that comes to pass. Zhou appears to have nearly vanished from the public space after his gaffe filled trip to Ireland—a trip he appeared to be unaware of upon return to the US. His latest appearances, few as they are, put his dementia on full display. Here’s a paragraph summary, but the article offers lots of example in amusing fashion:

When he did finally “announce” he was running for reelection on April 25, it was with an embarrassing three-minute video in which Hollywood producers tried their damndest to make him look as sentient as possible. Since that announcement, he has held virtually no public events, given few public remarks, and, aside from receiving the daily briefing, has had a daily schedule lighter than that of a high school dropout.

That video “announcement” actually struck me as more like a campaign ad than the announcement of a candidacy for president. Interestingly, and with reference to yesterday’s post, if you closed your eyes Zhou almost sounded like a Libertarian Party—freedom, freedom, freedom. It was all about the autonomous individual killing/”loving” whomever they wish.

Whatever. The point is that Zhou appears to be sliding down toward mental oblivion at an increasing rate. It was one thing to have him speaking from his basement, but can a presidential campaign be run this time around that features nothing but years old video clips?

And yet, Clayton Morris, a couple of weeks ago, made an interesting argument. This was on a Youtube video that doesn’t actually mention Zhou in the title:

Zelensky is FINISHED and Biden knows it

Morris argues, in effect, that given that Zhou’s regime is actually run by the Deep State he couldn’t have issued that video without Deep State permission—after all, it’s increasingly clear that he was installed by the Deep State in 2020. Does that mean, then, that the Deep State intends to keep Zhou in place for 4 more years? Given Zhou’s health history, he could drop dead tomorrow. Or this afternoon. And yet, Morris’ argument does make some sense.

An alternative explanation might be that Zhou’s video serves as a place holder while the Deep State desperately searches for a candidate with at least the appearance of mental competence. I dunno—I’m not convinced by my own alternative.

It’s a really weird situation and, meanwhile, things do appear to be spiraling toward loss of control, politically speaking. Today the Ukraine situation is looking ever more chaotic, and the Deep State is pivoting so rapidly from one foreign problem to another that they have to be dizzy. Keeping up the pretence of a president is hard enough in the best of scenarios, but the best of scenarios are well behind us at this point.

By the way, Morris does have some interesting comments to offer regarding Ukraine and China. He argues that it’s clear that Zelensky is being set up to take the fall (we’ll talk about that later) and also addresses the incredible war mongering directed at China. As he says, it looks like the Neocons, having lost in Ukraine, will—defying all sense of reality—intend to pivot to a war with China over a part of China that wants to retain its status quo relationship with China (the overwhelming majority of Taiwan residents), while the US wants to destroy Taiwan as part of a pretext for attacking China. What could possibly go wrong? (And speaking of that, does the US sound like a nation that’s seriously preparing for a major war? Next Joint Chiefs Chair Wants White Male Officers to be a Minority.)

But, on to Trump. I didn’t watch the town hall on CNN last night. I read some Twitter comments while it was ongoing, mostly by people I took to be DeSantis supporters. They were bemoaning Trump supposedly making a fool of himself. This morning all that seems to have changed—like, 180 degrees (I got that right, right?). Watching Alex Christoforou just recently, he played the parts where Trump was being harried about Ukraine and I certainly agreed that Trump handled the Ukraine issue perfectly, in the context: The important thing is to stop the killing. Stop Russians and Ukrainians dying— both. Settle the conflict with negotiations.

We all know that’s probably not how it’s going to work out, but as politics it seemed to me to be pitch perfect. Christoforou maintained that Trump crushed what’s-her-name, and it seemed that way to me, too. The audience certainly seemed wildly on Trump’s side. We’re still a long way off, but it looks to me that Trump will be hard to beat for the GOP nomination. As noted previously, the financial sector—domestic as well as City of London—appears to have cooled on DeSantis signficantly. His efforts at ginning up some foreign policy gravitas don’t appear to be working out well, either. For now, the nomination looks like Trump’s to lose. I’d still like to see him address the Covid Hoax forthrightly.