Follow-up On Who's In Charge?

Here are two tweets that put the problem of Who’s In Charge? into a conventional—but very important—perspective.

Will Schryver @imetatronink

 "... given Joe Biden's self-evident incapacity ... [has the government] been on some kind of autopilot with factions in the permanent bureaucracy fighting over the levers of power? Who issues orders to the military? Who actually controls this country's nuclear arsenal?"

We know from both the Obama and Trump years that the military doesn’t necessarily accept orders from presidents, even when they’re more or less “with it.” Zhou is far less than “with it,” so who does the military accept orders from?

Armchair Warlord @ArmchairW

Biden last night was the Regime in microcosm: An old man in deep decline arrogantly demanding a confrontation he was not remotely prepared to win on the unfounded assumption his opponent was a harmless buffoon, and falling flat on his face once he had to perform.

So, questions:

- Conservatives have been raising red flags about Biden's obvious cognitive decline since 2020. How did so many credentialed liberals (and neoliberal "establishment conservatives") fail to see this was a problem for four-plus years? What else have they failed to see? What else have they been lying to us about?

- Progressives have been claiming Trump is in cognitive decline for close to a decade now. This is self-evidently false. Where else have they been substituting their fantasies for reality?

- What about foreign leaders? How many world leaders have been lying to their own constituents about this senile man who is purportedly in charge of the United States?

- Who has actually been running the government for the last four years given Joe Biden's self-evident incapacity? Has the US federal government been on some kind of autopilot with factions in the permanent bureaucracy fighting over the levers of power? Who issues orders to the military? Who actually controls this country's nuclear arsenal?

If it’s any help, Ron Klain was Zhou’s first Chief of Staff. That position is currently held by Jeff Zients.

- Building off the above, what is Joe Biden's actual level of cognitive capacity? Troublingly, he seems to be both extremely belligerent despite his decline and to have a delusionally inflated sense of his personal capability - is the wannabe tough guy we saw slurring threats at his opponent on stage last night actually shaping US government policy?

- Presumably there are discussions happening right now about removing Biden from office via the 25th Amendment. Why are these discussions only starting after he embarrassed himself publicly instead of following what must have been countless private embarrassments, many of which have leaked and been reported in the press.

- Similarly, rumors of Biden being privately incompetent have been strenuously denied by various insiders. It is now obvious the various denials issued over the last four years were, in all likelihood, lies. Why was official Washington so comfortable with this state of affairs, and what if any consequences will there be for the legion of officials and flacks who lied through their teeth to the American public about the condition of their President?