The comment by the sitting U.S. president in Friday’s interview has been ignored by the mainstream, but its megalomania is at the heart of why Joe Biden is defying his party and remaining in the race, writes Joe Lauria.
Biden interview Friday night. (ABC/YouTube screenshot)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
About midway through what was billed as the most consequential interview of Joe Biden’s political career, he uttered the most consequential words in the interview: “I am running the world.”
Those five words explain why he refuses to withdraw from the race and confirm what most Americans deny, but which most of the world knows: U.S. presidents act as if they were world emperors.
The interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos was supposed to be Biden’s chance to show the country he is mentally fit to remain in the presidency and run for a second term, at the end of which, if he is still alive, he’d be 86 years old.
Biden is trying to recover from a debate performance on June 27 that showed 43.7 million television viewers the debilitated state of his mind. On the whole, he was as addled in the debate as he has been for years now, but never before in front of such an immense audience.
The reaction from the Democratic Party and its media was unprecedented: pundits and editorialists; Democratic members of Congress; major donors; party political operatives and analysts all demanded in apparent, coordinated uniformity: Stop being selfish Joe and quit the race so Donald Trump doesn’t win.
But it’s had the opposite effect. Biden has resisted the chorus from the party elite: “I’m not going anywhere,” he told a rally on Friday, saying erroneously that he would beat Trump again in 2020. Earlier he met with Democratic state governors at the White House. He told them he was fine. “It’s just my brain,” he said, according to The New York Times.
And to show the public he’s still got his marbles he sat down with Stephanopoulos in a taped interview, the subject of which was only his brain.
“GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Would you be willing to undergo an independent medical evaluation that included neurological and cognit– cognitive tests and release the results to the American people?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Look. I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world. Not– and that’s not hi– sounds like hyperbole, but we are the essential nation of the world..
Madeleine Albright was right. And every single day, for example, today before I came out here, I’m on the phone with– with the prime minister of– well, anyway, I shouldn’t get into detail, but with Netanyahu. I’m on the phone with the new prime minister of England.
I’m workin’ on what we were doin’ with regard to– in Europe with regard to expansion of NATO and whether it’s gonna stick. I’m takin’ on Putin. I mean, every day there’s no day I go through there not those decisions I have to make every single day.”
Biden thinks he’s running the world and he’s not gonna give it up. No matter that he’s losing his mind for all to see. No matter that he is fully supporting an ongoing genocide in Gaza. No matter that he provoked and keeps expanding a conflict in Ukraine that is heading towards nuclear confrontation with Russia.
Biden is obsessed with power — with the power of “running the world.” And he won’t let go.
America is the first world empire. The U.S. president is the first world emperor. The debate to win the emperorship between Biden and Trump — the “stable genius” deranged in his own right — was an end-of-empire spectacle, as though it were Caligula debating Nero.
The rest of the world shudders in apprehension at what will come of this.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
Like I said – megalomania.
People badmouth Caligula, but it is clear that replacing some senators (and the POTUS) with horses would increase the intellectual level in the Senate (and the White House). Of course, I mean healthy horses. Replace a typical oration of Lindsey Graham with “eehaa”, wouldn’t it make more sense?
The real people running the country are Antony Blinken, John Kirby, and Lloyd Austin. This is as bad or worse than a demented Joe Biden.
Throughout all of this freakish nightmare, Joe Lauria’s voice has been about the calmest and most accurate I have heard. Great work.
Well, that would explain why the world is in the shape it’s in.
A simple change is a beginning
Replace the hyperbolic rhetoric “free world” with “first world”.
I traverse the globe,
From one sea to another,
And even further beyond.
I am the sovereign of all I behold.
None may contest my right.
Both corporate parties have the same owners. They don’t have the ability to serve the public interest. I don’t understand how anyone with a functioning brain doesn’t understand this by now. It’s a testament to the legacy media propaganda machine that so many people are clueless about why our circumstances continue to deteriorate. The red team blames the blue team and vice versa.
It’s the system. Those who profit off the status quo, will do anything to prevent any independent or third party from gaining traction electorally. Can’t have the pesky public interfering with their well laid plans for global domination. We are going to need the rest of the world outside the collective West to intervene before Washington takes us all down with it.
The ROW (rest of the world) is stepping up to the challenge. The five initial BRICS members now have a larger percentage of global GDP (32%) than the seven members of the G7 (30.5%), and countries are lined up waiting to join. The US is now sanctioning over 45 countries to one extent or another, but 2/3 of the world’s countries, representing 80% of the world’s population, are ignoring the the sanctions or actively working to undermine them. China’s Belt & Road program is rapidly replacing the IMF/World Bank in much of the Global South. Russia sold more petroleum last year than ever before, and almost none of it for dollars. Now China and Saudi Arabia have signed agreements to trade in their respective currencies, and India and Iran are negotiating similar terms, so the days of the petro-dollar are looking limited.
The world is changing, and the fossils in Brainwashington are not going to be able to adapt.
The president confirmed my disillusion with him and his policies with this interview. The pride Biden basks in from his wars, the hubris his powerful position informs, and the adamant belief he is the only one capable of leading the US and world is little different than Trump’s.
Far too long now the US has been stuck with arrogant supremacism, the invisible clothing Joe wears proudly. The old Hans Christian Anderson story has never been more relevant. The faithful listen and nod, “You’re not parading around naked, Mr. President! Not at all! No, no, no! Your various flaws and idiocies are definitely NOT visible!”
But I think we can conclude that this Madeleine excrement from the 90’s and carried on as holy script, as with Obama, indicates Joe’s “I’m running the world” is more important as revelation of incompetence than “I’m proud to be the first black woman to serve as President.”
That is, we have incoherent babble vs. confident, clear and self-infatuated assertion–the fundamentals for the various narratives.
But the fundamentals need keen scrutiny and are getting it, as with CN and elsewhere in the alternative media.
This supremacist malarkey has to be replaced at some point . . .
I want to reassure my fellow world citizens that if we all get incinerated and blasted and starved into the afterlife (if any) due to a thermonuclear exchange, it will not be because this senile, venal, monstrosity of a man orders it (or the other one who will be “president” soon). It will be because said destruction will be the considered decision of the caretakers put into senior positions in govt by the true powers that be. I mean, this fool of a president has not been calling the shots for years … how could he?
Does that provide some relief, that democracy and republic and all the rest was a bunch of hokum and malarkey, as angry grandpa from Delaware would say?
MHO, the DNC knows to remove Biden, he is not fit to run. Since he refused to step down they acted. The early debate turned out as expected. The media had to respond, the journalists and taking heads claimed to be stunned. They knew of Biden’s condition all along.
That looks like the beginning of the Biden out, no matter what Jill and her family want. Joe must go, but we have no competent replacement, maybe Newsome would look like the best figure on the world stage compared to Trump and Harris.
What was with the pin he was holding!?!
He was getting in touch with his inner Bob Dole.
More like you are ‘ruining’ the world, Biden
One important point is how Presidents Putin and Xi read this goof ball. What do they expect next from him in an escalating scene that looks everything like a prelude to a world war. Neither of them, nor any other world leader seems to want this war but crazy old Joe seems capable of anything and quite inclined towards this war far too often. Putin said he wanted predictability in his opposite number. Crazy Joe is anything but that. I would not trust him to put the next ice cream cone in his mouth rather than his bum. Fact is, Joe’s highly labile personality with its dire unpredictability may cause the Russian president to opt for war simply to end the uncertainty surrounding the dangerous American despot.
Thanks in large part to Biden, America has never been more vulnerable than it is today — a demented leader, a Congress steeped in a love of war, a diminished military, enormous debt, and unelected agency fools running the country. It sure is a good thing that neither China nor Russia have any intention of attacking this country — contrary to the deep state lies and propaganda — because if they did, this would be their window of opportunity. Maybe Americans should ruminate on that, and keep in mind Eisenhower’s warnings about the MIC. After all, that’s why we are what we are.
Russian and China don’t have to attack the US. They’re winning by establishing a whole new economic bloc, like the BRICS nations. The US is attacking itself with its own hubris. Economists Richard Wolff and Michael Hudson have a lot to say about America’s insanity. hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6eq1mIXIAA
Biden: ‘I’m Running the World’ … INTO THE GROUND!…
“I’m running the world”. A not so Freudian slip.
I’ve despised him since the Clarence Thomas hearings.
The DNC let loose this monstrosity to eliminate Bernie Sanders. I believe they thought he’d be a placeholder even though he refused to commit to a one term presidency and they’ve not been grooming anyone for the national limelight. I’ve read that Kamala Harris is a consummate political creature but she has been less visible than many recent VPs or is that just my imagination? I can only assume the DNC thought they might have a 2024 winner in a female African-American former prosecutor with several years of experience on the world stage. Did Biden, or Mrs. Jill, purposely downplay her involvement in the White House goings-on? Who knows?
And my petty closing: He looks somewhat orange in this photo.
Yes, petty, but who decided to dust Joe with Trump’s Cheetos rouge?
Orange worked for Trump in 2016. His handlers must be grasping at straws.
Media: “Joe Biden has said he is proud to be the first “black woman to serve with a black president” in one of a series of verbal gaffes as the US celebrated Independence Day.”
Then I’d love to be at the State dinner come 8pm when they announce that everyone has to leave because it’s past the president’s bedtime.
Consider what he’ll be like in 4 years time at the end of a 2nd term.
Biden and his supporters remind me of this scene from Dead Zone:
hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj9M34DzAKo
Joe Biden needs an intervention.
The whole Biden family needs an intervention.
The United States of America needs an intervention.
Israel needs an intervention.
Who is gonna do it?
That is the question on the world’s mind, and lips.
The debate is the first shot at Joe, to make him go. There is nothing Jill can do about it. He will not get a second term, no matter what.
I am in complete accord with you Donna Bubb, but at last, if given a chance they would only vote for another ruling class useful idiot because that is the only kind the ruling class will allow.
The fool needs to be removed from office TODAY, and not allowed to serve out his term. He is a clear and present danger, not just a potential future hazard. Let Kamala prove her incompetence before she can be voted into a four-year term. If the legislature, courts and deep state effectively muzzled Trump, they can restrain Kamala for a few months, and “poof” she’s gone too.
Here’s an excellent documentary on who may be really running America. Lot’s of important facts, very solid. Broadcast on Kim Iverson’s show July 4th.
Documentary Showing: Israel’s Second 9/11, How Zionism Conquered JFK, America & Palestine
hxxps://rumble.com/v55j41o-documentary-showing-israels-second-911-how-zionism-conquered-jfk-america-an.html
Looks like it’s time for an American Revolution 2.0.
Which raises a question – Might Biden be making a last ditch effort to save his soul by rebelling against his Deep State masters?
Well if Biden told Netanyahu to back off and arranged for massive humanitarian efforts in Gaza while asking Putin for a peace conference—you might be able to raise that question. He’ll get his visit before too long & go quietly.
He called the new prime minister of England? He called that right. Here in Scotland we’ve been saying for 300 years that Great Britain was really just a cover screen for England subjugating Scotland, Wales and Ireland and then half the world. Sorry, that was the British Empire: England’s rapaciousness is always called British as a further smokescreen.
Scotland needs independence ever more urgently . To avoid the flood of immigrants . To escape the poodle reltionship with the USA ( very tricky that one – will have to be done ith great care ) .
It really doesn’t matter if Joe steps down or not. He’s already lost – and so has the party. The party cast its die and there’s nothing they can do at this late date to recover.
We are so fucked!
Both US parties represent the interests of the corporate class. They need to be kicked to the curb. They run the world all right…into the ground
Enjoy the schadenfreude. It is delicious, regardless of one’s political biases.
Coldplay put out a song “Viva la Vida” in 2008 with the line “I used to rule the world”
The Declaration of Independence which the 248th anniversary of it was just celebrated it totally against “rulers of the world,” in part wsriting:
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”
That means that the people of a country choose the government of their country and peoples of other countries should not interfere with their choices – very Pro United States of America, very anti-CIA.
Ben Franklin who was part of the group that wrote the U.S. Constitution was asked what form of government the United States had and Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
And with the only two who have any chance of being elected President in November 2024 being Joe Biden and Donald Trump, we certainly have not kept our Republic well.
Just to cheer you up, if Donald Trump wins the Presidency on November 5, 2024 Joe Biden will, according to the Roberts Clown Court, have “IMMUNITY” from November 6, 2024 through January 19, 2025.
Read Sotomayor’s dissent to find out what Joe Biden could do to political Rivals such as Donald Trump and John Roberts and his gang of 6 during that transition period.
That’s a good song. And so apt. Thanks!
“It’s just my brain,”
Well, he got that one right.
I don’t know about that!
The choice is as simple, and as stark as this.
From reading Sheldon Wolin and John Ralston Saul, there are three main branches of Political Philosophy.
Nazism, Communsim and Christianity.
Nazism can be instanced by quoting Biden himself “..but I’m running the world.”
Communism can be quantified as “From each according to ability, to each according to need”
In the words of the indeed venerable Rooster Cogburn “Which’ll it be?”
What we need new ideas for is to overcome Lord Acton’s “All Power corrupts..” and Nietzsche’s “Will to power” and greed. All systems of power are vulnerable to these human failings.
Christianity is simply all mythologies. Everyone has a belief system. Atheism is a belief system.
Biden didn’t say that. He was stuttering again from being over-prepared and he was misinterpreted. What he really said was “I wfgeggcdxbjunnvdrubddthwup”.
Everyone continues to speak as though it matters who is president or which party gets in. It doesn’t. The federal system in the US is just there to make sure the rich stay rich and get richer. That’s it.
Commander in Chief??? May God help us All.
What is best for anyone else other than Joe Biden is and always has been way down on Biden’s list of interests and priorities. Even the most casual observer must see that Biden could not care less about anyone other than himself. He’s just a mean, old, self-obsessed SOB.
Joe knows that he will have to continue to scheme and pull strings to keep his crackhead deviant son out of jail. That will be much harder to do once Joe is out of office. Notice how Hunter has inserted himself into Joe’s White House meetings of late.
The message from the Biden Crime Family is clear. The DNC can have the nomination back only after they remove Joe’s cold, dead fingers off of it. Democrats are struggling with how to do that right now. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving collection of liars and cheaters.
Joe Biden never has been, is not, never will be for the people. Chosen to be the “useful idiot” of the Democrat Party power mongers vs. Trump the “useful idiot” of the Republican Party power mongers, Biden is totally useless to voters who want a true democracy not a world dictator. It’s time to dump him and give the American people a chance to vote for a true leader.
I am in complete accord with you Donna Bubb, but at last, if given a chance they would only vote for another ruling class useful idiot because that is the only kind the ruling class will allow.
Thank You Joe
I am not convinced that the party wants Joe to step down. Some do, certainly. But if the Party were worried about dementia, they would not have propped him up in’20, let alone ’24.
They are fine leading him around. And they are willing to deal with Trump as well, despite the noise. He’s an annoyance, but nothing like a viable and authentic popular left or otherwise humanist faction. He’s ants at a picnic, not a bear in the tent.
This is the state of the Union, not the story of one man–not a stable condition.
The party isn’t worried about dementia. After all, Joe is just a puppet (and always has been) and puppets don’t need brains.
Which is worse? A delusional lunatic running the world or delusional lunatics supporting and planning to vote for him. But then delusions are a feature of Lewy Body/Parkinson Disease Dementia as are a stiff walking gait, frequent falls, disorganized speech patterns, fluctuating cognitive function, incontinence. Some suffering from this form of dementia report hallucinations. An example might be saying that the person saw the beheading of Israeli babies even though Israeli authorities report no evidence for the claim.
If I am correct in thinking what ails the president, we are in for a rough ride.
It’s not Biden’s age that make him unfit. It’s his hawkish insanity from the beginning of his political career that’s now matched with his failing brain.
However, if he’s removed, he’ll just be replaced with yet another hawk who believes Amerika should “run the world.” Amerika has been a narcissistic nation from the get go, slaughtering anyone in its path who doesn’t believe it should acquire total global domination. That’s why the CIA and its cohorts assassinated JFK. He believed in peace and diplomacy. Anyone who has that mindset has been eliminated because the Universal Slaughter Agency is bound and determined to rule the planet, even if it has to destroy all life on Earth to do it. These people are insane.
JFK believed in peace and diplomacy? Tell that b.s. to the Congolese to get projectile vomited on.
True, but least he wanted to bring the troops home from Vietnam, abolish the CIA, and prevented nuclear war with the Soviet Union. We all could have been dead a long time ago if he had followed the military industrial complex.
More than that, he supported the Palestinian right of return, demanded that AIPAC’s predecessor (in name change only!), the American Zionist Council, register as a foreign agency, which his murder made moot, and adamantly opposed Israel developing nuclear weapons, all of which, including his plans to withdraw US troops from Vietnam, all of which LBJ reversed and Chomsky has never talked or written about.
Thank you Doris.
Yes, indeed.
And Ray McGovern’s #MICIMATT works 24/7 to keep things that way by distracting and fooling the people of this country about who we really are.
Here’s who we really are:
US & EU Clash with Russia & China in Explosive Taiwan & Philippines Conf… hxxps://youtu.be/uHk_1lWzUTY?si=IlJzv-BntmpkLb1l via @YouTube
In contrast if one listens to Vladimir Putin’s public speeches/comments – available on the Michael Rossi Poll Sci YOUTUBE channel and also on RUMBLE’s Russia News (it was recently yanked by YOUTUBE) you hear a rational, well informed, dedicated to his country country lawyer who understands the economy, the geopolitical world, stability, cooperation, negotiation and so on.
Our candidates, generally, are selfish, power hungry delusional immature sandbox bullies whose weak characters are used by the elite to serve their own interests – remember Joe’s bragging how he bullied/bribed Ukraine official to fire the attorney who was looking into Biden’s son’s corruption with taxpayer $billion – who was he bragging to? It wasn’t the American people, it was to his controllers, IMO.
JFK gave the OK for the Pay of Pigs, didn’t he? Which, of course, compelled Castro to seek out Russian missiles for protection. The which we will probably see again fairly soon. Russia and China will ultimately be busy setting up relations and potential defense agreements with all the smaller countries we have injured: Cuba, Venezuela and so on. Something here abut chickens and roosting.
I totally agree, but dude has serious mental issues that can no longer be denied by any rational person. I would think that if the DNC and the big “donors” (bribemasters) want him to step down, the cognitively-challenged Puppet Emperor would have no choice. JB is a helpless, clueless old man without his handlers, wife, and the BigMoney supporting him.
Getting him to step aside should not be difficult – they could just put him on a plane and shuttle him off somewhere and he probably wouldn’t know what happened.
The political spectacle (freak show) has become like a scary episode of the Twilight Zone. As Mr. Lauria alludes, the situation appears typical for a late-stage, hubris-filled empire.
Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. – Proverbs 16:18
Unfortunately, Mr. Biden would take us all down with him. We need look no further to see the core rot at work in this system which so many think is “the best in the world.”
Take a close look–this is not the “real” Biden, it’s one of the actors playing him. The real B cannot even control his bowels, let alone the world.
Bless you, Mr. Joe Lauria, I can count on your perception, decency, cogency, with every beautifully wrought piece. May you be able to make a difference in this ongoing perfectly timed, imperative reporting. Always respectful truths as gifts for humanity. Gigantic contributions to our world. I bow to you. In gratitude.
Some people need to be the richest person in the room. Others need to be the most important or powerful. Losers…
RUNNING IT…or RUINING IT??? Step aside in dignity, Joe Biden…the entire world can do WITHOUT YOU !!!
Only 9 days since the “debate,” days filled with further embarrassments from this “running the world” stance.
“I’m proud to be the first black woman serving with the first black president.”
World leaders are puzzled, and here at home Big Money is pulling out its donations unless someone decent face the other Pretender.
Democrats are scrambling toward Kamala like rats on a sinking ship.
To replace Biden we need a person who looks and acts like a statesman, Kamala and Trump don’t cut it.
…appears neocons running “biden” decision to early “debate” is based upon their own fears of Hague accountability.
This way, whether they lose their front man or not, they win; either they are able scapegoat GJ senility for war crimes perped,
or continue, $ame….
Any formally critically thinking human being, with rational reasoning skills, has met his match when he no longer is in command of self to recognize his own hubris.
Here, the reference is not just to any person, it is to the leader of the nation that has always regarded itself as the ‘exceptional’ nation.
This nation has now come to face, for the first time in its history, with having to deal with its own hubris, in the stark light of reality!
For the people of this exceptional nation not to realize the danger to which their seriously defective president is exposing, not only them, but the entirety of humanity to, is beyond foolish.
Hark hark, the dogs do bark! The President no longer has his former capacities to lead himself, let alone be the unilateral leader of what’s left of his delusional abilities, to see the big picture as it is in fact.
The deeply tragic aspect for the family of anyone afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, is in accepting that their loved one is no longer the person they once knew, and that they are the first line of defense in not only protecting his dignity, but the survival of all of humanity.
NOW is the time for them to save his honor in service to the country. They are the only ones who can immediately, and compassionately convince him that he has to surrender the keys!
“Shout Out,” to Joe Lauria w/the “Catch of The Day,” i.e., a miserably aged, “CATFI$H!” Straight outta the Main Stream Media’s, “river of comeuppance.”
…. Biden thinks he’s running the world; but, he’s shuffling through it, doing his “goodest, “he [UTTERED] the most consequential words in the interview, “I am running the world.”
AND, “Madeleine Albright?!?” Secretary of State-1997-2001. She “GONE!” Hey, Joey,”WHO” is Antony Blinken?”
“I’m on the phone with the new prime minister of England.” “I’m workin’ on what we were doin’ with regard to–in Europe with regard to expansion of NATO and whether it’s gonna stick. I’m takin’ on Putin.” Joseph Robinette Biden, “$itting” POTUS.
…. “What kind of diplomacy, is that, Joey?” “ASK [THE USA] do you want war w/Russia?!?”
“Because that’s what will happen if Ukraine, which has made a pledge to take back Crimea by force, joins NATO…you will fight a war against Russia.. Russia is one of the world’s leading atomic powers. There would be [NO] no victors; Macron does not desire such an outcome.” Vladimir Putin, 2.7.22
“AGAIN, Russia has said, FROM 2008, INCORPORATION of NATO into that ALLIANCE is a RED LINE. How many times do we need to repeat ourselves?” Vladimir Putin
“Many people,” believe Vladimir Putin pegged Biden-Harris as an unreconstructed warmongering & longtime advocates of NATO expansion; &, truly fears [their] ability to act on [their] madness, “Mutually Agreed Destruction NESS.
CONCLUDING, “there is but a [shuffle] between a proud man’s glory and his disgrace.” (Publilius Syrus)
It is obvious that Joe Biden has cognitive impairment. The US Constitution has way to remove a President who is unfit to carry out his duties. The 25th Amendment, allows the Vice President and the Cabinet to declare the President unable to discharge his duties. If the President contests this, a 2/3 vote by Congress is required. This is not a matter of politics. We must insist that the person in this position can actually do the job.
I agree with the sentiments here. Invoke the 25th.
“I’m running the world”.
In a very hideous way.
(Those daily tests aren’t precise.)
Never a mention of citizens or voters. “He is ahead. You are falling behind”. What happened to the voters? They are never mentioned. The accurate sentence is “More voters prefer Mr Trump. Fewer voters prefer you.” Voters make the choice. Unless someone starts referring to voters, to citizens, to the people, I’m not prepared to hear the word “democracy” without telling you it doesn’t exist.
Voters have not made the choice for many decades, particularly after the Supreme Court declared in 2000, with the stolen election by George W. Bush, that Americans in effect did not have the right to elect the President. And the Electoral College in fact demonstrates that fact quite clearly. The electors are the ones who cast the votes ins the end.
I’ve been a little surprised that Biden has been so candid about imperialism. Most of the apologists for the US Empire soft-pedal the issue by saying that the POTUS is the “leader of the free world” and we (the US gov’t) support democracy and freedom. Biden comes out and says (and this is not the first time) that he’s emperor of the world except for the barbarians who should not even be negotiated with only threatened with violence. Pretty amazing but also wonderful because it is the truth and we need all the truth we can get instead of layer upon layer of BS.
Isn’t one of the signs of cognitive decline that a person’s internal censor malfunctions? They start saying the quiet parts out loud. Like “I’m running the world.”
That’s more than an admission of lust for the illusions of empire, the neocon fallacy. It’s also a revelation of the illusion of how the Ivy Ds believe they are a “meritocracy,” not an elitist professional and technocratic oligarchy. This Best and Brightest 2.0 thinks the lessons of David Halberstam’s book don’t apply to them.
Also like language typical of mendacious CEOs. Who, as they’re spending company money to enrich themselves by using mass lay offs to fund stock buy-backs, have the nerve to say they’re “running the company.” In this case, right into the ground. Or in so-called normal circumstances, as if no one else contributed their time and labor, as if they weren’t dependent on other people. Or the planet. The D neolibs seem comfortable with that perspective, too.
Yet the U.S. government has the nerve to offer the paper thin disguise that it’s all about bringing ‘democracy’ to the world. So never mind the neolibs and neocons. It’s obvious the D oligarchs and R plutocrats aren’t interested in democracy or even its limited version as representative republic. If they were, we’d have choices other than a mediocre, addled figurehead of oligarchy and an ignorant, nasty plutocrat.
How can anyone defend either of these two?! IMHO the two sets of party faithful don’t want to see past the thin veneer, past the false binary either/or: either with us or against us, good or evil, correct or incorrect, good guy or bad guy. Because if they did, a a frighteningly complex reality would become all too visible.