by Harley Schlanger
As an often-incoherent President Joe Biden stumbled through his June 27 debate with his chief opponent, former President Donald Trump -- at times staring ahead vacantly, at other times appearing to be confused -- the proper question should not have been "can he continue his campaign and still win in November," but "If the Commander-in-chief of the 'Sole Superpower' appears so physically and mentally incapacitated, who's running the nation?" His weak performance sent shock waves through mainstream media pundits and his Democratic Party allies -- not because they were unaware of his infirmities, but because they had assumed his handlers would be able to cover up his lack of fitness to be president.
As the ninety-minute debacle unfolded, Biden's clueless expression and his mumbled answers confirmed what many voters had already suspected, that he is "too old" to meet the demands of being President, perhaps even suffering from dementia. A Siena College/New York Times poll taken after the debate not surprisingly found that 72% believe he lacks the mental and physical fitness to serve as President, and that Trump had widened his lead over Biden to 6% in the days following the debate. Commentator Matt Bai asked in a Washington Post oped, of Biden's inner circle of advisers who have tried to hide his condition, "They know we can see Joe Biden, right?"
The Biden team offered a series of excuses. He had a cold; he was tired from debate preparation; he was suffering from jet lag from foreign visits, from doing his job. They derided his critics in the party as a "bedwetting brigade". Former President Obama stepped in to play down the significance of the event, saying "Bad debate nights happen." And according to sources, a defiant Biden told his campaign team, "I am running. I'm the nominee of the Democratic Party. No one's pushing me out. I'm not leaving. I'm in this race to the end."
In the mainstream media barrage which followed, Biden's apparent unfitness was spun as an "election issue": Can he recover from this showing and still beat Trump? Should he step down, to "save democracy" from Donald Trump? Is there another Democrat who could win the election? Reports proliferated of leading donors jumping ship, of Congressmen calculating whether the Democrats could hold the Senate if Biden remained the candidate. A hastily organized gathering of some twenty Democratic Party governors was convened, to reassure Biden supporters that there is still time to recover. After their lunch, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said, "A path to victory in November is the Number 1 priority of the president."
No one in the press thought to question whether preventing a nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine should be a priority.
THE MEDIA AND HYBRID WARFARE
Predictably, the corporate media moved to divert attention from the real issue affecting the U.S. and the world, that is, the implications for U.S. citizens of the coming end of the Unipolar Order protected by a weaponized dollar and U.S.-NATO military operations, and the emergence of a new multipolar world. Instead, they presented the crisis of the presidency at a time of global transition and dislocation as an electoral soap opera. The New York Times typified this pivot. Once a leading advocate of Biden, within two days of the debate, the Times ran a lead editorial, "To Save His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race", along with at least five op-eds from their opinion columnists, echoing the editorial. Each had the same formulation: Biden's a good man, he's done a great job, he saved the nation from further degeneration by defeating Trump in 2020. However, his disastrous debate performance shows that he will probably lose to Trump in November, and the Democrats therefore must replace him on the ballot.
Typical was the piece written by one of their most celebrated columnists, Thomas Friedman, titled "Joe Biden Is a Good Man and Good President -- He Must Bow Out of the Race." Friedman melodramatically wrote that he "wept" while watching the debate.
Such opinions reduced the actual crisis to a fraudulent spin: the problem which must be faced, they intoned, is the "threat posed to democracy by Donald Trump". Therefore, something must be done about Biden. Within a week, a consensus emerged that to save the nation from Trump, Biden must go, but in a manner which does not humiliate him. This can be done by subjecting him to a test. As reported by the Washington Post, he must "quickly demonstrate his fitness for office" in campaign events and interviews, "or face a significant effort to force him to step aside."
One searches in vain for any acceptance by media for its role in promoting Biden, while covering up his infirmities. More important, there is little mention of the deepening danger that NATO's proxy war against Russia in Ukraine -- which the TransAtlantic nations are losing, under the direction of the Biden administration -- has put the world on a course toward nuclear war. Biden and his spokesman not only reject negotiations to end the war, they have steadfastly refused to speak with the Russians. Further, that by providing full political, financial and military back-up to Israel in its war against the Palestinians in Gaza, the U.S. has become increasingly isolated internationally. Both of those conflicts risk crossing "red lines", bringing the U.S.-NATO forces into full-scale war with Russia, with the risk of triggering nuclear war.
The real issue remains obvious, which is that if Biden is at times mentally incapacitated in a period of multiple strategic crises, who is in charge of the U.S. military, in particular its nuclear component?
A contrast to the organized group think of the mainstream media was a column by Australian activist Caitlin Johnstone, "Really Think About What It Means That the U.S. President Has Dementia." Johnstone wrote, "It's very revealing how everybody's focusing on what Biden's dementia-addled debate performance says about his ability to win re-election instead of on the fact that the current, sitting president of the United States has dementia....
"But the conversation has almost entirely revolved around Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, with relatively little attention going to the fact that this person is the president right now. Everyone's talking about whether Biden can assure American voters that he has what it takes to be president, and nobody seems all that concerned about the fact that he is already president and will remain so for half a year."
And other unnamed officials are making the life-and-death decisions for the nation, what does that say about American "democracy"? What good is a vote if the winner of an election is not making policy, and those decisions remain in the hands of a permanent bureaucracy, controlled by the billionaires of the donor class, who have shown they are willing to risk nuclear war to defend their private interests and privileges?
THE UPCOMING NATO SUMMIT
The issue of Biden is coming to a head at the moment of decision for NATO. Having thus far rejected any willingness to negotiate with Russian President Putin on his proposed peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, with Biden's future unsure, and knowing of Trump's general contempt for NATO, it is no wonder that "NATO is holding its collective breath," in the words of CIA leaker David Ignatius in the July 4 Washington Post. Ignatius writes there is nervousness among NATO leaders, over the fear of a Trump victory, at a moment when the U.S. and Russia "have been moving up the escalatory ladder in Ukraine." The NATO summit begins in Washington on July 9.
This situation requires leadership, with wisdom and insight, and a willingness to apply the principle of the Peace of Westphalia, for nations to act in the interest of the other. It is time to take up Putin's offer to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war, and put an end to the subordination of nations to the demands of the corporate billionaire class. Let their Unipolar Order die peacefully. The Global Majority is moving in that direction. Can the U.S. electorate find its way to join that majority?
