Pondering history has advantages but only if it’s distant. No politician in 2021 has a campaign speech with fake tales of swordsmanship during the Battle of Hastings (1066). Instead, every geezer in DC stood shoulder to shoulder with Martin Luther King. Mr. King, who actually existed, has become a placeholder in the invented memories (or fake stories) told to win votes. That’s why I look far back in time. I need to go so far back that it pre-dates Nancy Pelosi. The year 1066 just barely does it.
History has taught me a more realistic view of governance. The first notion that history shitcanned was that “lawful” succession is the normal way. I had the idea a King had such and such powers. Among them, the King could designate an heir and it was law. If the heir was a loser, tough shit! The King said so; thus it had to be. Holy Macbeth was I naive!
“Lawful succession” is total crap. The King is mortal. When he dies he’s a corpse. What happens next may be wise and stable succession as befits a reasoned and intelligent society. Or it may be a bloody shitshow. Sometimes elites and oligarchs really did their level best to follow a path that’s best for their society. Just as often, blithering idiots set society on fire so they could rule over the ashes.
Through it all, traditions, laws, and plans were made and ignored. Once the old King’s body is cold, the man who becomes the new King is up for discussion. Who “ought” to become King is irrelevant.
Also a leader’s powers are what they are, not what they’re supposed to be. A King’s powers are supposedly absolute but that’s bullshit. The King can do exactly what he can manage and not one inch more. If he’s strong and popular, his power is great. If he’s weak and stupid, his power is limited (possibly even nonexistent). None of this has to do with tradition, law, governing documents, or whatever remained after the Magna Carta (1214) was signed. It’s simply true.
Life isn’t fair; any leader, even a King, can be screwed over by chance. A lost battle or a plague is the same as a bad decision or moral flaw. An American president presiding over a recession usually gets hosed regardless of whether he is the cause. Alternatively, the only time I’ve seen a president defeated after fostering a roaring economy was in 2020. (One of many mysteries about 2020.)
The official narrative is irrelevant. The King is in charge right? Wrong! If the King sucks, he’s not in charge and everyone knows it.
If a King’s a moron or has an unfortunate mental defect (quite common in the inbred House of Habsburg) someone else is calling the shots. If he’s healthy but has a track record as a fuck up, everyone knows to work around him.
A bad King is just a loser with an expensive hat. We see the same in America in 2021. How much respect would you have if meeting Thomas Jefferson? How much would you have if meeting Joe Biden? How many orders given by Trump were faithfully and effectively executed by his employees? The conspiracy theory that the FBI was actively spying on him is now established fact. A king’s court may be a hive of liars and a modern bureaucracy may perform the same function.
Washington DC did everything it could to stop deplorable Trump from functioning as President. Now it does what it can to cover for decrepit Biden.
Who’s in charge if not the King? In 2021 nobody thinks Biden is running the show. The dude can’t manage… anything. Would you let Biden care for your infant? A puppy? A goldfish? Would you let him change a diaper? Could he compile your taxes? Would you back him in a poker game? Could he beat you in chess?
Biden couldn’t hold down a job as a pizza delivery man. Think about that! I mean just sit back and spend a full minute on that concept (use a timer!). The man is said to have gotten America’s record highest vote tally of all time. He’s the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. He’s neither physically nor mentally capable of holding down a job delivering pepperoni pizza. He can’t drive, he can’t walk, he couldn’t navigate, he can barely talk. He couldn’t handle the mental work to select five correct pizzas from the outgoing set and deliver them to the five matching addresses. He’d die trying to do it in twenty minutes. Nineteen year old minimum wage flunkies handle job tasks our “president” can’t manage.
Biden clocks out at a half day’s work and calls it a “lid”. Do you? We don’t let fourteen year old high school children skip class to take a nap. Biden does it and we pretend it’s normal. Tell your boss you need to cancel task because you “got tired” at noon. Do it several times a week. See how it plays out. The most powerful man on earth can’t manage the stress of your job; so who’s shouldering Biden’s stressful job?
Like some Kings at the end of their reign, Biden is closer to dead than alive. We all know that. Every time he’s speaks on live TV a staffer has a heart attack. I took for granted a long string of sentient people who did the job for which they’re elected. Our system usually does well. This time it failed.
A King who can’t even deliver a pizza is not running the kingdom.
History hints what happens when the King is a loser. When the King’s a placeholder maybe a local Bishop discretely pulls the strings. If he’s belligerent, a handful of Dukes and Earls might have a little talk with His Majesty about how he might have a hunting accident. If he raises taxes too much he might have a revolt on his hand. If the King is mildly incompetent it’s hidden by the court. If he’s massively incompetent, even the peasants know. If he fucks up beyond a certain point, regicide may become necessary. Sometimes everyone cheers when it happens. There’s no law of the universe saying the King is always competent. There’s no populace that respects a loser.
Back to succession, I once simply assumed the King’s eldest son was his heir. “Prince whomever of this or that inbred family” would become the King. That’s the rule. Follow the rule right?
Wrong! Someone winds up on the throne. Then it’s retroactively explained as “the way it had to be”. If a better or more legitimate candidate was fucked over because he was off on the Crusades or knifed in the back, that’s how it goes. Any complaints to that nature are unfortunate conspiracy theories which will get you kicked off social media.
If we dont know who is running the show, how can we trust the administration? With whom does Putin negotiate? When he talks with Macron, he knows he’s dealing with the French President. Likewise other heads of state. But the US…. Does he know who has their finger on the button? Does he have trust that anything he negotiates with Biden will be honored? And if he does know who is reslly in charge, what is to stop him from revealing that and destroying the pathetic shreds of credibility retained by the current administration?
Well said. Does leave me wondering who is actually in charge. Some nameless white house staffer?
Barry & ValJar
Sadly, this has been the story since the beginning of time. Human nature is such that it will remain the way of things until the end of time. I’m willing to bet that Christ will return only to find someone trying to stab Him in the back.
Being intelligent and capable has never been a qualification to be president. We’ve had presidents in the 1800’s that would make Biden look like a Jeopardy champion.
We’ve certainly had some true dumbasses. Some were well meaning and others were corrupt. I think the main qualification was (and remains) to convince the people that you legitimately got elected. If you accomplish that basic task all you need is to be just barely smart enough to avoid pissing down your own pantleg; until 2021 I assumed anything ambulant and breathing would at least beat Carter’s popularity. Biden is (has) blown it establishing his legitimacy and seriously needs to level up with capability to make up for it… which he hasn’t (or can’t).
I think some of the morons in the 1800s did OK because American was still a Federation of States. The Federal government did a whole lot less. Even if it screwed up everything it touched, it wasn’t that hard on the people. A drooling moron might manage the Federal government just enough to deliver the mail and stay out of war; beyond that it could let Wisconsin deal with Wisconsin’s problems and so forth. It wasn’t a bad system.
It’s amazing how much things have changed. A couple decades before WW1, the president might graze a cow on the lawn or a citizen might walk up to the White House and knock on the front door. By 2022 the White House is a fortress and the Federal Government regulates everything from the contents of breakfast cereal to brand of car I’m legally allowed to purchase to my age when I drink a Budweiser to the wattage of my light bulb. Making all those decisions for 350 million people creates endless opportunities to piss people off.
Yep neither party is interested in promoting the best and the brightest. It used to be who could win the middle of the road voters but the last 2 elections have been about who was hated least. Hillary who spent most of her adult life in government thought it was okay to run a private server with classified materials among other crooked things. Trump was new and novel and got the anyone but Hillary vote; Trump sure as hell wasn’t a Republican but a populist. 4 years later and tables turned and Trump became the hated candidate. Hopefully neither Biden or Trump will run for re-election; Biden because age/ability and Trump due to the massive wave of legal problems he created. Just today it was announced that he had top secret documents in the boxes of records he “took home” to Mir a lago. Hard to trust anyone with the “keys” to the country. The aliens are out there in space making popcorn watching this comedy errors. Maybe the squirrels are right.