If they can do it, then they can do it. As it was in England in 1066 so it is in America in 2021.
“There are no true rules”, it’s not natural for me. I reflexively obey the rule of law. I expect people in power to obey them too. It’s as if I still lived in a high trust Republic with actual legal protections. In 2021, I’m wrong and outdated.
For example, I don’t follow game laws because I fear the game warden. I follow them because I default to law-abiding as “the right thing to do”. When I reel in a trout a ton of rules apply. I follow them because I offer “consent of the governed”. I’ll throw a fish back if it’s the wrong size or species because I consent to the law.
There will never be enough game wardens to monitor everyone like me. I could keep every trout I want. Hell I could poison the water and depth charge the survivors for fun. But I won’t break even the smallest game law. I consent to them.
Most Americans are similarly law abiding. How long will society stay like that?
I put shopping carts away at the grocery store. You do to. (Unless you’re an asshole!) People in a Republic with a transparently elected President do their part for orderly civilization.
“Consent of the governed” is the key. We’ll miss it when it’s gone. It’s already diminished. Downtrodden subjects (no longer citizens) will only do what they must. (This is what drove the Soviet Union’s Totalitarian system into an economic death spiral.) Suppose I’m putting carts away at the grocery store parking lot when I see other people shoplifting a case of ribeyes without penalty? I just paid good money for a ribeye. Which one of us is the dumbass?
Back to Joe Biden and the election of 2020? He supposedly got more votes than any other president in history while looking, acting, behaving, and smelling exactly like a guy who won through cheating. Am I on board with that? Nope! Are you? He didn’t get my consent. Did he get yours?
[Note: You know who had “consent of the governed”? Jimmy Carter. Carter was formerly “the worst president ever”. He fucked up everything he touched. Yet everyone agreed he’d been elected. There was consent even if he did a bad job.
Biden doesn’t have “consent of the governed”. That makes him an entirely different class of loser. Americans don’t like it and it shows. In 2022 Biden has became even more unpopular than the hapless Carter. He’s been that way for months and is still sinking. I didn’t think that was possible. I assumed Carter’s unpopularity was sort of an absolute zero level of dislike below which molecules no longer vibrate. Yet Carter, who fucked up everything he did, honesty won his election; so he’s more popular than Biden.]
I’ll keep putting carts away… I’m civilized after all. But in 2021 my good will is limited. Same with all deplorables. Biden needs to earn some “consent” fast. The key word is earn. He’s got to earn consent. Maybe he’s never earned anything in his life. Sadly, Biden is either too stupid or too feeble to do this.
Starting weak and acting like he’s a hero isn’t helping. He can’t intellectually grasp his limits. He proposes things he lacks the popularity to do. Biden, given a choice between basic policy A or generic policy B, will come up with completely unhinged whack job idea C. This never works out well.
Staffer #1: “Shall we encourage farmers to plant more corn or shall we let market forces prevail?”
Biden: “I’m going to shit in your coffee cup, call you racist, and form a Task Force to bankrupt every farmer in Kansas.”
Staffer #1: “But sir…”
Biden: “You’re a lying dog faced pony soldier! When I was young, tractors ran on Pepsi.”
Staffer #2: “I’m calling a ‘lid’. It’s nap time for the president.”
Biden’s out of his league in a way that’s almost fractal. He’s out of his league in every molecule and at every scale. Biden’s a hamster building a rocket out of tuna so he can fly to Jupiter where the streets are paved with the golden hairs of white teenage lifeguards.
It’s showing. One way to spell “supply chain disruption” is “people have zero fucks to give”.
Back in 1066, William the Conqueror might have been a maniac from Normandy, but he earned his place as quickly as he could and then immediately pivoted to wise rule. At first he was brutal and very serious about shoring up his power. If you pissed him off he’d show up on horseback with knights. If he had to set fire to the local Earl’s mansion he’d do it. If he had to kick your ass, he’d do it. If your sector was a pain in the ass he’d build a fuckin’ castle there.
But that was “phase 1” for William. He kept his eye on the prize. His goal was to stop fucking around getting to be King and actually do the job of being King. He did it, and rather quickly too. Within a decade or so, William the Conqueror slowly became the accepted and useful King the counsel of wise men couldn’t create out of short lived King Godwinson. In the end, William was a pretty decent ruler.
This is where the story gets boring. William the Conqueror is remembered as a good King because he ruled like an adult. He acted like it was his job. The Kingdom was actually fairly well run. When there was shit to do, William did it. When there was something that wasn’t a King problem, he didn’t micromanage. He built churches and castles and also roads and so forth.
William didn’t actively rule like an asshole or an idiot. He didn’t do weird shit. He didn’t blow the royal treasury on hookers. He didn’t try to invade Russia in winter.
Notably, William carefully didn’t push English society further than it could go. He seemed to know his limits. He didn’t want to wreck the place he’d worked so hard to control.
Ironically, William was a King with absolute power but he didn’t fuck with a normal person’s life as much as modern American leaders. Biden, or whomever is behind the curtain, has an opinion about everything. Whenever Biden’s not regulating my breakfast cereal he’s in a speech calling me racist. When he’s not sowing social discord he’s fucking up the money supply.
William the Conqueror wouldn’t give a rip if I want buy a hamburger or visit grandma or teach a kid fractions. It wouldn’t occur to an absolute monarch to declare I should wear a mask while walking on such and such a street on Tuesdays. Such things are madness. Yet, American governance in 2021 seems to delight in pissing off the citizenry.
William only cared that the taxes were paid. I’m not sure but I think the taxes were much lower in William’s time too. Biden would crawl up my ass and build a homestead there if he could. William was a hard ass that settled down to be a pretty decent King. Biden’s a space cadet that wants to be a God.
Biden: “Boxers or briefs, the choice is clear. Depends! If you don’t make the same choice as I, you’re a terrorist white supremacist troublemaker. I’m proposing the new Underwear Selection Initiative to help you avoid racist underwear choices.”
William the Conqueror: “Underwear? Who gives a shit? You paid your taxes. I’m happy. Go away.”
That’s the funny part. William killed his way to power but then led well. So people accepted him more with each passing year; especially after he’d consolidated power and started building churches and roads and shit.
Compare that to Biden. Dude’s been around for 50 years doing nothing but corruption and bullshit. He finally cheats his way into power at an age when the average person is dead. He thinks he’s Caesar, sucks like Carter, and rules like a chimpanzee. He’s a meat puppet who cheated with 3:00 am Dominion counts. He’s earned no goodwill and becomes less popular every day.
Here’s the scary part: everyone else hates him too.
It’s no big deal when I hate a loser, but this time it’s different. My bitching about the election in 2020 isn’t tinfoil hat, flat earth, space aliens, bullshit. If I was some rare weirdo blogger with a nutty pet theory that would be great. I’m not.
When Biden was sworn in, something like 40% of the nation though his “win” was bullshit. Even if Biden won fair and square and his amazing record vote count is real, 40% disbelief demonstrates the selection process didn’t convince “we the people”. That’s a problem. President Potato has got to level up if he’s going to be the boss.
[When I wrote this I didn’t have Google to check. The number wasn’t 40% it was 47%. This is an absolute true fact: On January 2021 America swore in a man that 47% of the population believe to be a usurper. Go back and read that last sentence a second time. Read it aloud if you must. Read it to your cat. Ponder those eighteen words. Even if Biden really won, nobody believes him. That’s a thing we’re living through right now.]