Are You Enjoying The Biden Regency?

I’ve been limiting my exposure to politics. As a “gift” to you I’ve also tried to keep it off my blog. But I do want to explore a few concepts.

It’s important to do it now. The election was a month ago (except in the States that are still counting… which is another topic). We may never have a better chance than the present time.

“This has happened before.”

There is a whole vocabulary for what’s happening with America’s unstable governance. The reasons we don’t use the proper terms are three fold; American schools (deliberately) suck, a lot of people are idiots, and if we used the proper words we’d face the true nature of things. Denial is not just a river in Egypt, it’s what the whole world (not just America) is doing about their shaky governing bodies.

With a sense of reason, and a decent long term view maybe we could reflect on how political… um… unease… has been managed in times past.

You may think I’m silly mentioning this but I’m serious. Our lack of speaking the truth is because people are avoiding the truth. It’s harming our need to face and deal with reality. Pretending the elections of 2016 and 2024 (and the “election” of 2020) are unspeakable things that have never happened before is unwise. I want to put things in context:

This has happened before.

Right now, in the last month of 2024 Joe Biden is officially unquestionably the President of the United States. There is evidence of his power, like January 6th political prisoners and the fact he just pardoned his son.

Yet he’s not really the President is he? Nobody anywhere thinks Joe Biden is calling the shots. Right now, and perhaps for years and definitely since the debate on June 27, 2024, it’s clear that the Government is functioning without a President or with a limited half-time President.

The press knows it, you know it, I know it, my dog knows it… yet we don’t say it aloud. Which is self-defeating.

There’s a word for what is going on right now.

Regency: The Joe Biden “Presidency” is currently a regency.

A regent is a person (or group) that act on the king’s behalf. This can be totally legit or it can be unspeakably corrupt.

For the most legit case, maybe the old king died and his successor, for example his eldest son, is too young. Suppose the Prince is nine. Everyone knows a nine year old can’t run shit. (Except of course weirdos who would take their word about gender transitioning… which is another topic.)

Everyone knows a child-Prince can’t run things. More importantly, people in the past weren’t stupid enough to pretend otherwise. A regent handles things. Ideally this is temporary; until such time as the little tyke grows up. Maybe the Regent is a well meaning committee of excellent people who do their best. Maybe they’re power hungry scumbags who get involved in a land war in Asia.

Maybe the emergent child becomes a powerful leader like William the Conqueror or an immoral madman like Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (Caligula). Bad leadership is nothing new.

Very often the young Prince and/or his Regents wind up dead. Assassination is nothing new. Indeed assassination was tried against Trump at least twice in the last few months.

Power corrupts and thus many Regencies are complete disasters. Here’s a fictional example. King Richard the Lionheart wanted to do some crusading so he left his brother John in charge. The King can do that. But should he? John was a dickhead! John fucked up so bad the populace suffered. When things went too far, a deplorable hunter in fly-over country started using his unregistered assault bow to mess with the Sheriff of Nottingham.

When the King or his Regent sucks, Robin Hood is generated because he has to exist. “Fuck Joe Biden” stickers spontaneously appear on every work truck because we had a popular President?

The worst part about a Regency is that you don’t really know who’s in charge, or why.

Sometimes the King (in this fictional case a Sultan) is a really nice guy but also gullible enough to fall for anything. Here’s Jafar, the Sultan’s most trusted advisor:

Sometimes the King was formerly awesome but is now so harassed and manipulated that he’s weak and his kingdom suffers. Here’s Gríma Wormtongue, chief advisor to King Théoden of Rohan.

Sometimes the Regent is less obviously a usurper and more like a “fiction”. It’s common that the Regent isn’t officially a Regent but rather some part of the upper levels of governance. They seize power secretly and pretend the real King is still running things legitimately.

Why? Probably because they want to stay in power. Like all people lusting for power, they probably thought it best “for the people” that they run things… secretly if necessary. Every idiot out there thinks the best person to be in power is themselves.

In the end, turning down power is rare. It has got to be the hardest thing ever. Which is why it happens so rarely:

I’m not saying it’s impossible. One of the meanest, nastiest, most hard core Roman Emperors was Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus. After a lifetime of absolutely shitmixing anyone who opposed him, Diocletian did something Emperors almost never did; he retired. That’s right; the dude that ruled like an absolute motherfucker in his desire to keep the Roman Empire from collapsing… retired. No knife in the back for Diocletian. I’m pretty sure he was unkillable. He prepared for peaceful transition with a thing called “tetrarchy” and then got the fuck outta’ Rome.

Rome being a corrupt cesspool immediately few into civil war. People tried to get Diocletian to come back and restore order. Diocletian was capable of turning down unlimited power. In one of the most epic statements in human history he said “fuck off, I’m raising a garden”.

“If you could show the cabbage that I planted with my own hands to your emperor, he definitely wouldn’t dare suggest that I replace the peace and happiness of this place with the storms of a never-satisfied greed.”

Diocletian had the ring of power, used it to beat the crap out of anyone who crossed him, and then tossed it into Mount Doom.

Think American Presidents can live up to that? Not a chance! For example, America’s 28th president was Woodrow Wilson:

In October 1919 president Wilson had a stroke. Dude was incapacitated. For the next 18 months the president’s condition was hidden from the public. Until to the end of Wilson’s term, first lady Edith Wilson ran the show. She looks tough. I wouldn’t mess with her:

Edith Wilson, with no official power at all, basically ran the US Presidency. Because fuck the rules, that’s why.

You think that’s just old timey sepia toned history? It’s not. What would’ve happened if Bill Clinton had a stroke… you think Hillary wouldn’t go full apeshit at the whiff of power?

On paper, America has methods to deal with the peaceful transition of power. By design, when the President becomes incapacitated power shifts to the Vice President. Except, people in power seem to always be snakes. As far as I can tell, the only time America’s power goes to the Vice President (without a shitload of complaints) is if something huge and undeniable happens. Here’s a photo of the last time everyone agreed to switch from President to Vice President without bitching (and that shit is horrible!):

We end up with a Regency in a system that’s built for a Vice President to peacefully take over because the leadership isn’t moral enough, the press lies, and the populace indulges in denial.

Doubt me? This is President Joe Biden from only 26 months ago. Does he look like a pleasant, reasonable man. Would that red tinted, Marine flanked, disaster invite a logical discussion about his popularity? Just look at him:

Notwithstanding the barking dog in the photo above, Biden has been hidden from public view for years. As with Woodrow Wilson, who was more or less bedridden but the fact was hidden from the populace, so too was Biden’s physical condition. (I know; most of my readers were well aware the guy had gone full potato. But that’s us. It took a long time for everyone else to use up their ability to deny the obvious.)

When denial ends, it often ends abruptly. This is a photo of Joe Biden on from five months ago. Just look at him:

On June 25th the President was reported to be healthy, fit, awesome, wise, and in charge. In fact, he was a super awesome candidate to win re(?)election for another four years. On June 26th the people saw something the press couldn’t explain away. Yet even then, a simple orderly transfer of power from President to Vice President required things our ruling cabal couldn’t manage.

The ideal situation for when America’s President goes full potato on live TV is a good Vice President. Right now, we don’t have that. Here’s a photo from last week. Look at this thing:

She could have been the actual President. All the rules are written that way. The corruption of the people that elevated her to where she is now, is the corruption that stopped her from getting the big chair.

Thus we wait out the Biden legacy… a open-secret half-assed Regency despite perfectly good transition plans in the Constitution.

Every single living being, including dumb things like college students and houseplants, knows Biden is incapable of running things. We can only hope the Regents don’t fuck things up… or at least fuck up more than they already have…. whoever they are.

Luckily, 53 days from now we get new leadership. A cause of optimism is that the new dude, in all his Orangeness, was absolutely certainly chosen by “the people”. The twerps in DC hate him. They voted 94% with the party that was willing to do absolutely anything, moral or immoral, legal or not, to stop him. That’s how you know D.C. is corrupt.

D.C. has been running a Regency for years and it’s almost done. Clinging to power without earning consent of the governed lasts until it doesn’t. Every molecule of D.C.’s lost power came about by the people exercising theirs.

I for one prefer a real President to the asshattery we’ve been experiencing. Yet I’m enjoying the waning days of America’s unofficial, undefined, ill-fated, Regency. I like to see corrupt people’s plans fail. Not knowing who’s running things was brutal in 2022 but with only 53 days left it’s fun to watch the rats on the sinking ship.

I had a great Thanksgiving. I hope you did too.

Is it too soon to wish y’all a Merry Christmas? If so, forgive me.