Douglas Mercer
July 21 2024
So Joe Biden exits stage right, pursued by his doctors. He was last seen wandering aimlessly in the corridors saying the word “malarkey” repeatedly as his eyes twitched and the drool slid down from his mouth and he is reported to have been grinning a stupid grin. But no matter the men in the white coats won’t have to put him in the rubber room or have him in a straitjacket, they know he’s the model patient and is a docile sort once they stick the needle in; and he’s much more likely to lay down and say “folks” and talk to imaginary folks than he is to go stark raving mad. Indeed, in some ways the powers that be genuinely regret this development: in him they had what they always wanted, he was their beautiful ideal, a mental patient or a ventriloquist dummy or wax works who would say the words on cue, though of late did keep mixing them up a lot. Not to say that every other politician isn’t equally pliable but every once in a while those with ostensibly or nominally working minds chafe a bit and stand on their preposterous dignity; and the real leaders have to crack the whip metaphorically again and remind them of their lackey and time serving role and that gets annoying. But a man who was essentially a post and had brains of mush and the intelligence of fried hair has been their wet dream all along and, as such, they are going to miss him. Indeed, the idea that the people even require a “President” galls them, but then they know that the people don’t mind being duped so much as long as you don’t come right out and tell them they are being duped; that, apparently, is a bridge too far. If they just came right out and told them the truth that they are lying to them then the average man might get his feelings ruffled and stand on his by now worn dignity and there are after all a lot of guns out there. The guns won’t stop the rulers of the world from ruling but, given their druthers, they would rather finish our enslavement as painlessly as possible and with as little bloodshed as there can be, have us willingly continue to walk the plank to our doom. And what is really bothersome is now they have to pick another post to throw his or her hat in the ring so that the charade can keep going with as much verisimilitude as they can muster. It will be a desultory pick, the person will be instructed that he is just fodder in the game, only some more fat for their fire, but to put on a brave face and say a lot about “democracy” and the “people”; this person will no longer be able to call Trump “Hitler” as that is out of bounds once the public saw the image of Trump as the poor man’s Vincent Van Gogh. No, the stooge they pick to replace Biden will have a clear and circumspect role: be serious and earnest and make no mention of the fact that the emperor has no clothes, and then bow out gracefully exiting stage right, pursued by his or her money. But one need not feel too bad for the slave owners who rule the powers and principalities we call our home. They still have Trump and in an unexpected and roundabout way he will prove to them to be ideal. He can now win and the people will forget about how the last election was stolen and how those folks were locked in jail cells for a bit of civil protest; they can forget about how Trump sold them down the river; and they can be blind to how he is selling them out again. You bet say the powers that be, let the rubes and the yahoos wrap themselves in patriotic bunting, let them have Uncle Sam walk among them on stilts, and let them sing Yankee Doodle Dandy off key, that won’t do anybody no harm. It will be frank and beans and a sea of red, white and blue at their celebrations; they will talk a lot about how now they are going to take their country back never thinking that if you have to take your county back it means you lost it; and they will never ponder how one goes about losing one’s country in the first place, that thought leads down dangerous and prohibited paths. For the sovereigns know that when you are leveling and destroying a once great nation you have to have some finesse and some delicacy, and the little man needs to feel that his voice is heard and needs to feel like he’s winning one now and again. And Trump will get to say “fight fight fight” and he will put that stupid look on his face and put the emphasis on the wrong words, and will surround himself with all the old war mongers and treacherous patriots and cry “America First,” a phrase which by now elicits nothing but soft chuckles in the air-conditioned rooms at the top of all the global high rises. Indeed, in a way that was inadvertent this is all going to go just swimmingly from now on, win win as is said. The “temperature” can be lowered (a man was shot after all!), and the man with Old Glory on his tee shirt can go back to grilling his burgers and cashing the last of the Social Security checks, for by the time the money does run dry it will be much too late. As for the old left, they knew their day was done when Obama gave out the call for no one to oppose Bernie Sanders and Biden began his steamroll. As for the current left they get their consolation prize too. The get to scream “racist” over and over again which always make them feel good, and the professors driving their Volvos will still be allowed to hold “Whiteness” seminars and believe they are talking about anything at all. So in the long view it’s check mate my brothers, we got badly beat and there is no reason for the Davos Men to be anything other than wildly thrilled and exhilarated by this turn of events, their happiness is strong stuff. After all if anything untoward does ever happen they can just bring in another shooter, or cut some more checks, or slander some more names, or tell some more lies, or revise some more history, or ban some more words, or proscribe some more truth, or say the talismanic and never failing words democracy and freedom one more time, and blow some last fairy dust in the eyes of the still unsuspecting. The formula is patented by now and never fails, like cutting warm butter with a sharp carving knife, it’s never hard for them after a small kerfuffle to get things right back on the keel. They say that old idealist Hegel said that the Owl of Minerva flies at dusk but that can’t be right; as our twilight approaches they killed that bird a long time ago. And they also say that that student of Hegel denied that history repeated itself, that first it came as tragedy and then as farce. But that is bush league stuff by now too, we passed farce long since and have sailed right though travesty---everyone who’s been paying attention knows that the final stop is not blood bath, but the primordial hum of soma being injected into veins, as the steely eyed men in the white coats make their morning rounds.
