The purpose of this essay is not to coddle, warm, hearten or cheer you up in any form or fashion. Of course, I wish you all well and strength in dealing with the crisis that our nation faces. I send you my best wishes in the pursuit of happiness. I also urge the practice of good citizenship, tolerance, respect, patriotism, service and love towards the unfinished goals of perfecting the Union, which will endure beyond any of our lives — even past this hour of tribulation and fear.
Some accuse me of being a pessimist. I consider myself to be a realist.
When I launched The Warning two years ago, its purpose was — and continues to be — to warn about a threat I believe and know is very real, and ever closer. It can manifest itself in many ways, and the most vivid example of its loosening brought the world to the edge of obliteration within the span of a human lifetime. We have forgotten its lessons at our great peril.
The most important thing to do in any crisis or dangerous situation is to stay calm and focused on the immediate steps necessary for survival. Election Day is exactly four months away, and the Democratic National Convention convenes in 45 days.
Donald Trump is winning decisively. In fact, he has never held a stronger hand — ever.
Let’s try a thought experiment.
Breathe deeply three times and journey back six months in time to January. Try to imagine what your reaction would have been if someone told you that the following would be true by July 4:
All of the Democratic governors would be making a pilgrimage to the White House where they would evaluate for themselves Biden’s fitness to continue forward in the race.
Following this meeting, some Democratic governors, including Wes Moore, Gretchen Whitmer, Tim Walz and Kathy Hochul, would say some version of Gavin Newsom’s statement, which was that “Joe Biden’s had our back. Now it’s time to have his.”
The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe,The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and scores of esteemed commentators would call for Biden to step aside
The president’s aides, including Ron Klain and Anita Dunn, would be under public attack from the president’s family, who reportedly blame them for the greatest self-induced political catastrophe in American history.
Forty-eight hours after a debate performance that would implode the campaign, First Lady Jill Biden would appear on the cover of Vogue, and respond to the disaster by saying that “we will not let those 90 minutes define the four years he’s been president. We will continue to fight.”
Hunter Biden, convicted felon, would be working out of the West Wing, leading the family response against the treacherous staff.
More than 70% of the country would be saying that Biden doesn’t have the mental and cognitive abilities to serve as president.
The electoral map would be expanding in the Republicans’ favor to include New Mexico, Virginia, Minnesota and New Hampshire — all states that voted for Biden in 2020.
Biden would be behind, outside the margin of error, against Trump in every battleground state, and by more than 5 points nationally.
No doubt the Biden high command and national media would have smeared them into dust, yet here we are.
What is the plan?
What is the true meaning of the platitudes emerging from the governors’ summit? Have they made a suicide pact? Is it the creed of the lemming and the coda of the gaslighter?
Thus far, the only concrete changes since the debate a week ago are that the president will retire each evening by 8 pm and travel less.
Meanwhile, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, a fascist with a huge fetish for Viktor Orban, is threatening violence against all of us. Here is what he said in an interview on War Room:
In spite of all this nonsense from the left, we are going to win. We're in the process of taking this country back. No one in the audience should be despairing.
No one should be discouraged. We ought to be really encouraged by what happened yesterday. And in spite of all of the injustice, which, of course, friends and audience of this show, of our friend Steve know, we are going to prevail.
Number two, to the point of the clips and, of course, your preview of the fact that I am an early American historian and love the Constitution. That Supreme Court ruling yesterday on immunity is vital, and it's vital for a lot of reasons. But I would go to Federalist No. 70.
If people in the audience are looking for something to read over Independence Day weekend, in addition to rereading the Declaration of Independence, read Hamilton's No. 70 because there, along with some other essays, in some other essays, he talks about the importance of a vigorous executive.
You know, former congressman, the importance of Congress doing its job, but we also know the importance of the executive being able to do his job. And can you imagine, Dave Brat, any president, put politics off to the side, any president having to second guess, triple guess every decision they're making in their official capacity, you couldn't have the republic that you just described.
But number three, let me speak about the radical left. You and I have both been parts of faculties and faculty senates and understand that the left has taken over our institutions. The reason that they are apoplectic right now, the reason that so many anchors on MSNBC, for example, are losing their minds daily is because our side is winning.
And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.
The last people to talk about political violence in the context of the second American Revolution were the Confederates. The “Cornerstone” speech, delivered by their vice president, makes clear for all time what the fight was for and remains.
Imagine the Biden campaign was a ship on the ocean. It is in very bad condition.
The ship is stalled and listing. There is no forward momentum, no power to the engines, the pumps are stalled, and the water level is rising. The band is playing on, and some have decided to make grand toasts and encomiums to the grand old ship, each competing to be more grandiose as the seconds tick away. Everyone has an eye on a door and a lifeboat, but no one feels like they can be first to leave.
July 3 was the 161st anniversary of one of the most extraordinary days in American history, remembered as Pickett’s charge. Trump’s favorite general, the cruel slaver Robert E. Lee, ordered George Pickett to lead three brigades of Virginians in an attack against the US Army over open ground sloping uphill. The result was a good one. The Confederate army was destroyed, and Lee was never again on offense. Yet, everyone could take lessons from the charge, which seemed to demonstrate for all time the folly of valorous infantry charges uphill against modern artillery. Retrospectively, the results seem obvious, but in the moment, there is always a rationale for continuing forward.
How did we get here?
Jill Abramson, former executive editor of The New York Times, put it this way in a Semafor op-ed, which began with this opening paragraph:
It’s clear the best news reporters in Washington have failed in the first duty of journalism: to hold power accountable. It is our duty to poke through White House smoke screens and find out the truth. The Biden White House clearly succeeded in a massive cover-up of the degree of the President’s feebleness and his serious physical decline, which may be simply the result of old age. Shame on the White House press corps for not to have pierced the veil of secrecy surrounding the President.
Although he has now changed his position, here was Joe Scarborough on his eponymous morning show three months ago, saying that “this version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever:”
Context here is everything. The former GOP congressman was making clear where the boundary line was. The “f@*% you” wasn’t delivered to John and Karen back home on the porch sipping sweet tea, but rather as a warning shot across Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and up and down the Acela corridor, where dissent is tolerated so long as it lines up straight with the prevailing wind.
Scarborough not only set the tone and the boundaries for the show, but the entire national political media, who understood that going on the show — or ever going on it — was dependent on staying right on the subject at hand. More than that, it was fair to conclude that the effort was sanctioned by the man he was advising, who religiously watched the show.
The boundaries have been obliterated. The people who rule, cover the people who yield power, work for the people who rule, analyze the decisions and intentions of the decision-makers, write the speeches explaining the moment and opine about the speech, are all the same person now.
Where all of this has collectively accumulated towards is the construction of a tragedy, farce, and collapse of an immense charade. No matter how benign is was at the beginning, it can no longer be judged as anything less than a threat at the hour during which consequences will begin to be realized in exponents and cascades of venom, chaos and extremism.
Trump is winning the election now, and his return to power — which is not yet inevitable — will certainly become so, unless there is a drastic change and shift by the out-of-touch Democrats. They seem to think that curt dismissals of what 51 million people witnessed are a strategy in a moment of unprecedented political crisis, uncertainty and certain defeat.
The true character of Joe Biden is being measured in this moment. He is being tested, and history will render the verdict. What is the meaning of the oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States? What role does humility play towards shaping the legacy of presidential greatness?
Where does all this go from here?
Delusion may be a discipline, but it isn’t a strategy. Ceding the election to Trump because it’s time for us all to “have Biden’s back” is not an appealing option for many people in America.
The Biden team has ceded honesty to MAGA, allowed Trump to open the largest political lead of his nine-year career, gaslit the nation, paralyzed the Democratic Party, and has put in jeopardy every competitive US Senate and US House race in the nation. They have brought the oldest political party in the world to the very edge of annihilation. Don’t get me wrong, the political chieftains still command legions on X, where the deluded have taken to screaming about it being the media’s job to defeat Trump.
Think about it. What will it mean if MAGA wipes out the Democratic Party?
How long would it be before before Mr. Clyburn appeared on television after the debacle to instruct who the next nominee would be? Whose turn would it be next, according to the architects of a political and moral collapse that will leave future historians breathless when they describe it?
Have you ever played the game “Capture the Flag?”
The rules are simple enough, but the game can become infinitely complex. Politics is a game of “Capture the Flag.” The highest form of the competition is a US presidential election, which has become a horror show of moneyed interests competing for power on behalf of billionaires, global corporations and foreign powers.
There were two things at the center of Biden’s campaign — two flags, if you will — honesty and Trump. They are both gone. The thing that the Biden campaign could never allow to happen has happened. They have made the race about Biden, and erased Trump from center stage. What we have witnessed is an implosion of profound consequences. The bad news is sad news. There were no survivors, though a faction seems intent on pretending there was. Circling the wagons from the inside may look safe, but it never is.
The Biden team must break out from its present circumstances immediately, but how?
Vice President Harris works from the West Wing of the White House, which opened during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, who was the first president of the United States to host a Black man for dinner at the White House. Across West Executive Drive is the vice president’s beautiful ceremonial office. The vice president’s ornate ceremonial desk has a center drawer on which the names of many vice presidents are carved by their own hand. Some rose to become commander in chief.
Here is the story of one of them. He had held the job for 82 days, and was playing poker in Speaker Sam Rayburn’s Capitol hideaway when he was summoned back to the White House where he was received by Eleanor Roosevelt, who said to him:
Harry, the president is dead.
He asked if there was anything he could do for her, to which she replied:
Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now.
Truman later told reporters that:
I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.
History has laid out a choice for the 46th president of the United States. Everything is on the line.
Curiously, there is one thing that doesn’t seem to be part of the current discussion, which, like always, never focuses on the future. How would President Biden function as commander in chief four years from now at age 85? Again, it is a theoretical question because the American people will choose an indecent strongman over an enfeebled one.
During the 2016 campaign, I said that fascism rose in the 1930s because democracy was weak.
Donald Trump is a fascist, and he has knocked out the Biden campaign 45 days before the convention. Defeating Trump isn’t the question at hand. Staying in the race is.
I appreciate that some of you feel anger in this moment towards the messenger. I have always said that I will be direct, truthful and will always share my honest views with you — even if you don’t agree with them.
Answering the bell is now at hand. What is the president going to do or say to pull four states back from the competitive column and close six points? What event will propel him forward? What precisely is the case for Biden as Seabiscuit?
Make no mistake: the last stand is at hand.
Our nation does indeed face a crisis and it is from Putin, Oben, Roberts of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation and all the bots and dissemination of false reporting and so much disinformation. Some on says Biden is losing it and the media (fueled by russian money) runs with it. Trump in incoherent and babbles and freezes and is a criminal felon and the media does not say a gawd demmed word against him. THAT MY FRIEND IS THE CRISIS!!!!
Here’s the argument: Biden is a better man, a better leader, a better President - even if a diminished one - than his opponent could ever be. Trump is a monster who will take America and world order to its knees if elected. He is a liar, as much as sundowner as Biden but can appear at a debate with nothing to say but lie - with impunity. Media are rabid in their reporting on Biden being “unable”, when that is untrue.
Let’s look at reality: Biden has the experience, record and character to lead; he has stellar advisors; he has a huge “bank account”; he has the respect of the nation. Even if he’s diminished. Harris has low approval ratings and while a good Senator, doesn’t have what it takes - 4 months before an election - to become a President. She wouldn’t have the delegates, nor the team needed to lead.
Imagine a Convention next month where a new candidate is acclaimed. Unlikely. So, now we have an internal piss fight. And then…Media would have the Dem Party to talk about. 90 days before Americans vote.
Then there’s the bank balance - only Biden or Harris would have access to it.
All of this says: Biden stays. Like it or not. Time is not on our side. We must support Joe. AND ensure focus is on “outing” Trump - hourly. Kinda like what’s happening to Biden now - while the orange monster skates. Hell no. We stand and fight.