Anyone who has had to plan for the departure of a long time employee or co-worker knows that it is more than just replacing their work product. People who have been in an organization for a long time have a gravity to them. Their personal style, their way of going about their business, changes the work habits of those around them, so when they leave lots of things will change. There are unknown unknowns that you can never account for, but you can anticipate to some degree.
This is something indirectly raised in this Wall Street Journal story about the possible return of Hillary Clinton. The authors are long-serving political operatives tied to the Clinton political machine, so it is not unreasonable to assume they were instructed to write this and get it posted in regime media. They picked the Wall Street Journal because it speaks to the right-wing of the political elite. The idea is to position Hillary Clinton, of all people, as a unifier of sorts.
There is a bit of the old Clinton triangulation going on here. The way this works is the left-side of the political class led the charge to get rid of Trump, but they are fumbling badly and upsetting the right side of the political class. The threat of Trump running in 2024 rustles them even more than a demented Biden staggering on for another term, but it is a close call. The answer, so the theory goes, is the old familiar Hillary Clinton, who will play ball with both sides.
The problem, of course, is Clinton is 74, which may be the springtime of youth compared to the rest of the political elite, but it is still old. People forget that Clinton was in rough shape when she ran in 2016. She mysteriously disappeared from the public eye for a while and had the incident where she collapsed on the street. She was also wearing some sort of contraption that was never explained. Time heals all wounds, but only in the emotional sense, not the physical sense.
In fairness, Donald Trump is 75, so he is not exactly the youthful alternative to the gerontocracy that currently runs the country. The thing is though, he is a vigorous man for his age and has shown no signs of slowing down. One thing that went unnoticed is unlike other presidents, Trump did not suddenly get old while in office. He seemed to grow stronger off the endless battling. His father was supposedly quite vigorous into his 90’s and Trump appears to have inherited those genes.
Again, the authors of that post are attached to the Clinton machine so they did not just dream that up for the fun of it. They make clear that Clinton is beginning the process of mounting a campaign. It could mean running against Biden in the primary, which would not go over well with the Obama wing or the Sanders wing, so they are beginning the process of normalizing the idea so it is not an issue. Clinton will position herself as the moderate trying to save the party from Biden.
Of course, this is another example of how the political class is unwilling to look forward so it instead tries to reboot old ideas. They Republicans plan to run their midterm campaign as a reboot of the Newt Gingrich show from the 1990’s and now Hillary Clinton is imagining herself as Ted Kennedy in 1980. Forty years ago, the left-wing of the party was sure that the reason Reagan won in 1980 is the old guard of the party refused to jettison Carter in favor of Kennedy.
It speaks to the bankruptcy of the political class that they keep indulging in these weird walks down memory lane. Within living memory politicians would run on specific agendas, tied closely to things that were important to people. Biden ran on not being Trump and now Hillary plans to run on not being Trump or Biden. Elections have always been beauty contents, but now they have been stripped of their talent portion, leaving us with the terrifying image of geezers in swimsuits.
The actuarial tables are immutable. Whoever is calling the shots in both parties will eventually have to move on from the geezers. If Trump runs and wins in 2024, he serves one term. Who is the next man up? If Hillary runs and wins, she could serve two terms, but that means living to 84. It also means not getting the Joe Biden treatment after one term. Who is being prepared on the Democrat side to take over for the collection of geezers now in charge?
The fact is the empire is facing the same problem the Soviets faced in the mid-70’s when Brezhnev’s health rapidly deteriorated. The party knew he was not long for the world, but there was no clear plan to replace him. When he died in 1982, the 70-year-old Andropov served for two years then died. He was followed by the 73-year-old Chernenko who promptly died. Gorbachev was next in line and he proved to be incapable of maintaining the empire.
The reason the Soviets did not have a competent new generation of leaders ready to supplant the Brezhnev crew is they had never been developed. We see the same thing with the current generation in Washington. The next generation does not exist as they have been boiled off for fear they would be too ambitious. What is left is a collection of dull-witted time servers and youthful morons like Sandy Cortez. No wonder no one wants to see the geezers carried off the political stage.
Getting back to where we started, it is prudent to think about the knock-on effects of the current generation of political leaders shedding this mortal coil. The political system has been warped by their long time in office and that will change as well. The old Soviet system had evolved for men like Brezhnev and his henchmen. Our political system has evolved for this long serving generation of politicians. When they are gone, the system around them will change radically and perhaps violently.
The crackdown by the oligarchs on dissidents has had the happy result of a proliferation of new ways to support your favorite creator. If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!
Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.
The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.
Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb. Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.
Sportsball metaphors are overused, but I like the “farm team” one from baseball. You can either draft and develop your own talent, or you can field a team the way the Yankees stereotypically do: Sign every aging big-name slugger and former Cy Young winner you can find, so that every guy on the field is a former All Star… but is also in his late 30s.
Maybe that team wins you the World Series, but often it doesn’t, because pro ballplayers hit the wall faster and harder than female pop singers. The pitcher suddenly loses his fastball; the slugger all of a sudden can’t catch up to one, so now you’ve got some second baseman you’re paying $30 million a year, and he’s a replacement-level player. And you can’t bench him, because — $30 million investment aside — he’s Billy Bigname. You can’t bench Billy Bigname!
Politics seems to work on a similar principle. You can’t put Bernie, Hillary, Nancy, the various Bushes, etc. out to pasture — they’re the Billy Bignames of politics. Of course people will vote for them! They’re Billy Bigname! The franchise that follows the Yankees model often goes through the dreaded “rebuilding phase,” where they’re not just terrible, they’re laughingstocks. Alas, that’s where the metaphor breaks down, because even though Red Sox fans love it when the Yankees go through another “rebuild,” in the non-metaphor world, the Red Sox fans have nuclear weapons.
1
Hillary Clinton – good lord, that old bag will just never go away. Chucked aside in ’08, soundly beaten in ’16 – maybe three times is a charm – for her, not the rest of this (former) country. Man, what a joke this place has become. AOC might as well run on the T&A platform. Couldn’t be any worse (well, not really) than everything else we’re seeing these days.
She’s like the stalker ex-girlfriend you keep “running into” when you’re out with friends, or her replacement.
1
I saw the WSJ article before Z’s, and I, in truth, burst out laughing at the third paragraph in the WSJ article: They note Hildabeast is younger than Biden. I understand factually true, but still, it is simply hilarious.
maybe i am reading between the lines here, but if it is the oldies holding the current political system together, and there is no one to replace them (after they expire), then the political system here will collapse like it did in the CCCP. are you implying this Zman?
1
i would bet real money neither clinton is alive by the time the 2024 pseudo-election is held. she is morbidly obese, a raging alcoholic, and gets no exercise. bill of course is in the tertiary phase of syphilis…
“Clinton will position herself as the moderate trying to save the party from Biden.”
I can actually see this approach, in the sense that the Obama/Biden wing completely misunderstands “gradualism” (The hoary old “Frog in a Pot of Boiling Water” example) and instead, metaphorically, has heated the pot of the USA to boiling and thrown the frog straight in.
America’s Favorite Ex-Wife will just “gradually” make your life worse and worse in hopes you won’t notice the collapse.
What we have seen in places like France and Canada is that graduates from the WEF youth leadership program are filling this void. AJ this morning points out that dan crenshaw is just another mealy-mouthed member of this compliant group. Nothing will be done “in house”, all will be contracted out to un-elected officials and screened by their ESG statements and policies. The most visible example that comes to mind is the recent energy meeting between US and Canada in which WWF gerry butts and bubble brain katherine mckenna were the canadian representatives, both former cabinet members that resigned when they became embroiled in controversy. The media have been incurious of course.
2
What does it take for the American electorate to get a restraining order against the obsessive stalker Hillary Clinton? How many times has she gotten ‘no thank you’ for an answer?? This is creepy.
1
Clinton, McConnell, et al entered politics at a time when it was considered “public service” and the red team/blue team stuff was just a healthy ornamentation to liberal democracy. Now politicians are openly and shamefully partisan, and attention-seeking, like what you see in Latin America. It’s not the noble politicking and corruption of the 1960s. To give McConnel-Pelosi a bit of an excuse, they may be horrified at the gridlock and partisanship, and think that only their years of “public service” can hold things together and have a chance of even passing a yearly budget. Trump and his followers, to them, was the utmost in ugly partisanship: a vision of things to come if “public servants” don’t step in and calm things down, and return us to the quiet horse-trading of yore.