Properly Subversive/Sherman R. Frederick
We ‘d know a coup if it were done by force.
We’ve imagined coup attempts in a fictional setting as in the premise of Richard Condon’s 1959 novel “The Manchurian Candidate.”
Sherman Frederick
But, would we ever recognize a coup by friendly staff and allies hiding an incapacitated president to stay in power?
I’m not sure that didn’t happen at some point during the Biden Administration.
We know beyond reasonable doubt that the White House repeatedly lied and colluded with others to prevent the nation from discovering President Joe Biden’s mental decline. It’s clear, even with the scant reporting done so far, that at some point between 2021 and 2024 Mr. Biden became our president in name only.
Shouldn’t we get to the bottom of this?
I’m not talking about conducting a political witch hunt like Democrats did with the bogus J6 debacle. I’m talking about a measured bipartisan investigation. What happened to Mr. Biden’s well being and when? Should Mr. Biden’s disability have triggered the 25th Amendment?
Look, Donald Trump comes back into office next month at the ripe “old” age of 78. While he looks sharp, dementia can strike overnight and it can happen to people much younger than the incoming president.
A congressional commission might clarify things.
We can start by questioning Joe Biden’s current Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, the most senior political appointee in the White House. Follow that with extensive questioning under oath of Zients deputies — Jen O’Malley Dillon Bruce Reed Natalie Quillian Annie Tomasini.
If they plead the 5th, which I suspect they might, then offer them immunity to tell the truth, the whole truth, chapter and verse. Do this not with criminal punishment in mind, but to get the facts out in the public for discussion and possibly to enact new guardrail precautions.
Also, let’s act now to preserve for the record any communications between the White House and others (think Nancy Pelosi, Jill Biden, Kamala Harris and Barack Obama) on the general topic of Mr. Biden’s mental fitness.
The public saw the president’s inability to communicate when he once prompted a man in a wheelchair to stand up and take a bow. On another occasion he asked if a dead woman was in the audience.
These were passed off as gaffes. Nothing more than Biden being Biden.
But was it, really?
It’s quite a gaffe for the president to look directly at a guy he knows very well sitting in a wheelchair and still ask him to stand up.
As his mental acuity appeared to become worse, we saw Mr. Biden wander off at public events. He suffered brain freezes multiple times while reading simple speeches off of a teleprompter. Mr. Biden routinely looked confused as he tried to navigate on and off stages.
He once walked up to a flag and appeared to want to shake hands with it. His movements stiffened, he shuffled his feet, tripped often and took full-on scary public spills. How many times did this happened out of public view, but in view of staff?
For the last two years of his presidency, staff admits that Mr. Biden was deliberately kept under wraps and away from impromptu speaking. They told us he was “sharp as a tack” and he “ran circles” about his cabinet and staff.
This was another lie.
New reporting shows Mr. Biden was rarely mentally up to presidential decisions until noon and even then he had to sundown about 4 p.m. Cabinet members were disconnected from one-on-one contact with the president. In four years, the president only held nine full cabinet meetings. (In Donald Trump’s four years, he held 25.)
And, of course, the “fit hit the shan” when the nation saw him mentally fall apart during a debate with Donald Trump. The president looked confused as he stared at his opponent and the moderators, mouth agape.
It was a painful thing to see.
Biden was subsequently dumped by his party and replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris. But, so far as we know, no one in his party or on his staff moved to invoke the 25th Amendment. Essentially, his friends and staff judged him too disabled to run for re-election, but fit to run the country for six more months.
That’s a glitch in the system. We need to know more about if, and when, Biden checked out of the Oval Office. When did staff start making decisions and did that constitute, for lack of a better description, a friendly coup.
If we don’t do this now, with the facts fresh and obtainable, this, I promise you, will happen again. We need a better road map forward.
That’s all I’m sayin’.
ONE MORE THING
Thanks for reading. Until next time, remember to laugh a little, avoid soreheads and always question authority. You can see more writing by Sherman R. Frederick at Properly Subversive on Substack – https://shermanfrederick.
