Is US democracy a sham? Biden gave us the answer. Were you listening?

Only in a world of political make-believe would the Wall Street Journal’s account of Biden’s years-long cognitive decline, and its concealment by his officials, count as a scoop

Only in the world of political make-believe we inhabit in the West would the Wall Street Journal’s account of Biden’s years-long cognitive decline, and its concealment by his officials, count as a scoop.

And only in a world in which the billionaire-owned media alone constructs and polices what counts as reality would the WSJ be able to run this story without also being expected to consider what it signifies about America’s professed democracy.

The emperor, we are now told, was naked all along. How did it take more than four years for the fearless, tenacious billionaire-owned media to notice?

The WSJ reports that even back in 2021 Biden had what his officials described as “bad days” when his mind worked so poorly he had to be kept away from senior Congresspeople and his own cabinet colleagues.

So insulated was he that he rarely met even with key figures directing White House policy, such as the Secretaries of State, Defence and the Treasury.

He was able to hold only two or three cabinet meetings a year during his four-year term – a total of nine, compared to 19 by Barack Obama and 25 by Donald Trump.

His aides barely strayed from his side because they needed to whisper instructions for him to carry out the simplest of public tasks, such as where to enter and exit a room.

Concern only went mainstream when he performed catastrophically in an unscripted TV debate against Trump in June, eventually having to pull out of his re-election bid and let his vice-president, Kamala Harris, take over.

Shortly afterwards, it emerged that he had been receiving regular visits to the White House from a leading neurologist and Parkinson’s expert.

Many observers – myself included – pointed out Biden’s mental infirmity from the get-go. Matt Orfalea has been compiling video clips of the president’s stunning gaffes and verbal confusions for years. None of us were geniuses. We didn’t need access to the 50 White House insiders interviewed by the WSJ. It was blindingly obvious.

You had to be lying, or hypnotised, to deny what was so visible.

And yet every time we pointed out Biden’s clear cognitive impairment, we were accused of promoting conspiracy theories, engaging in elder abuse, or supporting Trump.

The emperor, so we were told, was fully clothed.

The truth about Biden hasn’t suddenly leaked out from his officials. Senior politicians on both sides of the aisle knew. White House correspondents knew. Editors knew. And they all lied to protect the system of power to which they belong, the system that keeps them gainfully employed, the system that maintains their status. No one was going to rock the boat.

The WSJ hasn’t suddenly found out things it didn’t know before. The reason it is coming clean now – as are White House staffers – is that President Biden is almost out the door. The truth is no longer a serious threat to the Washington power system.

There will be more revelations about Biden’s incapacity – maybe contained in a future book by Bob Woodward – after his presidency has become a distant memory. When it is safe for the full story to be told. When the lies are no longer important.

But more significant than the media deceptions are the fact that much of the public fell for them, not once but over and over again: day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

Why? Because far too many of us are in the grip of the West’s propaganda system. We believe that the billionaire-owned media is to be trusted, that it serves the public good, not private wealth.

If a large chunk of the public can be persuaded that a man who is incapable of finding the door through which he’s supposed to leave is “sharp as a tack”, then why would they not also believe that the United States is promoting democracy as it has laid waste to the Middle East over the past two decades to control the region’s oil?

Or that Washington is seeking peace for the world and Ukraine by arming it with ever-more offensive weapons against a nuclear-armed Russia so that the US can place ballistic missiles on Moscow’s doorstep?

Or that the US wants a ceasefire in Gaza even as it supplies the munitions, intelligence and diplomatic cover for Israel to carry out a genocide there?

The problem is that, subjected to a lifetime of elite propaganda, many are readier to believe that very propaganda than the evidence of their own own eyes. They are truly hypnotised.

Even now, many are listening to the “revelations” of Biden’s long decline and, just like the WSJ, not wondering how the US has been functioning for the past four years with a president barely able to read a teleprompter, one whose mind is so vacant he can wander off in the middle of a conversation.

Does the US run by itself? Does it need a president? Or is the president nothing more than a figurehead for a permanent bureaucracy that expects to wield power from the shadows, unobserved by voters and unaccountable to them? Is the US a democracy, or is the democracy just a facade behind which a wealth elite maintains its power?

Biden has given us the answer. Were you listening?

[Many thanks to Matthew Alford for the audio reading of this article.]

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