Last week the Senate Democrat majority was hospitalized with Senator John Fetterman dispatched to a psych ward and Senator Dianne Feinstein, who doesn’t seem to know where she is, hospitalized for shingles. Fetterman and Feinstein didn’t let being hospitalized slow them down and went right on co-sponsoring bills even though the former had to be hospitalized because he couldn’t take care of himself and the latter no longer recognized colleagues.
Even in the Senate, Fetterman couldn’t understand what was being said and Feinstein wasn’t aware that she had announced her retirement. Despite that there are press releases from their offices and they’re cosponsoring legislation as if they’re functional and able to make decisions.
Senator Feinstein just introduced the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2023 to mandate abortion nationwide while outlawing state restrictions on late-term abortion when babies can feel pain. Considering Feinstein’s own mental capacity may not be that much greater than an unborn child, she might want to reconsider the value of human life even when it can’t articulate its feelings. But Feinstein isn’t really introducing or sponsoring bills, her staffers, who announced her retirement without her knowing about it, are legislating in her name. That’s a coup.
Or what we used to call a coup before it happened and just became how things worked.
The New York Times claims that Senator Fetterman “runs his Senate operation” from a psych ward. Photos have been released of him vaguely looking at pieces of paper. No satirist could have come up with a bleaker metaphor for the country than that one of the Senate’s deciding votes has been hospitalized in a psych ward for his own safety, but is still running everything.
The paper tells us that, “since Mr. Fetterman checked in to the hospital, he has co-sponsored a bipartisan bill designed to help prevent future train derailment disasters, opened new district offices across Pennsylvania and hired four new staff members. On Wednesday, Mr. Fetterman sent a letter to the agriculture secretary.” With productivity like that, maybe we should stick all of Congress in a mental institution. Fetterman was so badly off that couldn’t feed himself in a city filled with eateries, but is now in a position to write legislation that will change the country.
Every morning, Fetterman’s chief of staff arrives with a briefcase “full of newspaper clips, statements for him to approve, legislation to review.” And so the government is run. According to the New York Times, the Senator from Pennsylvania even touchingly shares “with the nurses some of the sweets that have been sent to him by fellow senators.” But “his staff is marching on in his absence”, much as they were doing in his presence. Fetterman out of the way makes it even more convenient. The staffers run things while Fetterman munches on some candy.
The Times, in the great tradition of the three phases of a liberal scandal (1. denial, 2. minimization, 3. announcing that it’s the new normal), told its readers that “in the Senate, a staff-run institution even in the best of times, that is hardly atypical. It is not unusual for lawmakers to be told by members of their staff, sometimes after the fact, what bills they are co-sponsoring.”
“For many doing business with Mr. Fetterman’s office, the senator’s health is irrelevant,” the paper concludes.
That’s probably true, but it may be a slight issue for Pennsylvanians who are being represented by a bunch of D.C. staffers they never voted for: some of whom may have never even set foot in the state. What exactly is the difference between a representative government and an authoritarian bureaucracy when it hardly matters whether the legislators are alive or dead?
If Fetterman were to die tomorrow, the New York Times might inform us that apart from a legal technicality, his staff is marching on in his absence and occasionally showing up at his gravesite to briefly display a piece of upcoming legislation to his tomb. And for many people doing business with the late Senator Fetterman’s office, the senator’s existence is irrelevant.
Not only does the Senate Democrat majority consist of the D.C. staffers in two offices trying to work around the elected officials whose names are on the door, but the Senate’s proudest son is sitting in the Oval Office (when he’s not vacationing every other day in Delaware) and appears to have trouble completing sentences or remembering that his son didn’t die in Iraq.
Who’s actually running the White House? More of the same folks who are running the Senate.
Questions like these are not meant to be raised. Anyone who objects to legislation being cosponsored from a psych ward is a cruel ‘ableist’ bigot mocking a sick man’s disability. Asking how functional Biden is risks accusations of ‘ageism’ or discriminating against stutterers. Politics can be ugly and cruel, but you also can’t hide mental incapacity forever behind victimhood.
The House and the Senate have had their share of legislators who clearly weren’t all there, but that the White House and the Senate both depend on elected officials who are non-functional in ways so blatantly obvious that would launch a thousand SNL skits and late night routines if they belonged to the other party is not just a constitutional crisis, but raises even deeper questions.
Two of the three branches of government are not being run by the people elected to do that job. That isn’t representative government, it’s a monarchy with titular figureheads who are there to give the public the illusion of democracy over the reality that D.C. runs itself. If the Senate is a “staff-run institution”, as the Times puts it, in which the status of the actual elected officials is a mere technicality over their ability to cast votes, and the White House is currently occupied by a former Senate member whose statements are routinely corrected or walked back by officials, who is actually running the country and has our system of government become illegitimate?
The Constitution requires that a senator be at least thirty years old, but if he or she is irrelevant to the process, then we might as well have a twelve year old or Caligula’s horse in the Senate.
Why does it matter?
Clearly the Constitution believed that it does matter whether an elected official is capable of discharging his duties and did not intend that those duties be carried out by an army of faceless political operatives in an imperial city who were never chosen by the voters to do anything.
If Americans were going to be ruled from a government city thousands of miles away by people they had never met and whose orders they had no way of overruling through elections, we might as well have stayed subjects of the Crown while holding on to those posh accents.
The American Revolution ushered in a government that set out to derive its authority “from the consent of the governed”. If the men and women vested with the consent of the governed are not able or allowed to govern, all that’s left is a tyranny in democracy drag.
When elected officials are the figureheads of an administrative system that runs itself, there is only the illusion of consent. There are staffers who have spent most of their adult lives in the general vicinity of the D.C. area who run both the elected and unelected government. The massive size of the federal machine makes it ungovernable and unknowable even by the army of millions of employees tasked with laboring in it. Few can understand the sheer scope of agencies and departments that break down into infinitely smaller subdivisions ad infinitum.
What granted this runaway bureaucracy a soupçon of legitimacy (besides the various crises social, financial and military that led to its constant expansion) was that there were elected officials who were in theory said to be supervising it and who had the authority to overrule any bureaucrat. Republican presidents in the last 75 years clearly demonstrated that they had little control over that system which conspired to undermine, thwart and in some cases topple them.
During the Trump administration, the administrative state openly rebelled, its members declaring that they were the “resistance”, sabotaging, leaking, usurping, investigating, framing, prosecuting, defying orders and running the country the way that they wanted to. Those four years just brought out into the open what had been going on behind the scenes for a long time.
Federal bureaucrats rebranded themselves “Dumbledore’s Army”, after the Harry Potter books and before author J.K. Rowling was canceled for questioning whether men should be allowed to use the ladies room, and announced that they would be working to stop Trump. As the Times might have written, they were “marching on” in the absence of a president that they agreed with.
Now they have one that they can use as a finger puppet and so they’re marching on under his false flag and that of Fetterman and Feinstein and other mentally incapable legislators.
Biden, Trump, Fetterman and Feinstein, in their own ways exposed the fact that the system runs on its own and requires little to no input from elected officials. Those officials can in theory override the system. And King Charles III can in theory wield all sorts of political power, but if he were to actually do so it would be another matter. Queen Elizabeth II secretly vetoed a handful of bills, if Charles III tries to do more than that, he’ll be reminded that his position is ceremonial.
The British monarchy is meant to be ceremonial, but the American presidency is becoming ceremonial too, its vestiges and trappings of office good for little more than putting on a show. Play “Hail to the Chief” or “God Save the King”, wave to the people and then go on vacation.
Like the constitutional monarchs of the British commonwealth, the elected officials of its former rebel colonies are at risk of becoming figureheads with ceremonial powers. But if shunting the Hanoverian kings aside was a move toward representative government, the rise of the administrative state and the decline of its elected officials is a move toward monarchy. The monarchs, like those who are “marching on” while Fetterman, Feinstein and Biden giggle and play with their fingers are mostly unknown. Elected officials have become ceremonial while the real power was unceremoniously and unconstitutionally vested in men and women who wield a great deal of authority, but who are neither known nor accountable to the people they serve.
And it ought to be asked who exactly serves whom?
A staffer brings Senator Fetterman a briefcase to the psych common room with some papers in it. Fetterman looks at the papers. Perhaps he even understands one word out of ten. Legislation is written by staffers and then, after it’s voted on, interpreted and defined by federal bureaucrats.
Fetterman’s function is maintaining the illusion that he has some meaningful power to do something with the incomprehensible stuff he’s looking at, which the staffers of senior Senate members have already composed and negotiated, and which may turn into something entirely different once it becomes law. Whatever Fetterman’s understanding may be, there can hardly be anything more calculated to drive a man crazy than the realization that having penetrated the upper echelons of power, he is really as powerless as any other inmate of a psych ward.
The American Revolution ushered in a government that set out to derive its authority “from the consent of the governed”. If the men and women vested with the consent of the governed are not able or allowed to govern, all that’s left is a tyranny in democracy drag.
As usual, you nailed it. Or to put it another way you exposed another nail in the coffin. Those couple of sentences says a lot .a huge portion of America. dont even know that is the present state of affairs. Thank you as always great writing.
we live in a political system of constant distractions
The Claremont Institute’s John Martini traces our Deep State quagmire to the obliteration of the U.S. Constitution’s structural separation of powers doctrine which was intended to disperse the very powers now concentrated in centralized D.C. bureaucracies. We can “thank” FDR’s New Deal for that. Martini’s book is titled “Unmasking the Administrative State: The Crisis of American Politics in The Twenty-First Century” (2019). The book makes a powerful argument that the administrative agencies that were supposed to serve the people have, in fact, become our masters– rendering politicians superfluous.
Don’t we have Woodrow Wilson to thank for government by an administrative expert class?
“Yes Minister” was not meant to be a how-to guide.
Wife and I have been rewatching that. Actually her for the first time. So much was said there that has been shown to be spot-on that I’m rather amazed that it is still available, let alone was ever made in the first place. Very, very few Americans have seen it for whatever reasons. Even fewer are likely to ever see Mr. Greenfield’s excellent article here. I roll my eyes when I see people say that such-and-such “should be required reading” or viewing but this article, along with “Yes, Minister” are more relevant and important than anything being taught as current events or studied as political “science”. And I’m not one to use superlatives lightly.
Satire becomes truth.
Daniel basically said it all, so it is hard to add a useful comment.
One thing that struck me from seeing Fetterman blankly staring at some pieces of paper in the psych ward, was how, while it was obviously propaganda intended to make it seem like he was working and understanding what was going on, that was based of the premise that useful idiots would make that projection, assisted by MSM comments to the picture that Fetterman was working.
Thank you. This had to be said – that we have a tyranny in drag.
When you mentioned giggling,I couldn’t help but think of who is waiting in the wings for Biden to resign or not run again. How many grossly incompetent leaders do we need before whoever it is who is running thing steps out from behind the curtain?
(Also: Is there no limit or guidelines on the foul comments that can be posted here!? This comments system is not good.)
foul comments shouldn’t be posted here
Good article, great writing. Just a correction – it’s Caligula’s horse and Nero’s fiddle.
thanks, you’re right of course
It seems that our elected reps and senators are running this country from a psyche ward known as Congress
Wow! Good for you! Let it out!
But I’m thinking caliphate, not monarchy.
I’m also thinking that the founding fathers of the United States of America used the original exodus of the children of Israel to the promised land as their template for establishing their vision for the land of the free and the home of the brave. They believed in the words of Jeremiah: In God we trust.
Behind all of what you describe in your article, more is implied – something more threatening; the evil, mocking force that absolutely hates this very foundation of God’s redemption of an enslaved nation to a free people in its own land. That is the connection between America and Israel.
That is what is being systematically obliterated.
The headline should be “Who;s Ruining America”,
Tomato, tomatoh
But the new emperor is a potato 😉
Caligula may have installed his horse in the Roman Senate, but at least it was only one horse and the Romans got the whole animal. The U.S. Senate only gets the hind end of the horse, and in greater numbers.
Think why no one ever speculates as to how the liberal members of the Supreme Court are going to vote. There’s no need since they always vote as a block for the Party Narrative. Why would any Democrat in any office need to do more than that? They are all in office just to vote the dictates of the Party; no conscious awareness required.
That was the case for Fetterman that his people made to the media. He might not be fully there, but he’s a loyal party line vote.
PLEASE STOP LYING TO PEOPLE! THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT INCOMPETENT DIMWITS! THEY’RE DEGENERATE, CRIMINAL, TRAITORS! EVERYTHING WE ARE LIVING THROUGH IS INTENTIONAL ENEMY ACTION!
Can’t we just let Caligula’s horse run the world?
It seems to me that he’d do a better job of it.
Some time ago our senator, Paul Wellstone, died in a plane crash a month or so before the elections.. Because of this, the state Democrats asked Walter Mondale to run for the seat in Wellstone’s place. But Mondale did not have time to prepare to run. He had lost the WH to Reagan and never ran for office again since then. So, he lost to the Republican candidate. That happened in a very blue state. Now, I guess that the Dems might have kept Wellstone on the ticket, and if he won, despite being deceased, then the Dems would substitute someone for him. Perhaps the Dems would be the puppet masters behind the replacement senator. But that was before, when there was some sense of integrity, and they could simply not do that. Now they might do the Fetterman, Biden trick of putting a figurehead in the place of an acting senator.. We need to go back to the good old days when the office holder was the one who did his job.
It helped that the job used to be something that could be grasped by one man.
Good point, back to Complexity Theory, the Complexity has gotten out of control.
It was not unusual for the widow to take her husband’s place. But I believe that Mrs. Fetterman is AWOL in Canada, with the kiddies. What a good, supportive wife. And of course Dr. Jill could take Joe’s place; she is after all “a really good doc,” to paraphrase the medical expert Whoopi Goldberg.
A wonderful commentary. Certainly should be one of the more repeated messages. It seems the answer to the question of who runs the government is that it is run out of habit. Neither the Republicans (RINOs) nor Democrats (DINOs) have now or previously any discernable governmental policy except getting re-elected to do more of what they have been re-elected by lobbyists and special interest voting groups to carry on. It all runs on habits.
Then there was Trump.
The Left has clear discernable policies, the Right, not just the ‘RINOs’ however are for the most part what you described.
As long as the American people don’t get the crazy idea that they are still in charge of anything they might be better able to judge who are figureheads.
Who runs any government, Daniel?
I think of the English monarchy in comparison to today’s “deep state.” The subjects of those kings and queens also suffered from bureaucrats running their government.
After all, the English library of books and papers tied up in red tape graphically presented the image of a lot of time-consuming paperwork to acquire information or research files, and this image was bequeathed to us as well.
When in 1955, I was advised to apply for a civil service job “because I could not be fired,” I got an early lesson in bureaucracy. I have never been disabused of this understanding.
Keep up the good work, Daniel!
I couldn’t agree more with the statement that 2/3rds of our government are in control by the mentally unstable. What you forgot to mention is that the 1/3 left over is in control by cowards. You’re welcome.
Sorry Dan.
With the way the Supreme Court has been ruling lately, I’d say all three branches of our government is being run by the mentally challenged.
Secret fear of the blacks destroying the country is what has run it ever since slavery began.
Politics itself, no matter what kind, is so intrinsically vicious and corrupt, that the ‘sane’ ones are far more dangerous than the crazy ones ever could be. LJ
Politics itself, especially democracy, is the hopeless attempt rule others instead of oneself. How sane is that?. LJ
“But Feinstein isn’t really introducing or sponsoring bills, her staffers, who announced her retirement without her knowing about it, are legislating in her name. That’s a coup.”
Wrong, you craven cuck, that’s not a “coup,” that’s a flagrant and ongoing High-Crime, and those responsible should be immediately apprehended and put to death.
“But Feinstein isn’t really introducing or sponsoring bills, her staffers, who announced her retirement without her knowing about it, are legislating in her name. That’s a coup.”
Wrong, you craven cuck. That’s not a “coup,” that’s a flagrant and ongoing High-Crime, and those responsible should be immediately apprehended and put to death.
The mental state of Biden shows not one of his cabinet are capable of running a Fun House let alone a whole Nation like the USA and that he shouldn’t have been allowed to run at all we sure have the mentally handicap who are far more intelligent and far more common sense then Biden the Blunder