Transcription
Does the president have the stamina, physically and mentally, do you think, to continue on even after 2024? D, you're asking me this question. Oh my gosh, he's the president of the United States. You know, it—he—I can't even keep up with him.
The most difficult part about a meeting with President Biden is preparing for it because he is sharp, intensely probing, detail-oriented, and focused. Joe Biden has vision. He has knowledge. He has a strategic thinker. And I'm often with him on foreign trips. He's at the top of his game. So, he has a vision. He has knowledge. He has judgment. He has strategic thinking. I, you know, met with the president, I don't know, five or six weeks ago, and he seemed fine to me. But he is, again, uh, knowledgeable, wise, incredibly sharp, incredibly probing, [with] incredible command of the details. Uh, he is sharp. Uh, he is on top of things. We see Joe Biden up close. We know how uh attuned he is to the issue. And you're going to see how smart he is and the experience he has. His mental acuity is great. It's fine. It's as good as it's been over the years. I've been—He's fine. All this right-wing propaganda that his mental acuity has declined is wrong. And and guess what? The first frost, you know what was happening? You had to put on their windshield wipers to get literally the oil slick off the window. That's why I and so damn many other people I grew up with have cancer. Delaware had the highest cancer rate in the nation.
The unfolding drama of Joe Biden's presidency, punctuated by the recent revelation of his aggressive prostate cancer diagnosis on May 18th, 2025, as reported by NPR, is not a mere political anomaly, but a calculated orchestration by what is often termed the deep state, a coalition of unelected bureaucrats, political operatives, media gatekeepers, academic intellectuals, and corporate allies. And this is not a conspiracy in the sensationalist sense, but a systemic alignment of institutional incentives designed to prioritize power over accountability. A phenomenon I've dissected across my work. To fully grasp this, we must examine the tactics used to install Biden as a figurehead: the deliberate deception about his health, the rationale for propping him up for 2024, and the profound consequences for America's democratic institutions, economic stability, cultural cohesion, and moral fabric. This is the textbook case of what I describe in *The Vision of the Anointed* as the elites' self-congratulatory vision where reality is subordinated to narrative and the costs are borne by the public, not the perpetrators.
The tactic of installing Joe Biden as president was rooted in his unique suitability as a pliable figurehead. His decades in Washington, first as a senator, then as vice president, crafted an image of a familiar moderate everyman, a persona that masked the more radical agenda advanced by those behind him. In *The Vision of the Anointed*, I wrote, "The anointed are seldom judged by the actual consequences of their actions, but by the loftiness of their rhetoric." Biden's moderate rhetoric was a perfect facade for policies like open borders, ESG-driven economic mandates, and DEI frameworks that would have faced fierce resistance under a more ideologically defined candidate. The political elite didn't need a leader with vision or vigor. They needed a compliant vessel to rubber-stamp decisions made in the shadows by unelected bureaucrats, lobbyists, and operatives. This mirrors historical precedents such as Woodrow Wilson's second term after his 1919 stroke when his wife Edith and aides effectively governed using Wilson as a symbolic front. Similarly, in the late Roman Republic, figures like Pompey served as public faces while power brokers like Cassius wielded influence. Biden's passivity was not a flaw, but a feature, enabling a bureaucracy that thrives on continuity and control to operate without the scrutiny a stronger leader would invite. In *Knowledge and Decisions*, I noted that institutions often prioritize their own survival over the public good. And here we see a bureaucracy ensuring its dominance by selecting a president who poses no threat to its entrenched power.
The deception surrounding Biden's health was not a series of missteps, but a meticulously crafted campaign of misinformation orchestrated to maintain the illusion of competence. From the 2020 campaign through the 2024 election cycle, media outlets, Democratic leaders like Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi, and even some complicit Republicans portrayed Biden as fit, sharp, and strong as ever. Yet, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's book, *Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Coverup, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again*, reveals aides discussing wheelchair use for a second term. And the *Wall Street Journal* noted a diminished Biden in charge as early as December 2024. A report on Biden's metastatic prostate cancer only confirmed what many suspected—the public was systematically misled. In *Intellectuals and Society*, I argued intellectuals and their followers have often been willing to sacrifice truth for the sake of maintaining their vision. This was no exception. It was a deliberate effort to create a veneer of legitimacy for a president unfit to govern. The media, acting as the anointed's echo chamber, suppressed dissenting voices, labeling them conspiracy theorists or extremists, a tactic reminiscent of Soviet propaganda about frail leaders like Leonid Brezhnev, whose health was concealed to preserve regime stability. In *Intellectuals and Race*, I noted that intellectuals often craft narratives to serve their social vision regardless of empirical reality. Here, the narrative of Biden's fitness was a shield for the elites' agenda, ensuring public compliance while avoiding accountability.
The 2020 election was the crucible where this manipulation was executed with precision. Biden was sold as a safe, centrist alternative to both Donald Trump and the far-left wing of his party. Yet, his presidency became a vehicle for policies that diverge sharply from his campaign's moderate rhetoric: open borders, ESG-driven economic policies, DEI mandates, and student loan bailouts. None of these were central to Biden's public platform. Yet, they defined his administration. In *Discrimination and Disparities*, I wrote, "The real world is full of tradeoffs, but the anointed often act as if their preferred outcomes can be achieved without cost." These policies, cloaked in moral posturing, ignored economic realities as seen in the Johns Hopkins report praising Biden's health policy wins like expanded insurance while glossing over their fiscal toll. Dissenting narratives, whether about Biden's health or these policies, were censored or deplatformed, as evidenced by reports of government collusion with social media to suppress information. This reflects the "anointed silencing the benighted," as I've described, to prevent scrutiny that might expose their agenda's flaws. Historically, Franklin D. Roosevelt's health was concealed during his final term, allowing his administration to push forward without public debate. The 2020 election thus became a Trojan horse, delivering an elite-driven agenda under the guise of moderation, a tactic I critiqued in *The Quest for Cosmic Justice* as prioritizing abstract ideals over practical outcomes.
Why do these elites continue to back Biden for 2024 despite his cognitive decline and now a terminal illness? The answer lies in control. Biden poses no threat to the entrenched bureaucracy, big tech, or international institutions like the United Nations or World Economic Forum, which thrive on predictability and compliance. A strong, independent leader might challenge their influence. Biden does not. The CNN report on aides planning for a wheelchair-bound second term underscores his dependency, a stark parallel to Soviet leaders like Brezhnev or Konstantin Chernenko who were propped up despite frailty to maintain elite power. In *The Vision of the Anointed*, I noted the anointed are insulated from the consequences of their decisions, leaving others to bear the costs. By keeping Biden in place, the elite shield themselves from accountability. But this risks a shadow government where unelected actors—advisors, bureaucrats, corporate allies—make decisions behind a hollow presidency. This is not new. In the Byzantine Empire, emperors like Justinian II were figureheads while courtiers held real power. In *Conquest and Cultures*, I explored how elites across civilizations have used figureheads to maintain control—a pattern repeating here. And the danger is that democracy becomes a facade with power exercised not by the elected but by the entrenched, undermining the very principles of self-governance.
The consequences for America are both immediate and existential. When leadership is subordinated to narrative management, trust in institutions erodes. Economic stagnation driven by policies like student loan bailouts or ESG mandates that prioritize ideology over efficiency is one result. Now, the Johns Hopkins report may tout expanded insurance, but it ignores the inflationary pressures and debt burden such policies create. As I warned in *Basic Economics*, resources are always scarce and every decision involves tradeoffs. Cultural division deepens as citizens lose faith in a media that lies and a government that manipulates, as seen in public outrage over Biden's health cover-up. Foreign policy failures, from the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal to ongoing global tensions, reflect a leadership vacuum. In *Wealth, Poverty, and Politics*, I argued that policies driven by ideological visions often exacerbate the very problems they claim to solve. The trade-off here is competence for control, and the cost is institutional rot. When truth is sacrificed, as it has been with Biden's health, the question is not just how long a nation can remain free, but how long it can function effectively. Democracy requires responsibility, and power without accountability is a path to decay. As I noted in *A Conflict of Visions*, where the unconstrained vision of elites undermines the constraints necessary for a free society, this manipulation is not merely a political failure but a cultural and moral catastrophe. The anointed's vision prioritizes self-congratulation over reality. In *Knowledge and Decisions*, I wrote, "The most dangerous thing about intellectuals is their confidence that they can make decisions better than those who bear the consequences." By propping up Biden, the elite imposed their agenda while evading responsibility for its failures: economic stagnation, cultural fragmentation, and geopolitical decline. Historical parallels abound: Roosevelt's concealed frailty, Mao's symbolic role in his final years, or the Roman emperors who served as puppets for powerful factions. Each case eroded public trust and institutional integrity. In *Black Rednecks and White Liberals*, I noted that cultural patterns once established can persist long after their original causes have vanished. And the cultural impact here is profound. When truth is the first casualty, unity fractures and democracy becomes a hollow ritual. The elites' obsession with control, as I explored in *The Thomas Readers*, sacrifices the social capital—trust, cohesion, accountability—that sustains a free society.
The path forward demands a reckoning. We must reject the anointed's vision and demand leaders who govern, not figureheads who perform. Institutions must serve truth, not narratives. And power must be tethered to responsibility. In *Economic Facts and Fallacies*, I emphasize that fallacies flourish when people are unaware of the facts or unwilling to face them. The facts of Biden's presidency—his frailty, the deception, the elite manipulation—are now undeniable. If we are to preserve a free republic, we must confront these realities head-on, not with the anointed's rhetoric, but with the clarity of the constrained vision, which respects tradeoffs, consequences, and the will of the people. Anything less risks not just a presidency, but the very foundations of our democracy.