Biden Is Holding An Economic Hot Potato

Marilyn Monroe in a potato sack

At some point the American economy is going to crash. A) because it’s stupid and running on fumes and B) because capitalism just crashes. At which point it crashes, however, is very important.

Right now the economy is a financial hot potato that Biden is holding onto. If it crashes on his watch, then he will get blamed and tossed out. Then guess who’s waiting in the wings?

People forget that it was the Great Depression that brought Hitler into power than anything else. As Eric D. Weitz wrote in his book Weimar Germany,

“For the Right especially, unrelenting in its hostility to Weimar, the Great Depression (or, as Germans tend to call it, the World Economic Crisis) provided a golden opportunity. Now it could again contemplate seriously the overthrow of the republic.”

Republicans more than contemplating, they’re acting. They’re organizing at the school board level while Democrats are stepping on rakes in the Senate.There’s not much more the Republicans need to do. Just wait for the music to stop.

As I’ve discussed earlier, anyone predicting a market crash right now is a fool, but anyone predicted one never is a greater fool indeed. Markets crash so regularly it’s called a business cycle, and governments regularly come out in the wash.

When the US market crashes, voters will throw the bums out, even if even bigger assholes are waiting in the wings. Hence the economy Biden crows about (while thousands die) is really just a hot potato.

If the music stops while you’re holding it, you’re out, and the odds of Biden holding the thing in the next four years are very high. In the next eight (lol) the odds are basically 100%. Whoever’s holding the bag is fucked.

In many ways the best chance for democracy is for Biden to lose in 2024, for the economy to crash after, and to then pick up the pieces in 2028. This is of course playing with fire when the other side has more firearms.

The truth is that while Democrats are trying to duct-tape the economy together with vibes (while shoveling the usual bribes out the back-door), Republicans have their eyes on the prize. The whole Republic.

The only thing the Nazis did as a minority in Parliament was gum up the works, to make the government so useless that knocking it over was a blessing. And that’s precisely what Republicans are doing. As Weitz said:

“The Nazis never had any intention of working productively within the system. They simply used all the legislatures in Germany, from the Reichstag to the Landtage to city councils, as arenas of propaganda.”

Biden’s only hope was to be FDR, but he’s been DOA. Instead of hope, America got hospice care. The only thing he’s managed to do is fund war abroad and police state at home. His only major accomplishment is starving millions of Afghan people to death, not doing what he needed to do for Americans.

In constrast, the Weimar Republic passed significant social programs. They also battered their left flank and ignored the more dangerous right, but at least they tried socialism. In America society is still a dirty word. Biden is just standing there with his dick in his hands. He’s got nothing.

He crows about ‘line going up’, but Biden has done not enough to address America’s huge infrastructure liabilities, nothing to address American peoples huge debt burdens, and has actually killed more people from COVID-19 than Trump. That pandemic could have been an opportunity to ‘build back better’, but instead ordinary Americans are poorer and deader than ever.

Meanwhile the stock market is bloating out of control, cheap money is flooding into completely made-up money (crypto) and being laundered through made-up artwork (NFTs) and it’s all just a bubble waiting to pop. If I could tell you when it would pop I’d be a sage, but anyone who’s telling you it will never pop is just an idiot.

When a real economy and pretend economy diverge this much, eventually the whole thing just snaps. It crashes. And whichever government is left holding the hot potato goes down as well.

The trouble is that this time won’t be a usual change of power. The other side has given up on passing the potato at all, they’re just going to eat it and end the game. When the ground inevitably shifts beneath their feet, Biden, the Democrats, and democracy are all going down. I don’t know when, but I can tell you this. It’s just a matter of time.

FURTHER READING:

or for another extended food metaphor:

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