What's Happening ToThe Götterdämmerung?

There's a lot of gossip about a rift between the White House and Vice President Harris, to the extent that a trial balloon is being floated about kicking Harris over to the Supreme Court, to replace her under the 25th Amendment. Up to last weekend, of course, the 25th Amendment scenario had been intended for the big guy himself, not Kamala, who in the received scenario would replace him.

To me, this says we're edging closer to the Spiro Agnew solution, the two-shoe drop, where the non-entity veep is replaced under the 25th Amendment by someone with gravitas who can credibly succeed a Nixon once he's forced out. Nixon, recall, simply resigned. Nobody needed either impeachment or the 25th.

The only remotely perceptive commentary I've seen on the developing situation is from Chris Cillizza:

Remember that when Biden ran for president, he purposely cast himself as a sort of bridge candidate for Democrats -- holding the office until some of the party's younger stars, several of whom ran against him, were ready to take on the mantle of leadership.

"Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else," Biden said in March 2020 as he campaigned with Harris, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. "There's an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country."

When Biden picked Harris as his vice president, the message was clear: She was the future of the party.

This was the upbeat, happy talk version of the agenda. After Biden's win in November, an initial progressive laundry list was quickly added to the pre-election happy talk: statehood for DC and Puerto Rico, packing the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster. No matter this would need to be done with a four-vote Democrat margin in the House and a tied Senate, Harris as veep would break the tie. By early 2021, these all quietly disappeared, with only Harris remaining as a sort of aspirational totem. Except that her public crediblity over the course of the subsequent year has self-immolated.

What replaced that extreme Great Reset agenda was what became the BBB, although exactly what the BBB comprised has never been completely clear, and as of now, it's more uncertain than ever. As a practical matter, this was put together by an alliance of the House progressives, Sen Sanders, Speaker Pelosi, and President Biden. At this remove, it's plain that it had the opposition of Senate centrists of both parties, who put together and passed the the bipsrtisan infrastructurre bill, BIF, in the Senate.

I think this was from the start intended as an option to head off the BBB. Sen Sanders and the House progressives recognized this for what it was and intended from the start to hold the BIF hostage to the BBB. The argument in favor of the BBB was always Götterdämmerung, the Democrats would inevitably lose their majority in the 2022 midterms, the only effective strategy would be to run up the credit cards before the world ended.

Sen Manchin tacitly allied with the Republican leadership in both houses, and by November 5 with the passage of the BIF individually in the House, he was able to pry the Götterdämmerung agenda loose from Speaker Pelosi's hands, effectively turning her into a lame duck. There's been a lot of criticism of Leader McConnell and the moderate House Republicans for enabling Manchin's strategy, but I think it's proven an effective rope-a-dope, especially given the lack of other Republican options.

The other factor now in play is the effect of rhe Virginia election and subsequent polling. The idea of a Democrat loss in the 2022 midterms up to now had been mostly a vague talking point and little more than an argument in favor of the BBB and Götterdämmerung. But post-Virginia, Trump doesn't seem to be fading in the polls -- to the contrary, he's so far favored in primaries, he's beating Biden in a head-to-head 2024 matchup, and he's looking like a 2022 kingmaker as well.

Meanwhile, Biden appears to be stuck on Götterdämmerung. He's stubbornly sticking with policies deliberately intended to increase gas prices. The best he can say about inflation is it's actually good for you, suck it up. The border is still out of control. He now seems to be sending up smoke signals that he may not run in 2024, but this would basically mean three years of passive-aggressiveness, Biden stubbornly refusing to change course while saying as little as possible. This isn't how things were supposed to turn out a year ago last March.

Worse, this scenario assumes nothing else bad, or indeed worse, happens over the next three years. Biden is proving he can't handle what's come up so far. I don't want to think about how anything new will turn out. I doubt if I'm the only one who feels this way.

The problem there is that even some Democrats don't believe the world is simply going to end a year from now, and they'd like to have lives to live past that date. They haven't figured out a clear strategy yet, but if they can pull the Agnew move on Harris, they're at least a step ahead. Stay tuned.