Updating The Götterdämmerung Strategy

Last summer, I posted on

what in early 2021 seemed to be a consensus "Götterdämmerung strategy" among the elites, whereby Speaker Pelosi, possibly expected to retire after the 2022 election, would use slim congressional majorities, plus control of the White House, to enact a massive Great Reset agenda and ignore the post-2022 consequences because, well, she'd be retired by then. I likened this to someone who, assuming the world would end on December 21, decided to run up a huge credit card bill that would never need to be repaid.

I was always skeptical that this would work, but there have been only a few voices of sanity over the past year who raised the point that Pelosi had only a single-digit majority in the House, with the Senate evenly tied. Throughout the fall and winter, it became more clear that there weren't enough votes among Senate Democrats even to reach a tie on the Götterdämmerung agenda. Beyond that, House Republican leader McCarthy is announcing plans to nationalize the 2022 midterms by directly opposing any Götterdämmerung grand reset.

The reaction among Democrat leadership so far appears to be denial. Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams, who would presumably be among those who would benefit most by the reset, distanced herself from its most prominent advocate by missing President Biden's speech endorsing ending the filibuster:

Failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams declined to attend the event in what was seen as a snub of the Biden administration. However, her team claimed her absence was the result of a scheduling conflict. However, some have speculated that Abrams is hesitant about appearing on a stage with President Biden given his sagging approval ratings.

MSNBC media activist Joe Scarborough on Tuesday pointed out that this would have been “an event custom-made for Abrams” and that “she obviously doesn’t want to be on the same stage as Joe Biden.”

Meanwhile, Speaker Pelosi is the subject of renewed speculation about plastic surgery. A web search suggests that questions about her eyebrows have come up in recent years on an annual basis, and yesterday's comments are nothing new. The photo below is from 2019:

The annual re-raising of the eyebrow level suggests Speaker Pelosi is so far still reluctant to acknowledge the passage of time. Although the headlines are that she's "expected" to retire, there's been no announcement.

If you think about it, believing the world will end on December 21 is at least a consistent set of beliefs, and in that case, it could well be reasonable to calculate that you could run your credit cards up to the limit by November 30, enjoy the last few weeks on your new yacht, and never have to repay the card when the bills come in over the next month.

But that does require minimal attention to the calendar and your credit limit, even leaving aside the possibility that the Götterdämmerung doesn't happen on schedule. The current leadership doesn't seem capable of even this.

Let's hope that this provides only amusement over the next year.