As I've Been Saying, We're In A Constitutional Crisis

Back on June 7, I posted about the unspoken constitutional crisis during FDR's third term in which the White House, according to Dr Steven Lomazow, concealed the president's metastasized cancer and severe cardiopulmonary disease that made his death inevitable early in his fourth term. Enough insiders anticipated this that they forced him to drop Henry Wallace and choose Harry Truman as his running mate for the 1944 election. I said in that post,

[I]t was a de facto constitutional crisis that under the circumstances could only be resolved by Roosevelt's death, which insiders fully understood to be imminent in any case.

It's hard to avoid thinking we're heading for an equivalent crisis before the next election, but the additional complication is Vice President Harris. . . . Biden is bad enough, but it's less and less likely he can last another four years, and we'd get Harris sooner than anyone expects.

By at least his final year in office, according to Dr Lomazow, Roosevelt was working a schedule from noon to 4:00 PM weekdays, although this included a 90-minute nap, which according to cabinet members simply wasn't adequate to do a president's job. The saving grace was that insiders had quietly planned for a succession, something they and Truman fully recognized at the time. From what we hear, Joe's schedule is similar now, which doesn't augur well, but as of now, there's no contingency as there was in 1944.

Roosevelt could pass away at any time after the 1945 inaugural and have Truman succeed him, although had he passed away before that date, his successor would have been Henry Wallace. As it happened, the country got lucky. The problem right now is that if Joe Biden leaves the presidency for any reason before next January 20, his successor is Kamala Harris.

There can be no disagreement that Joe's physical appearance alone in last night's debate was frail, pale, and almost cadaverous. His voice was hoarse. He seemed at various times to be fighting down the urge to cough. This leaves aside any question about his cognitive abilities, although at least some observers noticed a strange stare -- that suggests to me that he was under some type of strong medication, whether or not it was a performance-enhancing drug of some sort.

The first issue is a no-brainer. As Mark Leibovich writes in The Atlantic,

President Joe Biden needs to end his campaign. The first presidential debate, held last night, was a disaster. It was clear from the outset that Biden looked old, sounded old, and yes, is in fact very, very old.

This has been rumored for a while. Last night, it was confirmed.

But that's not the real question. Scott Jennings came closer to the point on CNN after the debate:

WATCH: @ScottJenningsKY on Joe Biden's debate performance:

"It is a fair question to ask right now, 'What is going on inside the White House every day?' Is [Kamala Harris] currently making more decisions in the White House than we know? Who is making decisions in the White… pic.twitter.com/mK5628i4DU

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) June 28, 2024

"Let me just take the other side of this Kamala Harris debate. It is a fair question to ask right now, 'What is going on inside the White House every day?' Is she currently making more decisions in the White House than we know? Who is making decisions in the White House right now? We‘re talking about this in terms of can Joe Biden win an election and serve for four years. I want to know I want to know what‘s happening on a day-to-day basis. To me, she is the big story tonight because her position in this administration, in this campaign, has become magnified by 1,000 right now."

Whether Joe continues his campaign is really irrelevant -- the question isn't even who's running the country, the question is who's been running the country, and who'll be running it until next January 20, because even if the 25th Amendment is invoked, either through Joe's resignation or his removal, the same people will be implementing the same disastrous policies, and they'll likely be doing all they can to keep them in place after either Joe or Kamala leaves office next year.

At minimum, I think it's time for the adults in the room to force the White House to reveal more about Joe's physical condition and begin to ask seriously if he's up to the job. What we saw last night was not a well man. Then I think some serious discussion needs to take place about how we're going to proceed for the next eight months.