"You Got What You Wanted, And Now You’re Still Blaming Biden."

Sen John Fetterman's words to Speaker Emerita Pelosi struck me with particular force when I read them this morning. They came in the middle of an interview he did with Politico:

After Joe’s Biden debate over the summer, you didn’t think he should drop out.

We can both agree that he had a rough debate.

People like [Nancy] Pelosi, she really tried to — what’s the word I’m looking for? — she embraced this “she’s the godmother, she’s the enforcer.” And now she’s blaming Biden. Well, you can’t have it both ways. You got what you wanted, and now you’re still blaming Biden.

I think it’s really ironic that you have a woman at age 84 and she is still hanging on. Why not give a younger generation an opportunity to occupy that seat?

One thing I've noticed about this year's campaign and the surrounding events has been their subliminal, even dreamlike quality. Not least among these images is Sen Fetterman's recovery from a severe stroke in May, 2022, about which the Babylon Bee reported:

In a bizarre coincidence, Senator John Fetterman has suddenly become more conservative after his brain resumed working.

Previously a die-hard liberal, Fetterman has stunned audiences by staking out a variety of conservative positions over the past several weeks, at the same time as his brain regained the ability to speak in sentences. With Fetterman's cognition continually improving, conservatives have sat dumbfounded as they found themselves nodding along with the Democrat.

In this case, Fetterman is speaking not just as a conservative, but as something of a family truthteller. And there can be no question that Pelosi has become the center of a family dispute.

The latest controversy was sparked by Pelosi telling The New York Times that had Biden dropped out sooner, the election may have turned out differently. Specifically, she cited the possibility of having a compressed primary instead of anointing Harris, which is what ultimately occurred.

Is she wrong? Not necessarily, but how do Democrats want to hear what they "should" have done from the person who so royally screwed things up that Donald Trump, the man they compare to Adolf Hitler, got re-elected? Pelosi flew too close to the sun. She believed herself to be above the will of her party's primary voters and executed a soft coup on the rightful nominee. The result was an abject disaster.

But this is just a part of the dreamlike campaign and post-election psychodrama. I've noted here the strange image of Kamala, who was the most liberal senator, to the left of Bernie Sanders, affecting the wardrobe and accoutrements of an upper-class white woman while speaking in a phony black accent.

Nor can we forget the dreamlike images over the past year of a frail, stammering, stumbling, shuffling President Biden -- but contrast that with the equally dreamlike image of Trump in Butler, back on his feet and raising his fist beneath an American flag. Of that image, Sen Fetterman commented at the link above,

“Immediately after that, when I was out, I saw people with custom shirts with that image,” he said, referring to the iconic photo of Trump raising his fist after being shot. “It’s like, ‘They tried everything. They impeached this man, they put him on trial. You know, the media. And now they tried to kill him, and he survived.’ And he had the presence of mind to even respond, and created that. What if that was [Barack] Obama? Can you imagine what that would have meant to Democrats?”

Now let's put this in the context of Trump's controversial cabinet nominations in the past week. Again, we're geting a dreamlike response:

Elizabeth Warren on Tulsi Gabbard: "Do you really want her to have all the secrets of the United States and our defense intelligence agencies when she has so clearly has been in Putin's pocket? That just has to be a hard no." pic.twitter.com/gOD7274ilI

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 14, 2024

A shrieking, schoolmarmish woman making hysterical McCarthyite accusations that Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian agent. Something's seriously out of joint.

Let's also look at the dreamlike context of Trump's nominating Gaetz as Attorney General. So far, it looks like Gaetz's Senate confirmation is going to center on unreleased -- and as far as anyone can tell, unsubstantiated -- allegations of sexual misconduct and whatever else, detailed in a confidential House Ethics Committee report. Doesn't this echo in a strange, subliminal way many of Trump's obstacles over the past eight years, the Russian hookers, the Zelensky phone call, the Mueller report, the impeachment attempts, the January 6 committee?

The odd thing is how insubstantial these things all turned out to be, a lot like waking up and suddely realizing it was all a dream. Now it looks like we're going to have an equivalent battle over nothing:

The House Ethics Committee was scheduled to meet Friday, three sources familiar with the meeting told NBC News, and one of those sources said that releasing the Gaetz report was expected to be among the topics on the agenda. Punchbowl News previously reported Wednesday that the Ethics panel had planned to release a "highly damaging" report about Gaetz on Friday, citing multiple sources familiar with the probe.

But Gaetz's resignation complicates things, and the meeting was canceled, according to a source with direct knowledge.

The link continues,

Trump's choice of Gaetz was a surprise to nearly everyone, including members of his own party and officials at the Justice Department — in part because of the Ethics investigation, his past legal problems and his reputation as a rabble-rouser in Congress.

A source familiar with the process told NBC News that Gaetz had been consulting Trump on who would be best to run the Justice Department. Gaetz did not ask for the role, that person said, but Trump asked him to take on the job Wednesday morning, just hours before the decision was made public.

This might look like it was an impulsive decision, but now that we know Trump better, I just don't think he's impulsive. On the other hand, he certainly is instinctive. One thing we've learned about Trump is his instinctive ability to manage subliminal cues. The battle over his controversial cabinet nominations is going to have plenty of subliminal cues. Right now, I have a sense that Trump is somehow ahead of the game.