The excitement of politicians and press over President Biden’s statement
[Putin] cannot remain in power!
has been interesting to watch. Erick Erickson remains convinced that Biden is in dementia – or at least that’s the line the right wing propaganda machine is pushing – while I ran across one piece in the mainstream media, link sadly lost, suggesting that Biden was off-script is nonsense, and this was a planned gaffe.
I incline to the latter. The right wing propaganda machine is trying to hold together a base and mislead independent voters into forgetting that “demented Joe” beat an overwhelming field of Democratic rivals when he looked like he was down and out, beat the incumbent President handily, kept a nation together by demonstrating, time and again, political maturity and patience, hit the ground running, fulfilled campaign promises, took us successfully (in my view) out of the bad situation called Afghanistan, and has been so successful at fulfilling campaign promises that the Republicans are panicked, and Biden’s and the Democrat’s possibly greatest foe, Putin’s Russia, was forced to invade Ukraine, because the Democrats have proven to be competent and anti-Russia.
And Putin wants to be seen as the savior of the Empire of Russia. That’s why he was forced to invade Ukraine. He needed to destroy his most dangerous foe, the Democrats, and he wants to be a savior.
To the point: Biden was playing to a number of audiences: Russia, NATO, Democrats, independent American voters … and Republicans. Responses to war are always highly varied and passionately held, and some cannot garner satisfactory responses from those in power, such as the horrified pacifist response. But for those who’ve complained we’ve not done enough, which occurs up and down the political spectrum this time ’round, this is the sort of response you want to see. I’ve been calling it Putin’s War because that’s what it is: I doubt more than a small Putin coterie was really passionate to go to war with Ukraine. Because it’s Putin’s War, it seems logical to assume that removal of Putin, by the proper persons, i.e., not NATO, will be necessary to increase the probability that peace will descend upon that part of the world.
I think this is a mainstream view of the situation as well, which means I think Biden also holds this view, and this conclusion.
So his off the cuff remark is actually a message, to Republicans and independents who’d like to see us do, well, more, which is usually undefined, since Putin does have nuclear weapons and we can’t afford to have them rain down on our heads, to NATO, telling them how it is, to the non-members of NATO … and to the Muscovite elite, who have the best chance to rid themselves of Putin, and to do it semi-legitimately.
And when the right runs around screaming about Joe’s alleged dementia, just remember all the lies the right wing propaganda machine has spewed, its backing of Trump and his plethora of fourth-raters, and be very suspicious of how information is presented to you. Democrats have their own set of problems and extremists and apologists, it’s certainly true. But rather than picking the best of a bunch of rotten tomatoes, demand better of them. Of both sides.
