Yes, it just happened, and you witnessed it. We all just watched a new, dark chapter of American history unfold, with more to come, no doubt. Shamelessly, the Empire of Lies showed us the raw, rancid stuff of which it is made, and the ugliness of the spectacle is beyond appalling.

If you’re like… oh… me, perhaps, you’re working to process the recent, midnight defenestration of President Joe Biden by power players within the Democrat Party. That, and the backroom, rigged, wired elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris to the role of presidential nominee. What the hell just happened?

If nothing else, hang onto your wallet and protect your wealth; I’ll hit that point in a moment. But first, an eighty-nine-year-old book comes to mind. I read it long ago, back in college (not 89 years ago; I’m not that old). Over the weekend, I pulled my copy and skimmed through it.

Dystopian novel published in 1935.

An Old Dystopian Novel on My Mind…

In the depths of the Great Depression, Sinclair Lewis wrote a dystopian tale about what might happen if the U.S. followed the political path of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Fearful of the rise of fascism abroad, Lewis explored the idea of “What will happen when America has a dictator?” Note that exact question, highlighted on the dust jacket image, above.

Lewis’s mid-1930s vision of the future was rooted in his own time and circumstances. He laid out a series of possible events in the then-upcoming election year of 1936. In essence, a populist-nationalist, demagogue, who distinctly resembled Governor/Senator Huey Long of Louisiana, came along to unseat President Franklin Roosevelt and take over the U.S. government. Then America’s new Chief Executive turns the nation into a police state.

Per Lewis, this new authoritarian regime bans public dissent and wraps an iron grip of narrative control around all media. The country is blanketed with fake news and one-sided, party-line political opinion. Routinely, powerful bosses arrest and jail opponents, and employ thuggish paramilitary groups to keep resistance under control. 

In Lewis’s fictional, remade America, federalism dies as the country’s governance goes central and national. All matters of import are run by a greedy, grifting, ignorant cabal that installs itself in corridors of power across Washington, D.C., while state boundaries become near irrelevant and serve only as dividing lines between the new administrative units of a totalitarian polity.

In characteristic fascist fashion, dominant political elements partner with large banks and business groups to run the economy. Yet despite the efforts of these new helmsmen, the ship of state founders, prosperity declines, and the land suffers. It seems that America’s new gang of incompetent, ideologue rulers is just not very good at their control-freak dictatorship.

In due course, people go hungry and become angry. In response, the big shots take the country to war, a historically proven means to distract the masses. But in the end, there’s no theory of victory amongst these power-mad fools. They muck it up like they’ve mucked up everything else before.

Per Lewis’s vision, things go from bad to worse. Eventually, deep sociological fault lines move, and America descends into a new civil war. This point reflected a concept that resonated viscerally within a country and society in the 1930s, where elderly veterans survived who could recall the first great period of unpleasantness, 1861 – 65. 

For Nine Decades, This Has Been a Lodestone of the Political Left

When It Can’t Happen Here was published, the book was a bombshell, so to speak; an instant best-seller that was widely reviewed and discussed.

Lewis’s book hit political nerves and, just now, editorial brevity forecloses a longer discussion of the cultural-political milieu of Depression era America. Suffice to say, though, that the above-noted Louisianian Huey Long played a major role in the prevailing national discourse, abruptly truncated by his assassination in September 1935, on the cusp of a planned campaign to unseat President Roosevelt in 1936.

Since the day It Can’t Happen Here hit the bookstore shelves, the novel has served as a lodestone of the American political left. Indeed, this tome ranks high among the left’s model ideas of how dangerous it is to cede power to the country’s conservative, nationalist, populist political elements.

Over the past nine decades, across almost five generations, this novel has been assigned reading in many schoolrooms, from English classes to courses in history, government and political science. It’s been adapted into plays, acted out in movies, and broadcast to television sets across several eras.

In 2016 and early 2017, It Can’t Happen Here rocketed once again to the top of the best-seller lists (Amazon, for example) based on fears of the then-looming presidency of Donald Trump. Major media, from the New York Times to CNN and many other outlets, ran long articles about Sinclair Lewis’s storyline. Predictably, Orange Man Trump was the archetypal populist bad guy, preparing to seize power, line his pockets, fill the jail cells, and generally oppress anyone who doesn’t toe the proverbial line.

This new interest in an old novel arose because, of course, left-wing American political culture despises any politician who operates outside of the Progressive thought bubble. Per the left, these days, there’s no room in American politics for anyone to champion the core, working class population of flyover country; those deplorable Walmart shoppers, so to speak.

Thus, from Berkeley to Cambridge, and in newsrooms across the land, lefties live in mortal fear of Huey Long, 2.0, their bete noir who now is embodied by the trope of Trump, that horrid real estate developer from Queens, New York. And understand this; it’s not because Trump is Trump. No, it’s because Trump represents a credible threat to the left’s long-term grip on American culture and political power.

Irony of Ironies: Who’s Doing the Power-Grab Now?

Now, return to the events of this past month. There was that so-called “debate” on June 27, broadcast on CNN, the home field for leftist media, refereed by two talking heads who are, on their best days, no friends of Trump. Then and there, with zero assist from “the previous president,” as Trump is constantly called by people who can’t bear to say his name, Biden totally crashed before the entire world.

Were you surprised? Well, not if you’ve been reading Paradigm Press if you’ll allow a bit of puffery on this end. Because we knew it was coming. Indeed, we’ve banged the drum about “Joe will go” for perhaps eighteen months, maybe more.

I definitely recall an event in Las Vegas in the fall of 2022, when Jim Rickards and I discussed how Biden likely won’t be on the ballot in 2024. It was always going to be just a question of when, where, and how he moved towards the exit. And now we know.

In many respects, the next chapters of this unfolding saga aren’t even all that much about Biden the man, not anymore. That is, Biden’s an older guy whose physical and mental decline has long been on display. His problematic effects were evident to anyone who picked up glaring signals that ranged from his stiff gait to slurred speech and mental drift. C’mon, man, you know what I mean. It’s the thing, right? Well, whatever…

So what was the plan for Biden and his enablers? Another episode of Weekend at Bernie’s, so to speak, except at the White House? That, and continue the massive charade for a few more months, at least through election day?

Generally, Biden’s problem has always been that nobody can keep such a big lie so deeply hidden for so long. Sure, the juggling act worked for a while—pick a number: two, three, even four years. His handlers kept the man wrapped up good and tight. Biden was down in the basement, in a manner of speaking, or off to the beach house, if not Camp David. He held few press availability, and even then, everything was scripted down to those large-print cue cards.

Yet still, Biden muffed many shots. Routinely, he embarrassed himself, his handlers and supporters, and the country. Recall the wristwatch scene at Dover Air Force Base in 2021, while caskets of fallen Americans were coming off the transport plane. Or more recently, the G-7 meeting in Washington comes to mind. These, and many others.

Through it all, the compliant, state-supporting, sycophant media played the coverup game, singing along in support of Biden like the Mendelsohn Choir bellowing out Ode to Joy.

Of course, until just a few days ago, Biden remained on the glide path to being nominated and running again for president. “Four more years!”… and all that rot, as the British say. 

“He’s fine,” said the handlers. “Fit as a fiddle.” Press reports to the contrary, meaning stories about Biden’s infirmities, were dismissed as raw partisanship. A recent account published in the Wall Street Journal picked up little traction in other media and even drew a sniffy rebuke from the New York Times. Besides all that, went the tired rejoinder, Joe Biden had a stutter when he was a young fellow, and nobody should make fun of something like that… right, you bullies?

Now, though, the legacy of lies is fast unraveling. And to follow the outline of Sinclair Lewis’s novel, one can rightly ask, who is pulling the power-grab in America this time?

Brighter Than a Thousand Suns

Blow away the toxic smoke and shovel off the stinking manure from everything about the Biden health coverup, and the illuminating burst of this sordid American scandal is brighter than a thousand suns. It’s Watergate, times three orders of magnitude.

Indeed, the Biden health lie goes far beyond the defensive, comical, Baghdad Bob-like antics of a series of pathetic White House press secretaries, let alone the ignorant trash-talk of MSNBC studios (yes, the usual suspects). It’s worse than bad; it’s ethically outrageous, revealing moral foundations that are rotten to the core, and which indict an entire cadre of the country’s governing class and related, highly privileged elements.

Think about it: U.S. presidents – all of them – encounter hundreds of people every day, many in close proximity. An American president crosses paths with aides, secretaries and staff, Secret Service and military support, and innumerable visitors, including the press, who walk through the White House doors. With Biden, there can be no doubt that they saw what was going on. They all have eyes and ears, and it’s fair to say that people who rise to a position high enough in life to enter the White House tend not to be totally stupid.

Yet for several years, in an ongoing fairytale, the public was told that President Joe Biden was el supremo. He was a man in charge, a voracious reader, and a detail-oriented guy who ran circles around his staff. Biden was, allegedly, a visionary leader, or so the thread of his tapestry went.

Plus, by some accounts, Biden was a heroic “wartime president,” a la FDR. Promoters pointed to Biden’s deft, now-legendary, strategic planning; he and his brilliant team. Surely you recall the “successful” (Biden’s word) Afghanistan withdrawal and then the long-term commitment to the Ukraine conflict, yes? “Whatever it takes,” said Biden.

How is it all working? Oh, what? You didn’t see the worthy banners of glorious victory in these martial enterprises? Look harder, people. Cuz as the tale is told by Biden’s aides and acolytes, the president is worthy of military praise in terms and verbiage that would make Generalissimo Marshal Stalin blush.

And yet, despite all the press release archives of past brilliance, within four weeks of said recent debate, Biden is gone. He’s off the ticket and no longer running for president. Indeed, at least figuratively, he’s underground and perhaps far sicker than we are being told.

Right now, Biden is political history, other than the scary fact that he remains as titular U.S. President for another (almost) six months, and a lot of bad things can happen in six months – speaking of hanging onto your wallet.

Looking ahead, beware of political uncertainty as one giant lie after another evaporates, and more and more bitter truth unfolds. There’s risk in revelation, and as rotten foundations become evident and are revealed, so be sure to keep your stash of gold and silver in a safe place.

Who’s Running Things?

Now comes the next question, namely, who runs the country? That is, who exercises what the Constitution broadly describes as “the executive power” of the nation? Cuz it sure ain’t Joe Biden, and likely hasn’t been for quite some time. Who makes up the committees of governance within the regime?

At Paradigm, we foresaw this. Long ago, we discerned a broken train rolling down the tracks, so to speak. Broadly speaking, we knew what the destination would be, although perhaps not the exact last whistlestop, which was last weekend’s letter of withdrawal, typed not on White House stationery, and apparently signed with a rubber-stamp fake signature.

Again, what has recently unfolded was always just a question of where, when and how. Still, as with any locomotive, when it leaves the rails, the event shocks you, right?

Now, we face a looming national argument over the very nature of American governance. As in, how many lies can a government tell its people? How can this particular cabal of power-mad people lie so much, so brazenly, with such gigantic implications? What kind of morally bankrupt, poisoned culture is this, anyhow?

There’s more to come, no doubt. We will learn more, and we will continue to be shocked at the depravity of much of the American political and media class. To be fair and balanced, the scandal will be bipartisan.

If there’s a positive side, perhaps we can find perspective in the words of the ancient Greek writer Aeschylus, known as the father of tragedy, that “wisdom comes through suffering.” Because in so many ways, the country will suffer as the Biden medical debacle unfolds.

For starters, the Biden scandal illustrates how people in power and positions of trust simply lie through their teeth and, sad to say, how many others have bought into so many things that are simply, deeply, and objectively not true.

Over time, one might avoid reality, but over enough time, no one avoids the consequences of avoiding reality. So, I believe hard times lie ahead. 

Now the country – the United States of America, and likely many other people, institutions, and even nations across the world – must relearn fundamental lessons of self-governance. It must happen, if for no other reason than to borrow from the title of an old book, “It Can Happen Here.” And God help us if we can’t fix it.

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