By ‘Democracy,’ Democrats Mean A Shadow Government

Within a span of 24 hours, every sector of the American privileged class — from politics to punditry, from activism to academia — exposed their utter disdain for self-government.

The power-first reveal initially exploded on an Atlanta stage when in real time the country witnessed our commander-in-chief confirm through his cognitively impaired performance that he is not running our country and that a vote for Joe Biden will be tallied for some unnamed other.

All the talk about supposedly “saving democracy” means nothing: Joe Biden’s backers care not a whit about voters beyond whether they can manipulate the American people enough to retain power.

For years, the evidence of President Biden’s serious cognitive decline was minimized and those raising questions ostracized. Even as proof of his current incompetence mounted, those pulling the strings pivoted to pushing a “cheap fake” narrative to paint the visual evidence as concocted.

For those Americans still relying on the propaganda press for their news, Thursday’s debate hit hard. Within minutes, Joe Biden’s incapacity was on full display for America … and her enemies. So obvious was the president’s impairment that even his most ardent advocates finally acknowledged Biden’s unfitness for office.

Yet those closest to the president — his cabinet, advisers, campaign staff, and Democrat-trusted members of the press — knew this reality for years. They were content to keep quiet so long as they could hide the truth from Americans: that they, not the commander-in-chief elected by voters, would run the country.

Pray tell, how is that defending “democracy”? We don’t even know who the “they” are to demand accountability.

Friday provided a hint, however, with former President Barack Obama publicly defending his former vice president, by framing Joe Biden’s senility as merely a “bad debate.” The Clintons likewise both pledged their backing of the current president. Key cabinet members, such as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, also affirmed their support for Biden following Thursday’s fiasco, telling Fox News Digital they stood by their recent comments concerning the president’s supposed command of his faculties.

Merrick Garland’s actions spoke the loudest of all, with the attorney general remaining firm in his refusal to provide the House the audio tape of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interview of Joe Biden — an interview that led the special counsel to conclude no charges should be brought against the president because he would “likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Yet those rushing to resurrect Joe Biden’s campaign know the jig is up: The whole country now realizes the president is non compos mentis. Thus, every phony defense of Biden’s dead-man-walking debate performance further justified a vote for the Democrat by claiming at least this president is a good and honest man.

“But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight — and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit,” Obama pontificated on X.

Biden’s handlers fed similar prose to the president’s teleprompter on Friday, when he appeared at a North Carolina campaign rally. “I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong,” the president told supporters distraught by his debate performance.

The portrayal of Biden as Thursday night’s truth teller is laughable. The Democrat dropped whoppers left and right between his vacant stares. From his lie that the Border Patrol union endorsed him — something fact-checked in real time by the union itself on X — to Biden’s fabrications about inflation and military deaths, to his continued lie that Trump had called Nazi’s very fine people, framing Biden as honest fares no better than portraying the president as of sound mind.

They don’t care, though. Biden and everyone else coming to his defense since Thursday’s debate have proved the president cannot govern and confirmed voters’ franchise means nothing. They know a ballot cast for Joe Biden is not a vote for the man, but a vote for the elitists running the country in his stead.

The ruling class has a problem, though, as the legacy media had a miscue on Thursday night and began running the “replace Biden on the ticket” narrative before Obama and his cadre intervened. And that schizophrenic messaging may prove even more fatal to Biden’s reelection than the president’s dementia-infused display at the first debate.

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.