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Biden Slips a Cog: Second Time as Tragedy, Second Time as Farce, or Both?

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” –Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

As a former humanities major, an English professor manqué, and a humble blogger pressed for time and words, I strove to avoid and did not yield to putting the word peripeteia in the headline, and in the end succeeded by substituting “plot twist” (from the invaluable TV Tropes):

One of the basic building blocks of plot, a Plot Twist is a sudden, unexpected change in the fortunes or situations of the characters, setting, or plot.

Plot Twists are usually based on the assumption that there is something going on that we, the readers/viewers/players, don’t know about; if we had known about it, it would hardly be surprising. When it is revealed to us, we are surprised and shocked. This includes hidden aspects of particular characters’ backstories or their personalities (“I never would have thought Alice could kick Bob’s head into the locker!”)

. (There is also the “hidden aspect” of Jill Biden’s character, which we’ll get to.)

Here for your viewing pleasure is the plot twist in question (repeating from here). Biden’s slippage, in his June 27 debate on CNN with former President Trump:

Whether or not Biden “slipping a cog” is “shocking” (or perhaps “shocking, shocking”) is “unexpected” or not (2020; 2024), it certainly has shock value from “setting or place”: seen, live, on national television, by 51.3 million viewers, and never to be unseen[2]. So, from the standpoint of sense-making, “Plot Twist” is pretty good. However, the Aristolian peripeteia is much better, as we shall see[1].

In this post, I will present some sense-making tools for the dramatic series of events that followed and will follow Biden’s emission of grinding, clunking, and clashing sounds on the national stage. A caveat: That doesn’t mean I’ll actually be able to make sense of the situation, for reasons I will explain. However, we can at least make sense of what we area allowed to see as “the narrative” plays out. To help with that, I will first consider Biden’s slippage as a farce; I will then argue that Marx’s “tragedy” vs. “farce” epigram, though witty, is false; and I shall then consider Biden’s slippage as a tragedy, with particular attention to the individuals who surround him, and as a tragedy for our Constitutional order. Throughout, I will take up issues current in the news flow; just not using the frames many are accustomed to.

Biden’s Slippage as a Farce

Imagine you are sitting in the audience at a play, watching the characters speak their lines on the stage, enjoying the spectacle. Suddenly the scenery collapses, along with the “legs” that hide the wings, and everything that’s going on backstage is revealed! Hilarity ensues. Until order is restored, you see frantic stagehands, managers, costumers, make-up artists, maybe even intimacy coordinators and investors running around waving their hands and shouting. Something similar happened following Biden’s slippage:

Of course, this “genuine space” will be quickly suppressed. However, the imagined spectacle I just posited reminds me of a wonderful farce called Noises Off, which I saw in London back in my traveling days. Noises Off is a play within a play, and it too collapses the distinction between stage and backstage, between on-stage and off. Here is a sample from the script (video of the full play, starting in the same place). Use Monty Python voices in your mind for the characters:

In this rehearsal, we see a process surely much like that Biden insiders must have experienced when they “overprepared” their candidate. After all, “I open my mouth, and I never know if its going to come out three oranges or two lemons and a banana” describes Biden’s performance to a T, doesn’t it? (Dotty speaks “openly and honestly,” which is one reason Noises Off is so entertaining.)

My OED defines farce as “a dramatic work intended only to excite laughter,” and really, what else can we do? Wikipedia goes a little further, and defines farce as, among other things, “characterized by heavy use of physical humor” (Dotty’s sardines; Biden’s slippage. For this reason, farce is considered the lowest dramatic form, with tragedy the highest). Farce also includes “situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd,” “ludicrous, improbable, and exaggerated characters; and broadly stylized performances.” Finally, in farce the characters are static; they are implacably who they are. We don’t watch Fawlty Towers for Basil Fawlty’s character development, after all. All these characteristics apply to the dramatic incidents following Biden’s slippage which I will now present.

(1) Situations that are highly absurd. Donor hysteria:

A debate watch party in Los Angeles on Thursday night happened to feature Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff, Pritzker, Whitmer and Beshear. There were other high-profile attendees – by a few answers in, Rob Reiner was screaming about losing and Jane Fonda had tears in her eyes, according to people in the room.

(2) Physical humor. Via alert reader andy, from Politico, What’s wrong with the picture:

Just like the sardines! (“Ron, which way do I hold the phone? Did I hold it that way before?”)

(3) Situations that are extravagant:

(4) Static characters:

Four minutes, no questions. No action. Just as static as Basil Fawlty.

So much for farce. Let us now turn to The Bearded One.

Marx’s Epigram is Wrong

The country has had an impaired President whose condition was kept from the President at least once before now (if we both FDR and Reagan in their last terms[3]). First, President Wilson:

Following his attendance at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Woodrow Wilson returned to the United States to campaign for Senate approval of the peace treaty and the League of Nations Covenant. However, the president suffered a stroke that October which left him bedridden and partially paralyzed. The United States never did ratify the Treaty of Versailles nor join the League of Nations, which had initially been Wilson’s concept. At the time, non-interventionist sentiment was strong….. Edith Wilson and others in the President’s inner circle (including his physician and a few close friends) hid the true extent of the president’s illness and disability from the American public. Edith also took over a number of routine duties and details of the executive branch of the government from the onset of Wilson’s illness until he left office almost a year and a half later. From October 1919 to the end of Wilson’s term on March 4, 1921, Edith, acting in the role of First Lady and shadow steward, decided who and which communications and matters of state were important enough to bring to the bedridden president.

The historical parallel between Wilson and Biden (or, more precisely, between Edith Wilson and Jill Biden) is clear: The presence of “an inner circle” — that is, an extra-constitutional entity at the head of the executive branch. (Article II, Section 1: “The executive power shall be vested in of the United States of Ameria.” We elect one person, not that one person’s family, friends, or milieu.) Thinking about this topic makes me queasy: I’m more used to using tools like Ferguson et al.’s industrial model, or class analysis, or institutionalism. In blogging as in life, I’m less than comfortable with small group dynamics, let alone individual personalities.[4] Presumably, the humanities can help me with that! But here we are; in a crisis, things correlate, and I suppose they do correlate in the persons of people who happen to be “in the wrong place at the wrong time” and embody the titanic forces at play.

Small group dynamics entered the chat just before the debate on June 18 with a short Daily Mail story: “‘The only people who could force him out would be Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,’ one Democratic strategist told DailyMail.com. ‘It would have to be the four of them collectively’” (first time I’ve heard a Democrat use the word “collectively” in a long time). The interlocutors on the Biden side are not named, but presumably they are a small group too). Small group dynamics make their next appearance on June 22 in the New York Times:

Interviews with dozens of people close to the president reveal a truth at the heart of Mr. Biden’s political life: While he is surrounded by a diverse and multigenerational crowd of campaign operatives, policy experts and cabinet secretaries, he reserves his full trust for a small circle of insiders who are the definition of old school.

(The three are Mike Donilon, Ted Kaufman, and Ron Klain. Mike Donilon’s brother, Tom, is married to Jill BIden’s former chief-of-staff. Klain, of course, set the course for Biden’s Covid policy of mass infection without mitigation before Jeff Zients took over. Kaufman, among other things, headed the Biden-Harris Transition Team.)

Another small group story came on June 29, from Axios, this one closer to the bone: “Behind the Curtain: Biden oligarchy will decide fate:”

The only way President Biden steps aside, despite his debate debacle, is if the same small group of lifelong loyalists who enabled his run suddenly — and shockingly — decides it’s time for him to call it quits. Dr. Jill Biden; his younger sister, Valerie Biden; and 85-year-old Ted Kaufman, the president’s longtime friend and constant adviser — plus a small band of White House advisers [who?]— are the only Biden deciders.

So, although everybody who is anybody agrees that Biden trust and works in a very small group, nobody is quite clear on who the group members are (Franklin Foer, who wrote a book on Biden’s White House, writes “The group around President Joe Biden is familial to the core,” but doesn’t name the group members (!)). I’m inclined to believe that Axios got it more right than the Time because Jill Biden is part of the group:

However, Joe Biden is also, as it were, clan leader of the Bidens, who are all lending each other no-interest loans and wetting their beaks the money stream generated for them by Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling operation — Dear Hunter! Surely they must have a representative in the small group as well, and Hunter’s presence makes sense from that perspective.

I’ve been trying to think of a word for this extra-constitutional entity, this small group that would play — or perhaps is already playing the same role in the Biden Presidency that the group around Edith Wilson played in Wilsons. The Axios URL shows the original headline was something like biden-debate-replace-advisers, but the editors jacked it up to read “Biden oligarchy.” But that’s wrong; oligarchy is an entire political system. (“Biden oligarchs” might have been OK, but to me, an oligarch is a member of the only small group that really matters: The squillioniares, and although Biden et al. may service the squillioniares, they are not, themselves, squillionaires.) I thought of cabal, milieu, gang, clique, crew, faction, team, troop, club, coterie, posse, and finally settled on the term “circle,” since a circle has a center (Biden), connotes repetitiveness and stability, and has allied terms “social circle” and “inner circle.”

The AXios

So to repeat, everybody agrees that Biden has a tight circle, and must be approached through it, but are much less clear about who the members of that circle actually are. To me, that’s an interesting result!

Oh, and the subhead: Marx’s epigram is wrong, because although the Wilson and Biden circles as extra-constitutional entities are historical parallels, the Wilson circle, so far as I can tell (Wilson-era historians please correct me) was neither tragedy nor farce, and the Biden Circle is now mired in both farce and tragedy, as I shall now show. (Note that I will not map current events to an Aristolian plot line; I am simply appropriating the concepts.)

Biden’s Slippage as Tragedy

We have already spoken of Plot Twists; here is the more rigorous Aristotelian theory. From the Brittanica:

The most powerful elements of emotional interest in tragedy, according to Aristotle, are reversal of intention or situation (peripeteia) and recognition scenes (anagnōrisis), and each is most effective when it is coincident with the other. In Oedipus, for example, the messenger who brings Oedipus news of his real parentage, intending to allay his fears, brings about a sudden reversal of his fortune, from happiness to misery, by compelling him to recognize that his wife is also his mother.

We can see that Biden’s Cog Slippage was both peripeteia and anagnōrisis. The reversal of fortune: The Biden campaign wanted and early debate because they hoped both dispatch Trump and to show that Biden’s cognition was unimpaired (as they successfully did with the SOTU). Instead, to anyone but a party loyalist, the debate was a disaster; it revealed precisely what the campaign hoped to conceal. The recognition scene, multiple levels: Biden himself (“‘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,’ he said, as the crowd chanted ‘four more years’”); Biden’s circle; much of the Democrat Party; and many, many millions of viewers all recognized the Cog Slippage as serious and undeniable.

Another Aristotelian term: hamartia. Again from the Brittanica:

Hamartia, (hamartia from Greek hamartanein, “to err”), inherent defect or shortcoming in the hero of a tragedy, who is in other respects a superior being favoured by fortune.

Aristotle introduced the term casually in the Poetics in describing the tragic hero as a man of noble rank and nature whose misfortune is not brought about by villainy but by some ‘error of judgment’ (hamartia). This imperfection later came to be interpreted as a moral flaw, such as Othello’s jealousy or Hamlet’s irresolution, although most great tragedies defy such a simple interpretation. Most importantly, the hero’s suffering and its far-reaching reverberations are far out of proportion to his flaw. An element of cosmic collusion among the hero’s flaw, chance, necessity, and other external forces is essential to bring about the tragic catastrophe.

I believe that the tragic flaw common to Biden and his circle is loyalty. From Politico in 2020, “Biden Rewards Loyalty“:

The best way to get a job in the Biden White House is to have once worked for President-elect Joe Biden

That much has become clear this past week, with 13 of the first 14 White House appointments going to former Biden staffers. Several were high-ranking officials on the 2020 campaign or were in the vice president’s office but many also go back decades — to his Senate office or even his 1988 presidential run. Biden’s transition team is also full of Biden veterans, suggesting many more are likely to pop up in his administration.

The hires are part of a larger dynamic in Biden-world: he values loyalty.

President Barack Obama’s Defense secretary, Leon Panetta, who also served with Biden in Congress, described Biden’s approach to politics as “street smarts” versus “Harvard smart.” He said that “part of that street ethic is loyalty to people and loyalty to friends.”

Biden can sometimes put loyalty above optics, even when it’s politically risky — a dynamic to watch closely for in the administration when a scandal inevitably hits.

Loyalty as one of Biden’s central values goes back to Biden’s family upbringing. From Marie Claire:

Jean Biden passed away in 2010.

When Jean passed away, she was surrounded by loved ones including her great-grandchildren. “At 92, she was the center of our family and taught all of her children that . She believed in us, and because of that, we believed in ourselves,” the Bidens said in a statement. “Her strength, which was immeasurable, will live on in all of us.”.

“Family is to be treasured, loyalty is paramount and faith will guide you through the tough times.” Couldn’t describe the Biden circle better (and not in a good way). From People:

“My dad used to say, ‘Family is the beginning, the middle, and the end,’ ” Joe shared in a speech at the White House in 2023.

As Harry Truman is said to have said: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” Certainly it’s A Good Thing not to be surrounded by betrayers and schemers. And loyalty, like courage, is a real virtue (of course, some Nazis had courage, so it’s not the only virtue). But the loyalty in Biden’s circle seems to be so strong that they can’t bear to take the car keys away from him, when they clearly should.

Here, from a source outside Biden’s circle, is a description of Biden’s fate:

This is the “far-reaching reverberations are far out of proportion to his flaw.” No doubt the people in Biden’s circle, think of themselves, and want to be thought of, as good. But the elder abuse they are visiting on Biden is not good, and that’s their tragedy, brought about by the tragic flaw they share with Biden.

Conclusion

There is much else to write; extra-constitional entities making decisions for the executive branch could certainly be seen as tragic, but I must stop here with a final Aristotelian term: catharsis. Once more from the Brittanica:

In criticism, catharsis is a metaphor used by Aristotle in the Poetics to describe the effects of true tragedy on the spectator. The use is derived from the medical term katharsis (Greek: “purgation” or “purification”). Aristotle states that the purpose of tragedy is to arouse “terror and pity” and thereby effect the catharsis of these emotions…. The interpretation generally accepted is that through experiencing fear vicariously in a controlled situation, the spectator’s own anxieties are directed outward, and, through sympathetic identification with the tragic protagonist, his insight and outlook are enlarged. .

We can only hope. I’m here for the pity and terror, but I don’t see when or how catharsis will take place in 2024.

NOTES

[1] My use of Peripeteia is not the hotdoggery it may seem; the term is known in the gaming community, as one would expect it to be.

[2] All the tweets I saw from the fraction of the political class that wants Biden to drop out medicalized the slippage (“dementia,” “senility”). All the tweets I saw from dull normals and muppets spoke of signs they saw before they had to “take the keys away” from an elder family member. Here is the single thread I saw — not from the political class — that mentioned the possibility that Biden had suffered cognitive damage from his two Covid infections. See NC here: “A sociopathic elite is one thing, that we’re used to; but a sociopathic elite with brain damage is quite another.” Interestingly, Biden comment on boxing:

I’d say the brain damage counts for something with boxing too!

[3] To my surprise, CBS: “Physicians diagnosed Reagan with Alzheimer’s approximately five years after he left office but the date of the onset will likely be pondered by political historians and medical experts for years to come.” Leaving the medicalese of “dementia” aside, it’s not clear to me that Reagan ever reached the “take the car keys away” stage. Of course, Reagan had a better staff, an even more compliant press, and better hagiographers than Biden has ever had.

[4] I vehemently oppose the “great man” theory of history.

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