A little more than a month ago, Ethics Alarms put Ann Althouse’s quirky but frequently provocative blog on suspension as a source here for engaging excessively in her trademark “fiercely” detached commentary (‘Yes, what X did was insidious and undermines national comity but what really interests me in the word he misused…’)to an obnoxious degree. I now return her to good standing by recognizing the last sentence in a post about how Democrats are blaming the Bidens’ for their current ill fortunes as an Ethics Alarms Ethics Quote of the Week, to wit:
“The Democratic Party has itself to blame for forcing Biden on the country in 2020 and for everything that happened down the line.”
Bingo!
Truer words could not be spoken. Since its November defeat, the party has attempted to blame everyone and everything but its own series of atrocious policies, totalitarian tactics, undemocratic cover-ups, spectacular dishonesty and incompetent decisions. Biden, as has become increasingly apparent as the truth is slowly uncovered regarding just how far from being in charge during his White House tenure Joe really was, is one of the least blameworthy. He didn’t nominate himself, after all, nor was he likely fully aware of how disabled he really was becoming as his four years dragged on. Biden was never seriously regarded as Presidential material when he had all of his marbles, but his Machiavellian party nominated him to run in 2020 anyway, not because there was a chance in the world that he would be an effective President, but because he was the most likely candidate to beat Trump, especially when a pandemic made it possible for Joe’s diminishing abilities to be hidden.
True, Biden chose the ridiculous Kamala Harris as his DEI VP, but again, Democrats didn’t have to nominate her as their 2024 Presidential candidate, just as the party didn’t have to become shills for open borders, out-of-control debt, race-based hiring, crippled law enforcement, social media censorship, politicized law enforcement, transmania and climate change hysteria.
Accepting responsibility and being accountable are core ethical values, and like so many other ethical values of late, this slowly rotting party doesn’t appear to have them in its repertoire. Meanwhile, its conduct since the election has been, amazingly, even more incompetent than its behavior before it, which also makes blaming Biden unsustainable. Poor Joe didn’t make his party’s Congressional members act like rude 5th graders during Trump’s State of the Union message. Biden hasn’t directed Democrats to put two of their most radical spokespersons, AOC and Bernie Sanders, on the road to rally what can only be the most unhinged members of their base. It isn’t Biden who is telling Democrats to protest the elimination of outrageous wastes of taxpayer funds, the deportation of gang members, the jettisoning of discriminatory DEI practices and banning biological men from competing in women’s sports.
What America is seeing is a classic tipping point, as defined by Malcolm Gladwell: “that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.” The Axis had been blanketing the culture in deception, Big Lies, and “it isn’t what it is” denial since the Obama administration, all while depending on the American public to be perpetually lazy, ignorant, gullible and stupid. Ethics Alarms repeatedly asserted in 2024 that we were nearing a moment when Abe Lincoln would be proven right once again: you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, which is precisely what the Democratic Party was certain it could do….and, astoundingly, that is what it continues to try to do, even though the proverbial jig is up.
Ethics Alarms 
“True, Biden chose the ridiculous Kamala Harris as his DEI VP….”
A minor quibble. I doubt Joe made a single decision during the entirety of this sordid affair. It was “Weekend at Joe’s” throughout. He might as well have been a ventriloquist’s dummy. He was sitting the collective lap of any number of nasty Dem operatives all along.
While I think that’s largely true, I give Biden a little less (or more) credit. I think there were times when he could have blown the whistle and/or resigned, but partisanship, ego, and greed kept him playing along during his good days, even knowing that the only decisions he actually made were the ones that his handlers happened to agree with. I think he felt he got his turn, and he wasn’t about to let a pesky thing like not being able to do the job keep him out of the White House.
If that was the case, he deserves a share of the blame, if not for selecting Harris then for refusing to admit he didn’t select her.
Biden also stated, after he had withdrawn, that Kamala should be his successor. Many felt that cut off the possibility of an open convention, though I have never understood why. Did Biden really make that decree, or was he told to make it? Personally, I think the Democrats were trapped into nominating Harris from the mmoment she got her DEO VP slot. And I still think the party will risk a split if it tries to nominate male or a non-of color Presidential candidate in 2028. Well, good: they did this to themselves.
I think they were stuck with Kamala once some legal examinations were done regarding all the money — big money — the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign had amassed. It was believed that if neither ran then the money had to either be returned to donors or put into some kind of escrow… But not automatically given to a new Dem candidate team. After seeing Biden in that debate many of the original donors began expressing “buyer’s remorse” and getting new contributions might be a problem. So Kamala bought her way to the top of the ticket, literally with other people’s money. The Dems had painted themselves into a corner.
Give the democrat party the credit it deserves.
In 2016 they rigged the primary to give the nomination to one of the most divisive political figures in politics. She was pretty much the only democrat that would have lost to Trump.
In 2024 for completely eliminated the primary and anointed the most DEI candidate the world has seen.
They deserve to keep losing until they give the power back to the people they want to elect them and actually let their ranks have democracy again.