Panicky Pandering

As the rats flee the Biden ship - with good cause, mind you - the purported captain and his handlers are flailing about, desperately trying to save their cushy jobs. With various attempts to show the world that Joe isn't the doddering, cognitively impaired old man we saw during the debate failing miserably, they've turned to the piece of their party - the leftists - that hasn't yet joined the flee brigade.

Joe hail-Mary'd two hairballs in a desperate attempt to find support. Both are naked pandering to the Left, and both reek of unconstitutionality. That pandering is a microcosm of his entire tenure as President, and the unconstitutionality is of no interest, because he has long treated Constitution as an annoying roadblock rather than the supreme law of the land.

Hairball #1 is a proposal to impose rent controls on a national level. No matter that rent control is the proximate cause of the massive housing shortages in big cities, as I've often blogged about.

Hairball #2 is a combination of ethics mandates and term limits for the Supreme Court. No matter that the Court is not subordinate to either the Executive or Legislative branches, of course. The Court has been the biggest thorn in Biden's and the progressives' sides, because, ever since Trump, it finally started doing its job by saying "no, thou shall not" to a handful of government excesses.

These blatant panders are making more headlines than another "panicked" effort: the rush to get regulations entrenched ahead of a likely GOP takeover of government. In other words, they're working to build a Trump-proof Deep State, just in case* Joe loses.

Once again, we see blatant evidence of this administration attempting to subvert democracy, even as it argues that Trump is an existential threat to democracy. The point of elections is to put representatives of the popular will into positions to pursue that popular will, subject to the limits of the Constitution. Setting up the system so that the new guy can't change it is an insult to the voters. But, the Left's modern mantra is that the voters can't be trusted.

Yes, indeed, it's time to trot out a Mencken aphorism.

But, just as capitalism is the worst economic system, but for all the others, representative limited government is the worst governance system, but for all the others. Thus, it's time to trot out a Buckley aphorism.

I'll save discussion about Right-pandering for another day.