Has anyone out there seen President Joe Biden recently? It’s a question that has been asked a lot over the years. Back in 2020, when he was running for president, it came up repeatedly. But that was during America’s pandemic madness, which gave Biden a veneer of plausibility for being holed up in his basement.

He doesn’t have that excuse anymore, so where is he? Not out and about. Do you see him on TV? A Wall Street Journal issue this week, to cite just one token of the situation, didn’t mention Biden in a headline until the bottom of Page 13. Even then, it was coupled to the word “feeble,” not to an official act. This wasn’t a bad news decision by the paper but an accurate reflection of the facts of Biden’s utter irrelevance.

So, who is running the country and leading the free world? It’s a bit disingenuous of me to ask that as though this is a sudden change. Some of us have been pointing out for years that Biden was never really in charge.

But what until recently was a minority view (assailed by the Democratic machine whenever uttered) has now become a general and incontrovertible understanding. Our nation knows it, and so do our enemies. Perception has caught up with reality. Democrats fraudulently pretended otherwise for years, but three months before the election and nearly another three before the end of Biden’s presidency, the United States is without a chief executive and commander in chief.

Still, just because Biden’s ineffectiveness has long been a fact doesn’t mean nothing has changed since Democrats admitted it and dumped him. It’s gotten a lot worse. That’s the point; the party coup didn’t fix the problem, for Biden is still president. That Democrats are willing to leave an empty suit notionally in charge until Jan. 20 is not reassuring about their interest in actual governance.

Biden’s meltdown wasn’t restricted to his June debate with former President Donald Trump. The vaporization of his authority has continued, and it sharply accelerated after he bowed out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Lame duck” doesn’t even begin to describe it. There has never been a collapse of presidential authority as instantaneous as this. He has sunk without a trace, dwindled to the foot of Page 13, and entirely disappeared from the national stage.

So, back to the question of who is running the country. Clearly, left-wing apparatchiks in the White House and engine room of the Democratic machine will oversee a simulacrum of democratic government. But who is running them?

The question is answered by looking at the way the party endorsed Harris. If you want to know who the most important person is in a meeting, look at who took his seat last.

The first person to endorse Harris was Biden himself, and it was his last exercise of genuine power in a five-decade political career. It forced the hand of the other Democratic bigwigs, some of whom wanted a better candidate than Harris. Initially, several congressional small fry swam into position behind her. Then came bigger fish. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) endorsed the veep, and that was a big deal but not the biggest. Harris’s anointing became a certainty after the charade of her meeting with the Democrats’ official top two, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (also NY).

But even then, the last Democrat to take his seat at the celebratory gathering of joyful anti-Biden plotters held out for two more days, building tension and underscoring his continued dominance over the party of the Left and the subordination of whomever it chooses as its figurehead. 

Barack Obama, who has served his maximum two terms in the White House, took his seat at the Kamala party, at which point everyone could breathe a sigh of relief, secure in the knowledge that no one else mattered. Obama hadn’t wanted her, but he wasn’t going to relinquish the levers of power in a fit of pique.

He and Michelle called their newly accepted subordinate, and Harris was taped wreathed in smiles of gratitude. “Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office,” Obama said with characteristically sonorous dissimulation.

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Note that even in his congratulations, the former president pointed out that it would be he and Michelle who would get the credit if Harris made it to the Oval Office. The subtext, unspoken publicly, was, “Don’t think you built this yourself. If you make it to the presidency with the help of our well-oiled election engine and our coalition, you will owe us.”

Harris got the message and answered dutifully, “Michelle, Barack, this means so much to me. I’m looking forward to doing this with the two of you.” That’s it. She knows her place in the hierarchy. She is happy and grateful for the opportunity to be the face of Obama’s fourth term in office.