Biden, Bush, 1/6, 9/11
Peter Schultz
It’s important to recognize two things about our current situation: (1) The obsequiousness surrounding Joe Biden is nothing new; (2) This obsequiousness serves a political agenda, which also isn’t something new.
“In April 2003, as Saddam Hussein’s cult of personality collapsed across Iraq, George W. Bush’s cult of personality surged in the United States.” [p. 243. Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush] After Bush landed on an aircraft carrier, blazoning a sign, “Mission Accomplished,” Chris Matthews of MSNBC said: “Imagine Joe Lieberman in this costume, or even John Kerry. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our President.” Glen Ifill on PBS, as if to confirm Matthews’ take on women, said: “Picture perfect. Part Spider-Man, part Tom Cruise, part Ronald Reagan. The President seized the moment on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific.”
So the obsequiousness that accompanied the Biden inauguration was nothing new to American politics. Frequently, such delusions infect the body politic, much as Covid 19 has infected our society. It was evident after Nixon resigned, when Reagan defeated Carter in the 1980 presidential election, when Obama won the 2008 presidential election, and, of course, on January 21, when Biden was inaugurated as president and Trump left town.
It is important, however, to understand that at least with regard to the hero-worship of Bush, that followed the 9/11 attacks, as well as the ongoing hero-worship of Joe Biden following the alleged “insurrection” of 1/6, these phenomena serve political purposes. Bush used the attacks on 9/11 to fortify the “New World Order” that his father proclaimed while running Saddam out of Kuwait. The hero-worship was accompanied by attacks on anyone who criticized or doubted Bush’s war on terror and his invasion, occupation, and destruction of Iraq. Those doubting or criticizing were portrayed as “un-American,” and this was because they were challenging US foreign policy, which was and is an essential part of our New World Order. In other words, the critics weren’t just challenging the Iraq invasion alone, because their criticisms threatened to undermine the New World Order and all the changes that meant for the American political order. A quote from Bush is revealing as to the character of this New World Order: When asked by Bob Woodward if he ever explained himself, Bush said: “Of course not. I am the commander – see, I don’t need to explain why I say things….Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.” [p. 220, Neck Deep]
Similarly, the current obsequiousness regarding Joe Biden serves the same political agenda, completing the New World Order by bringing the war on terror by launching a war on domestic terrorists. And, such as with Bush’s glorification after 9/11, so too the glorification of Biden will lead to attacks on anyone who criticizes or doubts his politics. Doubts about the necessity or desirability of Biden’s war on domestic terrorists cannot be allowed, cannot be deemed legitimate because that would threaten and possible undermine the New World Order that has been constructed at least since Bush Sr. undertook Desert Storm and proclaimed, e.g., that “the Vietnam syndrome” was dead. That proclamation meant that there would be a new foreign policy, one not affected by the debacle of Vietnam, that would be an essential part of Bush’s New World Order. Bush was proclaiming an imperial America and, of course, imperial orders are best served by thinking of the leading imperialists as heroes. That imperial order has been fortified by the Trump presidency insofar as Trump has, inadvertently, rescued the very elites whose mis-governance made his presidency possible.
It is difficult to think of a better exclamation point on the end of the Trump presidency and the beginning of the Biden presidency than the “insurrection” on 1/6, just as it is difficult to think of a better event than 9/11 for allowing Bush, et. al., to work toward completing our New World Order. How will this New World Order fare? Well, if the experiences of Shrub’s presidency are any indication, we’re in for a rough ride.