We’re seeing a lot of fuss and bother over the 2024 presidential election.
But do we even need a president?
I ask because we don’t have one now.
And we haven’t had one for all practical purposes for something between a few months and three years.
Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald recently tweeted, “The US has no functional president and has not had one for months, and it’s barely noticeable and barely matters because there’s a permanent unelected machine that runs the government.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ken.) replied, “Where’s the lie?” Elon Musk commented, “Bingo.”
Joe Biden may be capable of lobbing insults at half the country, but he certainly isn’t running things.
His dementia became impossible to hide, even with the help of an eagerly cooperative media, by June of this year, and was in fact obvious to anyone who cared to notice well before that.
He’s been a figurehead for a long time.
Kamala Harris isn’t running things, either.
The vice presidency is not an executive position.
All the executive power the Constitution grants is lodged in the president; the veep isn’t a co-pilot or second-in-command or junior president, but merely a backup.
And the only way to deploy that backup is for the president to die or resign.
So who’s running things now?
Good question.
During Biden’s term, we’ve heard rumors that Biden’s wife Dr. Jill Biden, various named and unnamed staffers, or assorted Obama administration operatives were actually calling the shots.
There’s at least some precedent for a first lady to run a shadow presidency: Woodrow Wilson’s wife Edith effectively ran the government for a year and a half, after he was incapacitated by a stroke.
And of course a whole collection of bureaucrats, interagency committees and even lobbyists (who often write federal legislation and agency regulations) may be basically steering the ship of state in the absence of an actual captain.
What’s surprising, though, is how little anyone seems to care.
Partly in response to the Edith Wilson regency, the nation added the 25th Amendment to the Constitution so that a president incapable of performing the duties of office, but unwilling to resign, could be replaced.
If, as virtually everyone agreed after the June presidential debate, it was obvious that Biden wasn’t up to running for president, it should have also been obvious that he wasn’t up to being president.
Thus he should have either resigned or been replaced by Harris under the amendment’s procedures.
Why hasn’t he?
Well, there are a couple of possibilities, neither of them good.
Maybe Democratic Party insiders think Harris would make such a hash of even a temporary presidency that she would destroy her chances of winning the election in November.
It’s an absurdly cynical position that would, if it worked, subject the nation to four years of incompetent leadership just to avoid making it too obvious too soon.
But it is no less plausible for that.
Or maybe it’s just that those currently running the government like this president-less setup.
They have power without responsibility and without meaningful accountability.
No doubt careers are being built, lucrative contracts are being let, and favors are being traded in ways that would be much harder to pull off with a fully functioning brain in the Oval Office.
However, the vast federal bureaucracy gets whatever democratic legitimacy it possesses as an extension of the office of an elected president.
If the power the bureaucracy wields is not at some point subject to the will of the people, then it’s functioning less as a government than as a collection of tyrants, ruling by force, not by consent of the governed.
That most of our political class doesn’t care about this at all tells us how little it thinks of both democracy and legitimacy.
But a government whose citizens see it as illegitimate is inherently unstable, and at great risk of domestic unrest or simple collapse.
The coming election offers a stark choice between a chief executive who will govern as an executive, and one more likely to serve as a colorless tool of special interests.
The special interests would prefer the tool. But maybe they should rethink.
Because if America can get by without a functioning president, people might conclude that we could get by without most of the government, too.
(Heck, we basically did during COVID).
And if we can get by without most of the government, the appeal of an executive like Argentina’s Javier Milei, who’s in the process of laying off most of the bureaucracy, will only grow.
So what’ll it be, guys?
You want a real president, or do you want to start looking for real jobs?
I think I know the answer.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a professor of law at the University of Tennessee and founder of the InstaPundit.com blog.
