"Inauguration ruminations: A podcast."
Where will Biden take us?
Earlier today Jospeh R. Biden Jr. was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. Expectations, in some quarters, seem quite high, and nowhere is this truer than among the establishment media, where Donald Trump's (no doubt temporary) departure from the scene has elicited sighs of relief and the hope that Biden and Vice–President Kamala Harris will return us to “normalcy.”
But is a return to what the establishment considers normal what the moment calls for?
The Scrum’s founding editors, Patrick Lawrence, Marshall Auerback, and James Carden, gathered shortly after Biden's inaugural address to discuss the speech, its implications, and what we might expect from the incoming administration. Did the speech rise to the moment? What did Biden really mean when he called (incessantly) for “unity”—text and subtext? And is unity even possible in an era in which paranoia and suspicion of one's political opponents abound?
These, among other questions, we attempted to answer this afternoon.
—J. C.
Excellent Gentlemen. You kept me glued to my giant IMac screen the entire time. That said, let me say this about that (in my best Nixonian):
- I think that there was a tremendous amount of information that I was gleaning in the front end of your discussions. Think of me as a mole stealing all the journaliste secrets. I love having that info in my hip pocket but.... I think that most of what you were talking about will be OBE (overtaken by events). According to the Dept of the Treasury, the US is within spitting distance of $28T in debt whilst our (pre-COVID) GDP was $19+T. This is a bad thing. Having more debt than your annual income is generally accorded as bad. See what the EU had to say to Italy when their debt hit 136% of GDP. Also, Sleepy Joe is talking already about over $2+T in COVID relief AND increasing military spending. Where the hell is that money going to come from? I remember 1971 enrolled in the masters in physics program at UCONN and needed a job and income to pay for it and Nixon froze wages and prices and things weren't anywhere nearly as bad financially as they are now. A lot of the TBonds have the next to zero interest rate and when do they roll over? Do you seriously think the world is going to continue to buy our debt at that rate? Thus, I predict we will see a significant jump in the inflation rate. This will put a major crimp in the spending plans of the deep state.
- At the very end, you started talking about what I think is really driving much of our division. This insane belief in our "exceptionalism" and blithe assumption that everybody naturally wants to be our vassal in our splendid imperium. We've got to dispense with those notions.