« The best reason of all to never, ever give in to Antifa’s demands | Wind power makers suffer huge losses, want to abandon major project »
February 5, 2023

Trump as proxy president

By Monica Showalter

Is President Trump acting as a sort of proxy president in the wake of Joe Biden's 2020 stolen election?

The China spy balloon incident sure seems to indicate something of that sort.

While Joe Biden was dithering and downplaying the news of a Chinese spy balloon traversing the entire continental United States over the course of days as the public helplessly looked on, President Trump was issuing crisp presidential orders, almost as if he were still president.

Image: Donald Trump / Truth Social

He actually made more than one such statement but I have not found them all. 

He even had a cheering section, echoing him on:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And him, according to the Daily Mail:

Mike Pence, Trump's former vice president, tweeted, 'Shoot down the Chinese spy balloon,' as he then called on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to condemn the surveillance incident at his now-canceled meeting in Beijing. 

Which stands as a reminder of what we had in the past, compared with the wretchedly indecisive and hesitant Joe Biden, who's just conveyed to the Chinese that he'd be paralyzed if they were to launch an actual strike on the U.S. 

Biden, who was on vacation at Camp David when it happened, eventually got around to ordering the shootdown of the balloon yesterday -- after it had completed its mission, and while its debris rained down into the Atlantic Ocean, where retrieving it would be very difficult. It was almost as if he didn't want to do it. It was almost as if he did it for public relations purposes, which is how he's handled this entire affair.

But there seemed to be another factor: Trump, who was decisively calling for its shootdown. Biden actually seemed to be prompted by Trump, who was issuing those crisp orders that made so much sense to the American people. Trump, by the way, is no yahoo yelling Rambo-like calls to action -- he's a former president now, still with more experience at it than Biden, and everyone knows that he knows how the job is done. It seems unlikely that he would be calling for something that he knew couldn't or shouldn't be done.

So doddering Joe finally shot the plane down, as if to prove to Trump that he was no idiot. There was no weaseling out of it as something that was harmless or something that couldn't be done, as the excusemaking before that was going. Everyone knew that Trump knew the details and what was possible, so it's almost as if Biden was shamed into doing it by this terrifying backseat driver to his failed presidency.

This isn't the first time we have seen this happen. Back when the Bidenites were refusing to go to the border, Trump forced that issue, too, by declaring that he was going to the border. Very shortly after that declaration, Vice President Kamala Harris got a sudden and newfound urge to go to the border herself, just ahead of Trump as if to steal his thunder.

Had Trump not done what he did, the Bidenites would have remained slovenly and inactive. The China balloon would live to carry on another spy mission against the U.S. and/or its allies, and the border would remain unvisited.

Why the Bidenites think it's so important to one-up Trump again and again demonstrates how deeply he lives rent-free inside their heads -- and how Trump is the one calling the shots here, given that everything he does is a reminder to the public about what a competent president once looked like.

They know this, which is why Trump has become a sort of proxy president, the kind of person who can goad the lifeless Biden administration into action, just by saying what he would have done.

Maybe if they hadn't stolen the election, they wouldn't be this Trump-sensitive and Trump would not be like the persistent ghostly figure of shame in Lenny Bernstein's dream as imagined by Tom Wolfe in Radical Chic. But in a ghostlike way, the public can see who the real president of the United States really is when Trump issues his orders -- and it's not Joe Biden.

Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License

If you experience technical problems, please write to helpdesk@americanthinker.com