January 6, 2025
Unwavering support for the restoration of the old regime means bonuses for Liz Cheney, Hillary Clinton and George Soros.
In theory, the beheading of the king and queen should prompt some sobering thoughts among the ruling class. But after Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette were famously guillotined in 1793, the surviving members of the House of Bourbon and their most ardent supporters remained firmly committed to reviving the very brazen autocracy that had sparked the French Revolution in the first place. In 1796 Chevalier de Panat, a moderate who hoped that in exile the monarchist faction would learn political prudence, despaired in a letter to a friend that “no one has forgotten anything and learned nothing.” In historical memory, de Panat’s taunt usually turns into a clearer formulation: “The Bourbons learned nothing and forgot nothing.”
After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. The Bourbons did enjoy a brief return to power, but the new regime of Louis XVIII and Charles X confirmed de Panat’s analysis. The restored Bourbons showed no more leadership than before, leading to the July Revolution of 1830.
I have often thought that the epitaph “nothing learned and nothing forgotten” applied not only to the Bourbons, but also to the establishment of the Democratic Party. In 2016, the establishment suffered a major historic shock when their own Hillary Clinton—the candidate they had worked overtime to become the party’s presidential nominee—was defeated by a high-profile outsider who ran an anti-establishment campaign, Donald Trump. The rise of Trumpism has not led to self-criticism of the establishment, but rather to the fantasy of restoring the old regime: while the party has adopted some of the populist economic policies championed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, they have been incorporated into a larger project. counter Trumpism by restoring bipartisan civility. The goal was a centrist-led People’s Front that would honor supposedly moderate Republicans (notably John McCain and Mitt Romney) and wealthy donors (notably former Republican Michael Bloomberg)—a coalition that would push Trumpism to the fringes of the political sphere. spectrum.
In 2020, the Democratic coalition has rallied behind Joe Biden as the most natural avatar of the restoration of the old regime. Within the party itself, Biden was the only candidate who could fend off the insurgent threat of Bernie Sanders. More broadly, a career in the Senate spans five decades and history friendship with republicans such as Strom ThurmondBiden was the epitome of the old order. Making Biden the presidential candidate was the equivalent of French monarchists using demonic magic to bring a zombie Marie Antoinette to life. While Biden has made some adjustments to the realities of the 21st century, notably by supporting robust social spending championed by the left wing of the Democratic Party, overall his presidency has been a prolonged exercise in bipartisan nostalgia — especially his foreign policy devoted to financing proxy wars in Europe and the Middle East to strengthen America’s global hegemony.
Now that Donald Trump has won his second presidential victory in three election cycles, the fantasy of restoring the old regime had to be dealt a death blow.
Still, Biden used the final days of his failed presidency last week to hand out awards that show his commitment to revitalizing the failing establishment is stronger than ever.
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Biden on Thursday awarded the President’s Civic Medal up to 20 people, including Liz Cheney, a former representative who is popular among centrist Democrats as a Republican who has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump’s 2021 coup attempt. Two days later, Biden presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the nation’s highest civilian honor—to a group that The New York Times described as “principal members of the political, financial, and celebrity establishment of which he had long been a part.” Recipients included Hillary Clinton, the late George Romney (former governor of Michigan and Mitt Romney’s father) and billionaire George Soros. The Times explained the award to Soros, noting: “After weeks in which Mr. Trump has paraded Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, as a member of his inner circle, Mr. Biden seemed to want to say: We have billionaires, too. »
Nor is Soros the only billionaire honored by Biden: David Rubenstein, founder of private equity fund The Carlyle Group, has also joined the President’s Medal of Freedom honor roll. As historian Rick Perlstein recently documented Art American AvenueRubenstein’s stock in trade is using political access for private gain, pioneering the vulture capitalist tactic of buying companies with borrowed money and mining them for profit. Embracing a figure like Rubenstein as “our billionaire” is a good way to destroy any credibility the Democratic Party has as a defender of ordinary people.
Another unequivocally elite honoree was Anna Wintour, an editor Fashion. Explaining the Wintour Prize, The New York Times noted that Wintour “put the first lady, Jill Biden, on the cover Fashion twice in the last four years rejecting Melania Trump during her husband’s presidency. Ms. Wintour is one of the leading fundraisers in the fashion industry, having organized events for Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign in London and Paris last year.”
The Times sees Biden’s awards as a political statement, saying “the 82-year-old president is sending an unmistakable message of support for a democratic order that he says is threatened by Mr. Trump’s re-election.” Biden underscored the point at the end of the ceremony, saying, “Let’s remember that our sacred efforts continue, and to continue, as my mother would say, we must keep the faith.”
The noble demand to “keep the faith” is less inspiring when one considers the precise nature of the faith Biden is marking here. In truth, these awards ceremonies offer chilling proof that Biden has neither forgotten nor learned anything. As Trump prepares to return to the White House and wreak untold damage, Biden is handing out prizes for participating in a failed enterprise. He returns to the illusion of renewed bipartisan civility and the mirage of restoration of the old regime even after the project has conclusively proven itself to be a disaster for America and the world.
Even worse, by presenting the policy as a choice between Trump and this failed establishment, Biden is doing Trump a huge favor. The future president is not a political genius. Trump is a miserable, ugly figure that was deeply unpopular in most cases with most of the population since he entered national politics. Trump’s only political advantage—a trump card that rarely lets him down—is that he has been the voice of anger against the establishment at a time when most Americans are disaffected with the political elite.
Live like me repeatedly insistedin the era of anti-system politics. This has been the dominant reality in the United States since at least 2005, when the war in Iraq intensified. Both in the United States and the rest of the world, anti-establishment politics intensified with the global economic crash of 2008.
Consider the group Biden chose to honor. What do Joe Biden, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton and the Cheney family have in common? All of them supported the war in Iraq (and the main instigator of this war was Dick Cheney). David Rubenstein, whose Carlyle Group profited enormously in the 1990s by buying up troubled defense firms that flourished after the 9/11 attacks, is a direct beneficiary of militarism. To his credit, George Soros opposed the Iraq war, but one can still question the wisdom of honoring the billionaire in a time of anti-establishment anger. Broadly speaking, Biden has created a pantheon of figures associated with the most damaging features of the current system.
Sure, Biden honored some progressives in his selection for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but surprisingly, two of them are dead: Robert F. Kennedy Sr. (who was assassinated in 1968) and civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer (who died in 1977). Kennedy was certainly chosen as a way to reclaim the Kennedy name, long cherished by Democrats, from the renegade son of the slain leader, Trump ally Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Again, this seems like an exercise in nostalgia. Of course Hammer deserves all the credit, but there are living civil rights leaders who could also be recognized. The fight against racism continues, especially since Trump is back in the White House. It should not be considered a simple story.
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Democratic politics based on nostalgia and antiquarianism have always been doomed to failure. The only way to fight Trump’s fraudulent anti-establishment politics is to organize leftist anti-establishment politics based on economic populism. This is the pressing political challenge of the moment, and it means we must consign Biden and his illusions of restoring the old regime to the same dustbin of history as the Bourbons.
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