The Monkees are in charge

The death of Monkee Michael Nesmith last month at 78 was another reminder that the 1960s ended a long, long time ago. He was old. 

But he was not as old as the president (79) or the House speaker (81) or the House majority leader (82) or the House majority whip (81).

They are so old that they are too old to be baby boomers. The Monkees in DC won't cede power and give way to a new generation of leaders.

Biden, Pelosi, Hoyer, and Clyburn are relics of an earlier age, and one that was not very good. And they are not the best and the brightest of that era. They are more like the crumbs at the bottom of the popcorn box. Unpleasant and inedible. Half-popped, too.

Their only skills are building personal fortunes and accepting bribes. They are very good at the latter as Biden and Pelosi use their children and other relatives as conduits for the payoffs.

They came into power as part of the anti-war, don't-trust-anyone-over-30 crowd. Biden was 29 when Delawareans elected him to the Senate on a lark. The times were good and voters wanted new.

We're the young generation, and we've got something to say

But Biden really wasn't new and he had nothing to say. He sucked up to the old Dixiecrats in a senatorial apprenticeship that would lead to a committee chairmanship when he was in his 40s and a good one when he was in his 50s. 

His premature baldness was symbolic of his old-time hackery. I am sure those old grifting segregationists that Biden sucked up to realized quickly how dumb, inarticulate and screwy Biden was. 

But they also knew he would stay bought. He is a political savant. He knows how to get elected. Robert Gates, secretary of defense for both Bush 43 and Obama, wrote in a memoir that Biden had been wrong on just about every foreign policy issue for 40 years. In 2020, Gates did not back down from that statement.

He voted for Biden anyway.

That shows how little Washington cares for this country.

CNN reported, "Focus groups are giving party operatives nightmares. Biden is coming across as old and absent, they say. Real and perceived fumbles play into deep fears that he's not up to the job and that Democrats are incompetent. Few Americans can say what was in the massive bills he's signed, though many have heard about Democratic infighting and failure in what he hasn't signed."

Voters are willing to tolerate graft and corruption as long as those running the show are competent. Mayor Richard Daley was beloved in Chicago. Competent people like Gates serve as bumpers protecting us from the damage of the nincompoops at the top.

Biden has no bumpers. He has people like Milley who runs the Pentagon and Paternity Leave Pete who runs transportation. They are more concerned about pronouns than they care about defending the country or unloading cargo in California.

Carter had some protection from Congress. Tip O'Neill was House speaker and Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield was followed by Bobby Byrd. As much as I disliked Byrd, he was better than Schumer because Byrd was smart enough to maintain the Senate rules and traditions. Instead of tearing them down, Byrd acquired a parliamentarian's knowledge of the Senate rules. Schumer is power mad and ignorant of the rules at a time when the nation needs leadership, not partisanship.

Pelosi proved her uselessness under Trump, who showed her for what she is: vile. Her off-with-his-head impeachments, mean girls clapback and her temper tantrum in tearing up of his State of the Union address were proof that she was unfit for public office and belongs not in a nursing home but an insane asylum.

It is not that Republicans are young and vibrant. Mitch McConnell is as old as the president and has his wife collect alms for the politically connected.

The Monkees generation had many fine people. And their audience -- baby boomers -- had many more because well there were more baby boomers.

And they are dying off too.

In many ways, American politics is stuck in the 1850s when two sides could not compromise on the end of slavery. The success of capitalism in the North showed that the slavery and feudalism of the South were a dead-end. Rather than work out a plan for the emancipation and education of the slaves -- with their owners compensated for their loss of property -- Southerners pushed to expand their failed way of life in the West. Northerners too dug in. The result was the destruction of the South and a civil rights mess than took a century to clean up. We buried 600,000 young men because old men were too stubborn to compromise.

The stakes today are our nationhood itself. The question is whether we are an independent and free nation or are we just a big old fat turkey farm for Red China to poach? The globalism that Democrats and RINOs embrace is the death knell for the nation. They backed Biden knowing he's an idiot.

Like many celebrities, Nesmith outlived his popularity. He even outlived his form of music as rock fades into oldies stations.

Has America outlived its form of government?

We're the old generation, and we've got nothing to say