When You Have Three Presidents, You Have Zero Presidents
Biden, Trump, Elon.
A giant, super-sized Secret pod today with a special guest! We talk about Liz Cheney’s exposure, Elon’s shadow presidency, Sarah’s triumph at the Reason debate, and Christmas movies.
The show is here, only for members of Bulwark+.
1. Quarterbacks
There’s a saying in the NFL: When your team has two quarterbacks, it actually has zero quarterbacks.
What this means is that a franchise with two starting quarterbacks on the roster becomes paralyzed. There’s controversy. Both the locker room and management get divided into factions. Instead of having the team focused on moving forward and improving, all attention is focused on resolving the quarterback position. Usually both of the quarterbacks perform worse: They get happy feet. They rush their progressions. They’re so worried about losing their job that they either force things or become overly cautious. They can’t find the middle-ground of controlled aggression where a successful QB needs to live.
Which is why whenever an NFL team winds up in the two-quarterback trap, they try to unload one of the QBs as quickly as possible.
Right now America has three presidents. Which means we have zero presidents.
Joe Biden is, nominally, the sitting president of the United States. He occupies the Oval Office; he has the nuclear football. But for one reason or another, he has quiet-quit his job.1
Donald Trump is the president-elect. He has no official power but has already started acting like the head of state. He’s meeting with dignitaries, making appearances at international events, issuing policy dictums.
Elon Musk has decided to act as a shadow president. Musk is the richest man in the world and one of the largest vendors to the U.S. government. He owns his own social network. He was the single largest donor to Trump’s campaign. Musk has set up shop at Trump’s Florida mansion; he accompanies Trump to various meetings; he issues his own policy dicta. He conducts himself like a non-state actor.
Three presidents. And so, zero presidents.
The federal government is about to shut down because Biden has declined to intervene, Trump has intervened on one side, and Musk has intervened on the other.
The question is: How long can this situation go on? Unlike with an NFL team, I think the answer is: