In Hans Christian Andersen’s classic folktale “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” a vain monarch pays two con artists to make an expensive suit of clothes that cannot be seen by fools. When the emperor and his ministers can’t see the clothes, they don’t say anything—after all, they don’t want to be taken for fools. When the emperor’s subjects can’t see the new “clothes,” they don’t say anything either.

It’s only when an innocent child laughs at the emperor strutting around half-naked that everyone realizes they are the fools. Yet the emperor doesn’t end his parade. In fact, he swaggers more arrogantly than ever.

On June 27, 2024, millions of Americans realized that they had been fooled. The supposedly wise men and women of the regime promised the country that the president was “sharp,” “focused,” and “vibrant.” As the first presidential debate unfolded, the con was exposed. And just as in Andersen’s story, the imperial president Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. is strutting about more confidently than ever before.

But as it revealed the human tragedy that has befallen a confused old man on the world’s biggest stage, the debate put the spotlight on a deeper issue. If Joe Biden cannot reliably string sentences together, then there is no way that he is the one exercising the authority of the presidency.

The most powerful elected official in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people is incapable of exercising any of the powers vested in him by the Constitution.

If the commander in chief is not leading the executive branch, who is?

The question has a very simple answer: No one knows.

While it is possible that the executive branch is currently being run by Vice President Kamala Harris or by the president’s cabinet, the most likely possibility seems to be that bureaucrats in agencies like the FDA and CIA—the so-called “Deep State”—are in charge. After all, even when presidents are of sound mind and body, most government decisions are not in their hands. Rather, they have been handed over to the “experts” who staff regulatory agencies.

Many of those experts cycle between the agencies charged with regulating business and the businesses they are supposed to regulate—but that’s another story. What is relevant here is that none of these people have been granted, constitutionally,  the powers that they now hold.

The Constitution is crystal clear as to who rightfully holds executive power. As Article II opens, “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” According to the supreme law of the land, the president is the only person who can run the executive branch. Neither the Vice President, nor the cabinet members, nor the managerial elite have that authority.

For nearly 10 years, a substantial portion of American citizens have gone to the ballot box with one goal in mind: to scale back the administrative state. Many are willing to support anyone who promises to fight back. So it is that the political party that claims to champion family values has elected a morally unsavory candidate for the simple reason that he set out to “drain the swamp.”

After all, as I’ve written elsewhere, some 70 percent of Americans believe the system is rigged in favor of the rich and powerful. Rooting out the corruption of the regime is so important that even a controversial former president seems preferable to a zombie controlled by shadowy elites.

Until now, the men and women of the media and the current administration have slandered those who oppose administrative overreach as “conspiracy theorists.” On debate night, the conspiracy was laid bare for all to see. And now, only one question remains:

Do Americans want a government run by people they elect, or a government run by people they cannot name?

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Image credit: public domain