Biden in His Bunker
Philip Pilkington reflects on Joe Biden’s last days in office, and the terrible destruction he is causing, as the last gasp of “Boomer Nihilism”
Since its release in 2004, the German historical drama film Downfall has become something of a cult classic. It depicts Adolf Hitler and his inner circle during the Battle of Berlin, when the German National Socialist government is just days away from falling. Those who have not seen the film will likely be familiar with the clip of Hitler ranting and shouting that has now been turned into an internet meme in which the subtitles are replaced with a wide variety of alternative parodies. But the core of the film is not actually about a frustrated Hitler angrily venting his frustrations – indeed Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s secretaries in the film said that there was little shouting in the bunker in those final days – the true core of the film is the depiction of the utter nihilism of the key figures of National Socialism when faced with defeat.
The film depicts Hitler sending Germans to die in enormous numbers in pointless battles that will make no difference to the outcome of the war. Hitler is not making these decisions out of cowardice. When he is offered the ability to leave Berlin, he insists that he will stay and achieve victory or die trying. Rather he is making them because he has come to see the German people as weak and unworthy. This is best summed up by Goebbels who says: “I feel no sympathy. I repeat, I feel no sympathy! The German people chose their fate. That may surprise some people. Don't fool yourself. We didn't force the German people. They gave us a mandate, and now their little throats are being cut!” Likewise, when faced with all the death and suffering that is occurring around him, Hitler makes a statement that might have been lifted straight from the work of Friedrich Nietzsche: “Life never forgives weakness. This so-called humanity... is just priests' drivel. Compassion is a primal sin. Compassion for the weak is a betrayal of nature.”
The Biden administration cannot, of course, be compared to the National Socialists in terms of raw destructiveness. Nor are those in the Biden administration possessed with such a poisonous ideology as the National Socialists were. But watching the administration in its final days, we do see a similar destructive nihilism as was depicted in Downfall.
After being betrayed by his party and replaced by a candidate who lost the election definitively, and looking back on a track record of four years of utter disaster, Joe Biden seems to be possessed by a nihilistic rage that can only be described as demonic. This rage is leading him to make a series of decisions that seem to have no goal other than causing a maximum amount of pain to those around him. Some of these moves are targeted at Biden’s enemies, but some appear targeted at both his allies and the American people themselves – perhaps because Biden feels betrayed by them too.
The Unholy Trinity: Transgression
The first of these destructive actions was undertaken in mid-November when the Biden administration gave Ukraine permission to strike Russia with long-range missiles. In the months before the election the Biden administration had made clear that this option was off the table because to fire these missiles American or European operators would have to provide the targeting and this would be tantamount to NATO forces firing weapons against Russian territory – an action that could reasonably be interpreted as an act of war. But once Biden realised that the election was lost and he was no longer subject to any political constraints, these concerns that his own administration had articulated evaporated, and the lame duck president gave the go ahead. It must be stressed that this action was not a risky gambit to try to turn the tides of the war – no one can make the case that these strikes will make any difference to the outcome of the war – rather it is Biden crossing his own red lines purely for the sake of doing so. One is reminded of Augustine as a young boy who steals the pears simply for the joy that the transgression brings. “For, having plucked them,” Augustine wrote of the pears, “I threw them away, my sole gratification in them being my own sin, which I was pleased to enjoy.”
Biden’s pears have global ramifications. Green-lighting the missile strikes has pushed the world closer to nuclear conflict than it has ever been. In response, Russia fired a new intermediate range ballistic missile called the Oreshnik at Dnipro in Eastern Ukraine. The Oreshnik is designed to carry either nuclear or conventional warheads, but weapons like this are more commonly associated with nuclear capabilities. When that missile was fired it would have registered on NATO’s early-warning defence radars and operators would only have known it was not a nuclear launch because the Russians would have conveyed a message through the warning system. For the fifteen minutes or so that the Oreshnik flew, covering an enormous range of 800km at a speed of 2.5 to 3 kilometres per second, the operators of those early-warning radar were no doubt praying that the Russians were telling the truth and that a series of nuclear explosions were not about to take place in Ukraine or in the neighbouring countries.
The media, having become over the past half decade a comically transparent conduit for regime propaganda, explains none of this risk and tell the public to “keep calm and carry on”. Biden’s escalation has no military rationale. The president and those around him have decided to push the world to the brink merely because they feel that they can get away with it. Biden himself seems to get a thrill out of doing so, a rush of power through the veins of a man who feels completely powerless. The rest of the world looks on in horror, asking themselves how the United States has turned from being the guarantor of global stability to a nation that takes actions typically associated with those of a rogue state.
The Unholy Trinity: Shamelessness
The second destructive action that Biden undertook was the prophylactic pardoning of his son, Hunter Biden, at the beginning of December. Superficially we might be able to attribute some positive motive to this decision by the president. Although by all accounts a vile individual, Hunter is still Joe Biden’s son, and the president may feel a fatherly need to protect him. But any understanding of the issues surrounding Hunter Biden soon puts this to rest. It appears that Hunter was the president’s own “bag man” in his potentially corrupt dealings with the Ukrainians. That is, Hunter was ultimately engaged in criminal acts at the behest of his father. The pardon then cannot be read as a modern-dayversion of the prodigal son. Rather it is as much about protecting Joe Biden himself as it is about protecting Hunter. The Biden family is not a normal family with bonds forged exclusively out of love, but rather a business enterprise where kinship relations are infused with monetary significance.
This use of the presidential pardon was so nakedly corrupt, even Democrats raised concerns. “Pardoning Hunter Complicates the Legacy that Biden Envisioned” read a headline in The New York Times. These concerns are not really related to decorum – the regime media is long past decorum these days – but rather they relate to simple realpolitik. The concern is that if Biden utilises the justice system in such a self-serving way this will open to the gate to a Trump administration highlighting corruption within that system and moving to make substantive changes that will threaten incumbent vested interests. The sheer quantity of pardons for criminal behavior which have followed only underscores the anxiety.
Biden’s multiplication and abuse of his pardoning powers paves the way for American politics to descend into third worldism, where occupying high office will become a legal liability which can only be removed by executive fiat. Soon ex-presidents and senior officials might populate the prisons in much the same way they do in countries with highly dysfunctional democracies. Not only will this drastically lower the bar on domestic politics, but it will hammer the final nail in the coffin of American soft power abroad: how will the United States lecture other countries on democratic norms when American politicians are all arresting each other? Biden’s shameless use of the presidential pardon will have drastic consequences for the American republic at home and abroad.
The Unholy Trinity: Vindictiveness
The third destructive action the ailing Biden administration has undertaken seems aimed at destroying the economies of America’s allies and put pressure on American consumers who already find themselves with their backs against the wall. In late-November, the Biden administration announced that it was placing sanctions on Gazprombank, the bank tied to the Russian energy giant Gazprom. Gazprombank was being used, mainly by European countries to buy Russian gas. Europe has spent two and a half years trying to wean itself off Russian gas due to the Ukraine war. This has led to high energy prices in Europe and this in turn is starting to deindustrialise the continent: Volkswagon recently announced the closure of three German factories, a first in the postwar period. Despite destroying its economy, Europe has failed to cease consumption of Russian gas. Russia remains Europe’s second largest gas supplier.
When Europe started on its doomed venture to wean itself off Russian gas – aided by the mysterious destruction of the Nordstream pipeline in the summer of 2022 – it at least believed that it was pursuing a noble venture. At the time Europeans convinced themselves that the gas could be replaced with American liquified natural gas (LNG) which would gradually fall in price. None of this has come to pass. It is now crystal clear that energy sanctions only hurt Europe – Russia can find other buyers. The reason that the Biden administration did not previously sanction Gazprombank is because this was seen as being too destructive to Europe. The fact that the administration in its last days has engaged in these sanctions shows an extremely vindictive cynicism: Biden knows that these sanctions will only increase the pain on Europe without any real effect on Russia, but they are imposing them anyway. One gets the sense that Biden is angry that the Ukraine war has proven to be a disaster, and he is taking out his rage on those who supported his war efforts in Europe. There is no method to this madness; it is purely a case of an old man whose policies have failed taking out his anger on those around him.
If this were not ugly enough, in mid-December the Biden administration announced that it was moving to sanctions tankers carrying Russian oil. Until now, the Biden administration had avoided doing this as they feared it would result in higher oil prices. The American people have already suffered a nasty cost of living crisis and many feel that they cannot make ends meet – a significant rise in the cost of gasoline would tighten the screws further. Now that the election is over, however, the Biden administration clearly feel that any further economic pain imposed on the American people will only make incoming President Trump’s life harder and so they are moving forward with the sanctions. Biden is clearly moving to punish the voters who rejected his party. It needs barely be said that this damages the American economy and is obviously against the country’s interests. It appears that Biden and those around him have long ago left behind any notion of the national interest. Replacing the positive ideals that we hope our leaders hold about the countries they lead is a rage-filled vindictiveness that aims only at distributing cruelty and suffering for no other reason than to bring twisted pleasure to those that partake in it. This is as aimless as it is evil and sadistic.
Our Eminent Boomers
It is impossible not to watch the Biden administration in its final days and not conclude that the generation Joe Biden represents is an extremely sick one. One can detect not a shred of decency or charity or compassion. There is nothing in these actions that aims at any higher ideal. It is the pure working out of the basest of human instincts on a grand scale. It is a misery to watch. The Baby Boomer generation has long claimed to be the generation that embodies a whole host of virtuous ideals. This is the generation that cut its teeth opposing the Vietnam War and pushing for greater personal freedom. In its twilight hours, however, this generation has revealed a much darker side of its personality. This raises the obvious question: are these final acts in the Baby Boomer play revealing the truth of this generation, the real instincts behind the lofty ideals? It is hard to think otherwise: we can, after all, only judge a tree by its fruits.
Some have long suspected that the Baby Boomer generation deploy the ideals that they claim to uphold merely to pursue their own selfish desires. The ideals that they uphold – late liberal ideals – seem to all too conveniently fit with a furtherance of the rather base aims of the Baby Boomers themselves. When they champion a cause because it increases personal liberty, this can often look like straightforward cover for their own selfish behaviours. They claim to support the proliferation of pornography, for example, because it is an embodiment of free speech. But often it appears that they just enjoy watching pornography. They tell us that the rampant late liberal culture of easy divorce increases personal liberty. But one suspects that they just want the opportunity to cheat on their wives and husbands and destroy their childrens’ lives with minimal repercussions. They say that second wave feminism is aimed at the liberation of half of humanity. But often it appears that they just want access to the labour of women. Immigration is a virtuous end in itself, they say – and it conveniently provides the Baby Boomers with cheap domestic servants. The list goes on and on.
If the ideals of the Baby Boomers are just the velvet glove covering up the iron fist of the most selfish of their instincts, then it makes perfect sense that toward the end the mask would start to slip, and these instincts would reveal themselves. Perhaps the only surprise is just how ugly and intense those instincts really are. The motif of the loathly lady is one in which an unattractive woman is treated with kindness by a man and is then revealed to be a beautiful maiden. With respect to the Boomers and their ideals we might reverse this motif: their ideals appear alluring on the surface but once we get close, we see that they are hideous and disfigured.
This can be very dispiriting to younger people. Watching the Boomers burn the house down creates a crushing feeling of powerlessness. Yet the one saving grace is that, provided they do not push us into nuclear annihilation, we will be the ones to write their legacy. Here we might think of the First World War generation who wrote the obituaries of the generation that sent them to the trenches – and those obituaries were styled as a warning to future generations. But at the same time as they did this, the generation of the First World War also attacked everything that had come before them. Lytton Strachey wrote his Eminent Victorians to tear down, not the generation that had sent his friends to die in the trenches, but the generations prior to that who had maintained stability and order in the Victorian era. Strachey’s generation were so dejected with the world around them that they attacked their own civilisation. In doing so, they merely amplified the destructiveness of the warmongers that they so hated. We should not fall into this trap. The Baby Boomers themselves are the product of the same liberal nihilism that Strachey and his circle promoted – indeed, they are probably the final product of that liberal nihilism, its true telos. Instead, we should move to revive the civilisational ideals that they have rejected. Darkness, after all, can only be expelled with light.
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Dear Philip: I am new hear and subscribed because I saw some ungated, fine writing from you and others. It is my first day reading as a subscriber. However, when I saw the subtitle of this article, I felt uninspirited to read more of the article, though I tried.
The term Boomer is difficult for me. Did you know Biden is not a Boomer? He was born too early. Did you know that last Christmas there were 59-year-old Boomers?
The Substack where I participate most has a host who says, again and again "I'm GenX" - I am not sure he knows that there are Boomers barely his senior. He thinks he is magically different from those folks? At 57 with some Boomers at 59? I feel sorry for the poor guy who fears aging I guess. But what is happeneing is he turns off subscribers aged 59-77. And those can be people with the time, energy funds to subscribe to Substack. This is especially hurtful to "late Boomers"
nowhere near 70. Why say you are so different than them? Why make "Boomer" a perjorative? Because it is normally used that way, just as you did in your subtitle.
Furthermore, I am not differnt from others who were children during the "Hippie days" of the late sixties and early seventies. I was just as scared and confused by hippies as they were. The pretend line about people - how they are supposedly different depeneding upon whether they were born before or after 1965 is ridiculous. If anything, those born about 1950-1970 have a lot in common (children during sex/drugs/rocknroll Hippie days) but even then it is hard to generalize.
I with people would say older, older-generation, middle-aged, younger, adults under 40, over-70s, seniors - there are so many terms that are better descriptions, more in tune with the author's meaning depending on what is being written, than this ridiculous, very devisive, hurtful and indeed insulting idea that we can carve up people into segments about 18 years long and they will all be alike, but those one day older or younger than them will be different. Oh, and those born '46 to '65 should all be slurred as Boomers, all like each other, all stupid and wrong. I think not.
Should anyone over 70 be allowed to run for office ?
The old have so little to lose.