Leadership Without Leaders

When ships list, leaders are supposed to stand. When looking over the federal funding impasse, neither the captain nor those down in the engine room stepped up when needed.

What are we seeing?

The familiar pattern is emerging: shifting blame, evasion on an institutional level, and the distraction machine hitting overdrive.

The Schumer Shutdown didn't just happen; it was engineered. Readers of the Townhall Media family know all too well what happened. When the continuing resolution expired in early October, the Senate often failed to pass a basic funding plan. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) doubled down, calling on his caucus to use the same strategy perfected over decades: stall, spin, and blame. While Republicans argued over priorities, Democrats worked hard to make obstruction look like statesmanship.

It hasn't worked. 

A Shutdown Built on Distraction

As the federal government sputtered, President Joe Biden's allies took action, and boy, did they act.

Former special prosecutor Jack Smith led an investigation, Arctic Frost, targeting 400 Republican-linked people, from congressional staffers to private citizens, potentially so sweeping that it would make Watergate look like amateur hour.

The stated goal was justice, but it looked more like intimidation, because when the Justice Department sets its sights on one party's political apparatus, while under a president with mud instead of brains, whose own memory and command were in doubt, it stops being anything resembling justice.

The Weaponization Nobody Admits

How many times during the Trump impeachment circus did we listen to Democrats repeat the line, "No one is above the law"?

However, no matter how many times they've said it, when over 100 Republican figures find themselves in the crosshairs of subpoenas, while people surrounding the president remain untouchable, those words ring hollow.

Defenders of the Biden administration claim Smith's tactics were routine.

Like hell they were.

Routine investigations don't gag carriers from notifying senators that their phones were targeted, nor do they sweep up campaign donor records unrelated to any criminal charge.

Imagine if President Donald Trump ever ordered or benefited from a similar dragnet. Not only would airwaves melt, but Wi-Fi signals would burn so hot they'd fry eggs.

Not this time, because the same outlets ended up calling it "standard procedure."

Projection in Full Bloom

Do you want to see a textbook example of projection? Look at the left's charge of tyranny against Trump; they accuse him of authoritarianism while excusing surveillance, silencing, and suppression under their own watch.

When tyranny wears a face, it's not Trump's; we see the smirk of a bureaucrat who believes accountability is optional, especially when the press corps is on his side.

If the Biden team was good at anything, it was governing through denial, calling every accusation "partisan," every inquiry "disinformation," and, when the fact finally emerged, pivoting to "old news."

It's the same tired playbook, but this time the stakes are far higher.

The Decline They Can’t Hide

No longer is Biden's decline a rumor; the Hur report, the Axios audio, and the House Oversight findings all show a leader unable to recall critical details and who relied on staff to sign his name by autopen.

No serious republic functions with a figurehead president and unelected aides pulling the strings, handing off cognition the same way you'd do with speech drafts; and you especially can't outsource the duties of commander in chief to anonymous aides with pens forging authority.

The Media as Shield, Not Watchdog

The Fourth Estate has one primary function: to keep power honest. For the past thirty years, too many "journalists" have been running interference for it. It's not a confession when Chuck Todd openly admits the press "missed" Biden's decline; it's complicity.

Several members of the center-right media, such as the New York Post and City Journal, have documented how the same media that crucified Trump for a typo remained silent through the many years of cognitive crisis in the Oval Office.

The media's silence isn't neutrality; it's collaboration. When truth itself becomes partisan property, our republic will not survive.

When Evasion Becomes Policy

It's a clear pattern: Schumer works hard to evade responsibility for his shutdown; the DOJ evades neutrality while pursuing political enemies; Biden's aides evade scrutiny while running a presidential administration by proxy; and the media evades honesty when it mistakes narrative control for journalism.

All of this isn't a coincidence; it's become a culture of evasion. The more responsibility Democrats avoid, the more righteous they claim to be. Then break what they govern, then demand applause for managing the mess they made.

Final Thoughts

Republics throughout history haven't collapsed overnight; they corrode by excuse. The shutdown, subpoenas, and silent press all stem from a ruling class allergic to accountability. Biden's frailty and Schumer's cynicism are symptoms of a broader sickness: the belief that moral superiority exempts them from rules.

The same people lecturing about "saving democracy" are the ones gutting its foundation, using projection on a biblical scale. And if most Americans don't start demanding equal standards for both parties, the republic they inherit won't be built on laws or truth, but on denial.

If you’re tired of watching media play defense for every institutional failure, you’re in the right place. PJ Media writers cut through the noise and ask the questions legacy outlets won’t touch.

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