When Donald Trump was in the White House and his name came up in conversation, a few of my friends and family members would sometimes say, “He’s not my president.”

I never responded to that remark, but wish now I’d said, “Then who is your president?” In my own case, I was no fan of our first two 21^st-century presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, but they had nonetheless won election to the White House. They were my presidents.

Given the events of the past six weeks or so, however, if someone were to mention President Biden, I’d feel justified in saying, “He’s not my president.” I’d then clarify my assertion: “He’s not anybody’s president.” And if someone asked, “Then who is the president?” I’d answer, “Right now we don’t seem to have one.”

There’s a man living in the White House—at least, when he isn’t on vacation—who became president in 2021 under a cloud of suspicion about widespread election fraud. His policies, I believe, have wrecked our country’s economy, destroyed the trust of many Americans in their government, and rendered us weakened and vulnerable in an increasingly dangerous world.

And now, the Democratic Party and the media claim to have just discovered what many of us have known for nearly four years, that Joe Biden’s cognitive decline renders him unfit for office. The Democrats and the press haven’t explicitly embraced that circumstance, of course, declaring him instead incapable of winning reelection and therefore backing Vice-President Kamala Harris in his stead.

Whatever her flaws—and there are many—we know that Harris, like countless others around President Biden, knew of his senility and covered it up. Though unremarked in our corporate media, this willingness by so many to put party and programs ahead of the best interests of the country is appalling.

Because of this egregious treason—let’s call it by its name—the current position of Joe Biden vis-à-vis the presidency raises vital questions. If he issues executive orders from now until January, which he will, is anyone really obliged to abide by them? If he pardons his son Hunter or anyone else, are those pardons valid? If an opening occurs on the Supreme Court, can Joe Biden legitimately nominate a candidate? If China decides that now is an opportune time to seize Taiwan, will Joe Biden still qualify as commander-in-chief of our armed forces?

Then come more questions, which are not at all theoretical: If Joe Biden is too addled to run again for president, then who is holding the reins of power in the Oval Office? Who actually has charge of our executive branch of government?

The media, most politicians, and our political gurus and commentators, including many on the right, have hardly touched on these questions. They have given themselves over to analyzing Kamala Harris, pro and con, but have largely ignored the fitness of Joe Biden to remain in the White House for the next five months. Others rattle on about the border crisis, the war in Gaza, and inflation as if we still had a functioning chief executive.

If the Democrats dumped Joe Biden because he couldn’t win the next election, that’s one thing. But if they ditched him because they determined he was too senile to remain in office, then they need to say so, and the 25^th Amendment should come into play to remove him from office.

Right now, the United States has no president except in name. Equally dire, and also largely ignored, are the moves and countermoves precipitating Biden’s withdrawal from the race and the coronation of Kamala Harris as his successor. Whether farce or tragedy, this play has taken place on a stage closed to the public, with a plot full of twists and all but the main actors unidentified. The finale is yet to be revealed. The general thrust of the script, however, is well-known, having served as a standard in totalitarian governments from the Soviet Union to Communist China to North Korea. Like some leaders in those countries, as Harris emerges from the theater as the Democratic candidate, she will run for the highest office in the land without having garnered a single vote in a primary.

Though Harris’s record before and during her vice-presidency was abominable, the puppet masters like Barak Obama, the masked actors we rarely see, and their media minions are already hard at work rehabbing her reputation. Meanwhile, they’ll talk a great deal about the threat to democracy from Donald Trump and his supporters, which is just one more exercise in that tactic of projection they so frequently employ.

Their ultimate goal remains the same as it was in 2008, when just before the election presidential candidate Barak Obama declared, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Since then, even during the years when Donald Trump was president, this transformation has been ongoing.

Power, not patriotism, is what drives these people and what they are pursuing. This reason, and this reason alone, explains the machinations behind the curtain and the ugly campaign that is now in full swing.