Et Tu, Brute?

History is filled with the tales of downfall of political leaders. Such falls are common enough for us to look for the commonalities to reveal a pattern.  This pattern is just a template, not a rule, but it can be useful to help predict probable future events.

Palace coups usually start with popular protests that mount over time, but the coup de grâce is traditionally delivered at the hands of someone within the palace—a confident or follower of the leader.  The most obvious example is Julius Caesar being assassinated in a plot organized by his close friend, Brutus.  There are multiple other historical examples.

Leon Trotsky was a key figure in the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, but Trotsky was eventually ousted from power and was later assassinated by an agent of Stalin, who was once his comrade in the revolution.

Anwar Sadat, the third President of Egypt, was assassinated during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate Egypt’s crossing of the Suez Canal.  The assassination was undertaken by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and led by an officer in the Egyptian Army.

During the French Revolution, Louis XVI was overthrown and later executed.  Many of those involved in his overthrow were members of the Estates-General, which Louis XVI himself had convened.

The Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, was overthrown and arrested in 1943, following a vote of no confidence by the Grand Council of Fascism, which was an entity that Mussolini had created and had filled with his closest followers.

Tsar Nicholas II, an incredibly inept leader, was overthrown during the Russian Revolution of 1917, after losing support of both the military and the Russian people.  The coup, however, would not have been successful without the active participation of elements within his own court.

Park Chung-hee, the South Korean president, was assassinated in 1979 by Kim Jae-gyu, the director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) and (allegedly) a close friend.

President Francisco Madero accepted the support of General Victoriano Huerta in the early years of the Mexican Revolution.  In February 1913, Huerta joined a conspiracy against Madero, who had entrusted him to control a revolt in Mexico City.   This period, known as “La Decena Trágica” or “The Ten Tragic Days”, ended with Huerta and Félix Díaz meeting in the U.S. Ambassador’s office and signing the so-called “Pact of the Embassy”, in which they agreed to assassinate Madero and install Huerta as president.

Over time, dissatisfaction can build among a leader's supporters due to perceived failures, from corruption, or from a growing feeling of being under-appreciated or unrewarded by the leader.  Loyalty among supporters can also shift based on changing circumstances, such as economic downturns, military defeats, or social unrest.  Supporters may then see a change in leadership as necessary to address these issues.

It is also not rare for the betrayer to believe that a new leader will offer them employment at a higher level.  A common thread in the betrayals listed above is that the  betrayer believed they would be praised for their action or become famous.

Which brings us to President Biden, who is currently suffering a slow death by a thousand cutting news articles that question his mental acuity and fitness to serve out the remainder of his current term (much less, judge him fit to be elected to and serve a second term).  The pressure to force Biden to withdraw his candidacy for a second term has probably already reached a point of no return, but the breaking point has not yet arrived.

Using the informal rule I’ve established above, I predict that the final blow will come from within the White House in the next few days.  Some trusted member of Biden’s inner circle will “leak” a story about the President falling asleep during his intelligence briefing, or forgetting the name of his long-time personal secretary, or mistaking his wife, Jill, for a staff member. 

Someone will seize the opportunity to become the center of attention and be the one responsible for changing history and so that opportunist will let loose a story that cannot be ignored.  Maybe the person just wants to lay a foundation for his future best seller, but whatever the motive, it will have to be someone with “gravitas” and position.

The story will quickly go viral, and it will be picked up by every news service and online blog.  Late night hosts will make endless jokes about the incident.  Every starved-for-material newspaper editor will promote the item.  Within eight hours, over half of America will know the story and the rest of America will eventually catch up by reading about it on social media.

The small trickle of Democratic defectors will turn into an unstoppable torrent that will force the President to accept the inevitability of his withdrawing from the upcoming presidential race.  Since the Democratic Party will officially nominate Biden in just under two weeks, the clock is ticking.