No Leaders Attended the G7 Summit. By Daniel Gelernter.

Nobody who watches the film of these people arriving, coming down the boardwalk carefully spaced, hygienically elbow-bumping in lieu of shaking hands, and finally taking up positions for their photo op — nobody would believe these people are world leaders. Because they aren’t.

They aren’t running the western world. They are run by the people who really are running the western world — people whose names we don’t know. The people on the beach in Cornwall are there simply in recognition of the working man’s need to see an elected head of state. They are actors.

Boring script, poor actors, lacks credibility

A Rasmussen poll in March found that just 47 percent of Americans believe Biden is actually doing the job of president. At least as many people believe the job is being done by some other person or persons behind the scenes. And that 47 percent who believe Biden is doing the job must think it’s an awfully easy one, since you don’t have to remember where you are or with whom you are speaking. Even as an actor, Biden’s powers are failing. …

You could replace Biden with any Hollywood actor — George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep — and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference in how the country is being run or what policies are pursued. You could replace Biden with a paper cup. That might destroy the illusion (though not by much). Biden is a figurehead, rather more embarrassing than the Queen of England, and rather less powerful.

This evolving dissociation of leaders from leadership should worry us. Who is really deciding how to spend our taxes? Who is deciding to give infrastructure access to China, to cancel Keystone XL and American energy independence, to cashier military officers who won’t recite the woke pledge, to teach our children to hate their own skin? Who is running the country?