His rhetoric sounds like the death rattle of a fading leadership.

Next, the fishing boats stopped sailing from the ports, then the hearth smoke faded away and only a sandy haze was left hanging in the air; a death rattle of dust.

Here and there, at intervals, when the wind blew, shouts, clamor, a sort of tumultuous death rattle, which was the firing, and dull blows, which were discharges of cannon, struck the ear confusedly.