Quick Take: Joe Won't Go
And it's hard to see how the Dems could dump him
President Biden’s interview with George Stephanopoulos clarified my thinking on a number of points:
The President’s performance during his debate with Donald Trump was no anomaly. If Democrats were hoping for some reassurance on the score, Biden’s appearance and demeanor must surely have dismayed them.
Biden’s petulant dismissal of Stephanopoulos’ references to negative poll numbers, his insistence that they’re all wrong and that his campaign is in good shape, revealed a man in deep denial, unwilling to accept the likelihood of defeat.
Joe Biden is not going to withdraw from the race, enabling the Democratic Party to choose another candidate for the top of the ticket. He’ll have to be forced out. But doing that would make a mockery of the party’s claim to be defending “our democracy.”
If the Democrats do manage to get rid of Biden, they'll probably be stuck with Kamala Harris—an unpalatable option given her deep unpopularity. But any attempt to elbow her aside would fracture the party.
It’s likely that Joe Biden will remain at the top of the Democratic ticket, and that he’ll lose to Donald Trump in November.
Six months ago, Biden and his party thought they were sitting pretty. Surely those ninety plus felony counts would cripple Trump. Surely he’d self-destruct in some way. Surely the American people would reject a presidential candidate who posed an existential threat to “our democracy.” Surely the Biden Administration’s many accomplishments would deliver the vote to the Dems on Election Day 2024.
But the lawfare campaign collapsed. And Trump, for him, has been a disciplined candidate this time around. He’s also been helped by the fact that his intemperate bombast and character flaws have been priced in by a public now familiar with Trump. And the public’s doubts about Biden’s age and competence have spiked. And to the extent that the voters are worried about “our democracy,” more trust Trump than trust Biden to defend it. And finally, a substantial majority of the American people remain unimpressed with the Biden Administration’s accomplishments, both at home and abroad.
Things could change. But that, as I see it, is where we are now. And the Democrats have only themselves to blame for the mess in which they find themselves. Step by step, they advanced up the blind alley against whose wall their backs now press. They’ll need the luck of the Prince of the Golden Escalator to find their way back to Main Street, USA.
The Democratic Party and the media remind me of the final scenes of “Animal House,” when the Stork leads the marching band into a dead end wall. And yet the band keeps playing and playing …
Don’t put it past the Democrats to steal the 2024 Presidential election. They control the Governor’s office and/or the Secretary of State’s office in several of the swing states.
The idea that American elections are generally fair and not corrupt doesn’t stand the scrutiny of history. More than once, even in modern times, cheating may have determined the outcome.
By way of example, why did JFK choose LBJ, the man he defeated for the nomination as his running mate? After all, the two men despised each other. It’s simple really. JFK knew that LBJ would deliver the electoral votes of Texas one way or the other. Either his mere presence on the ticket would insure a victory in Texas or, if necessary, LBJ would find a way to steal the Texas vote.
JFK knew LBJ was really good at vote stealing. As Robert Caro and others have documented, LBJ won his first Senate election in 1948 through out and out fraud.
Of course, it’s also been credibly alleged that Mayor Daly in Chicago committed fraud to insure that JFK won the electoral votes in Illinois. It is possible, maybe even likely that JFK actually lost the 1960 election. If Nixon had prevailed in Texas and Illinois he would have been victorious. Was that election decided by cheating? We will never know. But anyone who thinks LBJ or Daly were unwilling to cheat is remarkably naive.
It is also simply a fact that had the Supreme Court allowed the counting in Florida to continue, Gore would almost certainly have beaten Bush.
There are many other examples in American history of similar shenanigans. Only the most credulous will believe that there’s no way the Democrats would cheat to deny Trump of a legitimate victory.
None of this means that Biden didn’t really win the last election. I think he did. But given the fear that Trump inspires in establishment hearts, it almost certain that Democratic elites will resort to any measure to prevent a Trump victory.