On the first day of July, 2024, it’s strange and unprecedented to realize that it’s only been a few days since the first presidential debate of this quadrennial cycle, but it seems like a long time since Republican nominee-to-be – and former president – Donald Trump and current
president and Democrat nominee-to-be senile Joe Biden met in Atlanta to compete in their much -ballyhooed (and panned in Biden’s case) verbal jousting match in front of biased CNN moderators and a worldwide viewing audience.
That’s right; one of these men is going to be the next president. Maybe. More on this below.
Perhaps it’s the time of year or it could be that the parties haven’t even held their respective nominating conventions yet, but the pre-event hype surrounding the quickly thrown-together debate didn’t reach a normal crescendo one would expect in such high-tension gatherings. Or it could be that there was no studio audience watching or no throng of supporters besieging the whirring media trucks outside that failed to produce the typical post-event fireworks.
Flash polls from both campaigns showed their candidate passing the test, with Biden, as expected, being given credit by Trump-hating Democrats for managing to stay awake all ninety minutes even though he could scarcely mumble out a coherent thought or wipe his catatonic stare off his frozen mug. It was widely reported that Trump didn’t practice much for the debate beforehand, and his “performance” was therefore as unscripted and spontaneous as most people would’ve anticipated.
At any rate, life goes on in the world of politics. Because Biden was so awful during the program, talk of replacing him intensified the past few days… but seems to have died back down again. Time will tell if he’s able to keep his own personal generators burning for at least a couple months until he’s officially nominated at (or before, virtually) at the Democrat National Convention in Chicago.
Trump’s set-in-stone three-peat nomination will occur in two weeks’ time at the Republican quadrennial nominating show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, though his New York sentencing hearing is still set to run on July 11th. Will Democrat Judge Merchan do the unthinkable and throw Trump, the Republican nominee-to-be, in jail? Would Trump make bail? Would the MAGA world stand for it?
Regardless, there would be very little rational talk of replacing Trump as Republican nominee either way. But is Biden’s political head still on the chopping block for Democrats? People have been saying for months (years?) that Biden’s days were numbered. After the debate, is this still true? In a story titled “Is Biden On The Way Out? I’m Not So Sure.”, the inimitable Scott McKay wrote at The American Spectator last week before the debate:
“None of [Biden’s staff] are the least bit put out that their putative boss is a shambling, potato-brained, walking humiliation of a man whose family is a rotting cesspool of felonious corruption and whose presence on the world stage daily diminishes America’s national prestige. Biden’s America might be a ruin, but they’re ruling over it. Yank Dirty Joe out of that chair and these guys might not have many seats of their own.
“So who in Biden’s inner circle is telling him it’s time to pack it up? Jean-Pierre went out to her podium last week and directly gaslit the entire White House press corps about something called ‘cheap fakes’ — which to the best of my understanding involves real video interpreted the way normal people would interpret it, but it’s a fake because Karine Jean-Pierre, the presidential spokeslesbian, isn’t comfortable with the public sharing that interpretation...
“I’m not saying circumstances can’t deteriorate to an extent that these decisions won’t be made. In six weeks, or three months, Joe Biden could well be in a state where the whole country understands he belongs in a nursing home, and when that day comes they’re going to have to change him out. How to do that without turning the nomination over to Kamala Harris, which would in effect be to concede the 2024 election not just at the top of the ticket but in Senate and House races as well, I don’t know.”
Yes, yes, well put. Keep in mind that McKay’s post was published before the Atlanta debate even went live, so his were the impressions of so many others going in to the program. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t personally think anything happened during the discussion to greatly change the views of senile Joe’s throngs of supporters or detractors.
The gist of McKay’s argument was that the people who believe Biden will or should be pushed out or removed still lack a “mechanism” to accomplish the job. I myself have made the case a number of times that there’s only one person who could force the doddering dolt to quit – and that’s not Dr. Jill Biden. It’s senile Joe himself.
It wouldn’t/couldn’t be Barack Obama either, though McKay and most observers attribute a great deal of power to “The One” within Democrat circles. Barack very well could be calling the day-to-day shots in the Biden administration, since the president himself has reportedly tuned out of meetings, is out-of-touch with policy details and seems more interested in his next jaunt to the beach to eat ice cream than he is in filling out his daily time card as president.
But, if senile Joe accomplished anything last Thursday night, it was reaffirming his command of his own personal future desires. If Biden could say it the way he wanted to state it, it’d probably sound something like, “I like being president, gosh darnit, and in my own mind, I’ve done so many good things for the people in this country – or at least gay ones, transgenders, black liberals and folks like Chucky Schumer – that I deserve to stay here as long as I want to, sign a lot of executive orders and have Secret Service protection forever.”
Then there’s Biden’s obvious antipathy for Donald Trump, which rages even hotter than his own self-love for himself, his little boy Hunter and his legacy. If it could be said that the entire Democrat party has been plagued with a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, Biden’s is perhaps the worst affliction of all.
Biden hates Trump. It’s not a rivalry, it’s not jealousy, it’s not grade school resentment of a teacher’s pet. It’s pure unadulterated hatred. Why? Exploring the reasons would likely take a book-length treatise and poring over the theories of psychologists and shrinks, but it’s enough for us here to recognize that it’s more than personal on Biden’s part.
Trump, on the other hand, doesn’t hate anyone. The lifelong real estate developer, tabloid celebrity and reality TV star understands competition and healthy enmities, but his feelings rarely become counterproductive. Contrary to what was reported about him, Trump’s poor relationships with Democrats and his swamp GOP establishment antagonists rarely prevented him from doing the right thing.
Put it this way, Trump could work with the other side to get something accomplished if he felt that it made the country better. Democrats stonewalled him at every intersection, but Trump found a way – such as financing portions of the border wall with defense funds – to move the proverbial ball forward.
Biden hates all conservatives and Republicans who oppose him – and that most definitely includes Trump. Senile Joe relished his former reputation as “Lunch Bucket Joe”, the man who was heralded for riding AMTRAK to and from work every day just so he could be home for his boys. At the 2020 “virtual” Democrat convention, Cindy McCain said Joe ‘n John and families were pals, right?
Therefore, a big reason why Biden would never step away – and wouldn’t allow anyone to push him out – is because he hates Donald Trump that much. I don’t give senile Joe much credit for telling the truth, but when the old goat president says that he thinks Donald Trump will be the end of “democracy”, I think the fool means it. Handlers and Karine Jean-Pierre didn’t have to tell him to reiterate how awful he believes Trump is during the debate.
Like an old soldier who carries with him a grudge about an enemy deep into his life, Biden will never let go of his feelings for Donald Trump. Therefore, he’ll never leave the office willingly.
Then there’s Biden’s envy for Obama himself. Senile Joe has let it be known that he’s accomplished much more for the “progressive” agenda than his predecessor ever did, yet he hasn’t gotten the credit for it. Biden resents Obama and the latter’s enduring popularity with Democrats and will keep going in the job until his own party members hold himself with the same starry-eyed reverence that they do the golden-tongued one.
It'll never happen. At least not as long as Biden is alive. Most politics watchers see Biden’s presidency as Obama 2.0 without the coolness of the figurehead and the audiences getting thrills up their legs when the current president speaks. Senile Joe will never be anyone’s first choice. If he “won” in 2020 it was because the voters were upset with Trump and COVID.
As McKay pointed out in his piece, the Democrats are working on plans to nominate Biden virtually before their convention even starts, so there probably won’t be any dramatic floor battle to ditch him. And, as McKay also highlights, Kamala Harris would be the pol stepping in to the presidential nomination position, which wouldn’t solve anything for Democrats searching for a purportedly more electable alternative this year.
So there are practical – and personal – reasons why Joe Biden will probably survive to contest this year’s presidential election. If Democrats were planning on making a switch, they’re running out of time. But they also don’t have a ready stand-in who isn’t named Kamala Harris and, the biggest rationale of all, is Joe Biden himself doesn’t want to go.
For those watching last week’s debate thinking Joe is about to go, they’ll just have to keep praying for a miracle to prevent another four years of America-saving Donald Trump.
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