The Democratic Party leadership is either infected with a death wish or infiltrated by agents of President Putin with a mission to ensure Donald Trump’s victory in November.
How come? Think about it.
What’s the biggest issue in American politics this summer? Why, Joe Biden’s age and his fitness for a second term, an issue on which 80 percent of Americans have already concluded he is unfit.
And what is the issue that Democrats continue to agonize over, their inability to come to a definitive conclusion — should he go or should he stay — and ensure that it remains front and center in every media outlet in every news cycle? Why, the president’s fitness to run again and serve another four years in office, of course.
The Democrats are doing Trump’s work for him.
What’s the biggest issue in American politics this summer? Why, Joe Biden’s age and his fitness for a second term, an issue on which 80 percent of Americans have already concluded he is unfit.
If you keep talking about the one issue that will cost you the White House more than any other, and then you can’t come to a definitive judgment on it, that’s either a form of collective insanity or a sign that hostile conspirators have infiltrated your inner circle.
Since I present the second explanation only to put a smile on people’s faces, I conclude that the Democrats are truly in the grip of an epidemic of self-destruction.
Trump knows this. It explains why he’s been unusually quiet since last month’s presidential debate, the scene of a historic slow-motion car crash for Biden from which he’s still not recovered. Don’t interrupt your opponent when he’s making all the mistakes.
Trump has even delayed the announcement of his running mate.
Why feed the media alternative headlines when the Democrats themselves are creating a damaging feeding frenzy? Even the most servile Democratic media outlets now have a holiday at Biden’s expense.
Trump has always wanted to beat Biden in the 2024 presidential race. He thinks he is easy to beat (and that was before the Democrats started doing Trump’s work for him).
When Republicans in the House of Representatives attempted to impeach Biden earlier this year, I’m told Trump called them in and told them to back off. The clear message: Do nothing to jeopardize Biden’s chances of becoming the Democratic nominee.
Trump has always wanted to beat Biden in the 2024 presidential race. He thinks he is easy to beat (and that was before the Democrats started doing Trump’s work for him).
Biden’s determination to dig in and hold on is a perfect match for Trump. The trickle of defectors to the rebel cause continues, but it is far from the tsunami needed to force the president to abandon his candidacy.
A House Democratic meeting on Tuesday failed to produce a call to arms to remain — or leave. In the aftermath, Mikie Sherrill (N.J.) became the seventh House Democrat to call on Biden to step aside. Pat Ryan, whose New York district could fall to Republicans, became the eighth today. It’s still not enough of a critical mass to force Biden off the ticket.
Still, the drumbeat of partisan dissent continues. Sen. Michael Bennett (D-Colo.) has not called on Biden to step aside, but has predicted that Trump “could win in a landslide,” which is as good as telling him to step aside.
The great Hollywood sage George Clooney wrote an article in the New York Times (where else?) urging his old buddy Joe to resign, after the ritual bow (expected of all renegade Democrats) about what a great president he has been.
“We’re not going to win” with Biden at the top of the ticket, he concludes, something he didn’t share with the Democratic donor class just a few weeks ago when he hosted a massive fundraiser in Los Angeles.
Perhaps the most damaging intervention came from former House Speaker and fellow gerontocrat Nancy Pelosi, who told MSNBC’s Morning Joe — the president’s breakfast fan club — that Biden could still consider running out of time.
She then distanced herself from her comments, saying she wasn’t suggesting Biden reconsider his position. But given that the president has been adamant that he’s running, it’s hard to see what else she meant.
Just when things couldn’t get any better for Trump, some leading Democrats began insisting that if Biden threw in the towel, the throne should automatically fall to Vice President Kamala Harris.
This has angered other Democrats, who see her as much of a liability as Biden and want an open convention in Chicago next month to choose a new nominee.
Harris’s supporters insisted that it would be unacceptable for Democrats to pass over a black woman for a white man, or even a white woman. In this way, the party has become a prisoner of its own obsession with identity politics, in which ability and competence are subordinated to race and gender.
But Harris supporters, in some cases acting with her tacit support, tickled Trump. If there’s one candidate he can beat more confidently than Biden, it’s Harris.
Republicans are heading into their party convention in Milwaukee this weekend in good shape, thanks to Democrats.
Trump will be the master of everything he surveys, his candidacy is unquestioned. His hostile takeover of the Republican Party is complete. The convention will produce its own headlines as he unveils his choice for running mate.
The latest polls give him a comfortable lead in five of the seven contested states. Only two (Wisconsin and Michigan) are close. Trump has a five-point lead in Pennsylvania. There is no route back to the White House for Scranton Joe that doesn’t go through the Keystone State.
A Trump insider told me that the former president has joked in recent days that he wondered if Congress could be postponed for a week.
Why would you want him to be asked? To let the Democrats stew in their own juices for another week, was the answer.