Despite the pervasive angst among Democratic insiders about the hazards of nominating President Biden for a second term, he is all but certain to be at the top of his party’s ticket next November. The only elected incumbent ever denied the nomination of his party for reelection was President Franklin Pierce, and that occurred long before the modern primary system reduced party conventions to coronation ceremonies. It’s clear that the Biden campaign plans to win enough delegates during the primaries to secure the nomination well before he arrives at the Democratic National Convention. If they succeed, it will be difficult to deny him the nomination.
Because there is no credible way to run on his record, he intends to slander Donald Trump — and his 74 million supporters — as enemies of democracy.
The Democrats made a Faustian bargain with Biden early in the 2020 primary season after Bernie Sanders won the first three contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. Fearing that the Vermont Senator might win the nomination and lose the general election, party elders asked Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) to endorse “working class Joe” in South Carolina, where his lead had sunk to single digits. This revived Biden’s campaign, enabling him to win the Palmetto State and most of the Super Tuesday primaries. Combined with claims that he planned to serve only one term, this cleared Biden’s path to the nomination and the White House, whereupon all talk of a bridge presidency promptly ceased.
Now the Democrats are stuck with an incumbent whose poll numbers are comparable to those of the hapless Jimmy Carter. The similarities between Biden and Carter are remarkable. Carter’s feckless foreign policy led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Biden’s obvious weakness prompted Putin to invade Ukraine. Carter abandoned Iran to the Islamist theocracy of Ayatollah Khomeini and Biden abandoned Afghanistan to the tender mercies of the Taliban. Domestically, both Carter and Biden gave us high inflation, high interest rates, and economic pessimism. Both pledged to restore unity and end political turmoil. In this regard, Biden’s record is even worse than Carter’s. As Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson spells it out it in the New York Times:
Whatever advantage Mr. Biden held over Mr. Trump on the issue of who would be more likely to bring about order, stability, and calm, it has surely been erased at this point. Indeed, many voters have begun to look back longingly at the Trump era. While, according to a recent Wall Street Journal poll, voters said by a 30-point margin that Mr. Biden’s policies have hurt them personally more than helped, by a 12-point margin, the same voters were more likely to say that Mr. Trump’s policies helped them.
It appears, however, that Biden’s reelection campaign will ignore such danger signs and rely heavily on the kind of divisive rhetoric that characterized the speech he delivered last week near Valley Forge. Because there is no credible way to run on his record, he intends to slander Donald Trump — and his 74 million supporters — as enemies of democracy. This speech was riddled with ridiculous claims such as the following: “Trump and his MAGA supporters not only embrace political violence, but they laugh about it.” Biden repeated Trump’s name no fewer than 44 times, usually in passages that also included “MAGA” or “insurrection.” This vitriol, mind you, was angrily spewed by the man who promised us “unity.” (READ MORE: Can Trump Really Win in 2024?)
Evidently, Biden and his handlers have forgotten how badly the public responded to his notorious Independence Hall speech. Several polls indicated that most voters disapproved of that angry oration. A Trafalgar survey, for example, found that 56.8 percent said it constituted “a dangerous escalation in rhetoric.” Likewise, according to a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, 54 percent of respondents believed the speech “was an example of fear mongering.” There is no reason to believe the voters received Biden’s Valley Forge speech more favorably. Moreover, his semi-coherent delivery reminded the public of another issue that worries Democrats — Biden’s age. A recent ABC report indicates that this is a very real voter concern:
Three-quarters of Americans (74 percent) said Biden was too old to run for another term in a survey conducted by ABC News and the Washington Post in September. That number represented a 6 percent increase since May, a month after Biden launched his second White House bid … A CNN survey out of New Hampshire — which will hold the first presidential primary in January — found 56 percent of likely Democratic primary voters said age was their biggest concern regarding Biden. The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire, was released last week.
Nonetheless, despite warnings from respected Democrat operatives like David Axelrod and Douglas Schoen, the White House continues to claim that the 81-year-old Chief Executive is still as sharp as ever. Granted, this isn’t a high bar to get over, but some of their claims fail the laugh test. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, for example, delivered this thigh-slapper last summer: “Oh, my gosh, he’s the President of the United States, you know, he — I can’t even keep up with him.” Never mind that, as Commander-in-Chief, Biden is unable to keep up with the whereabouts of his Secretary of Defense. And yet, just before his wife led him off the stage last Friday evening, he shouted: “I UNDERSTAND POWER.”
That is, of course, the problem. It is why, in the absence of an act of God, Joe Biden will be the Democratic presidential nominee for 2024. It doesn’t matter that he can’t do the job. It’s unlikely that he has been doing it for the last three years. But he is surrounded by people whose personal influence will evaporate overnight if someone else occupies the Oval Office. Consequently, they will do everything in their power to make sure he gets another term. The plan is to arrive at the Democratic National Convention with enough delegates to win on the first ballot. Then, they will do whatever it takes, legal or illegal, to defeat any and all Republican and third-party candidates. This is the real threat to democracy.
