Politics aside, it’s no wonder some see President Joe Biden as a broken man, walking alone through a deep valley of depression, confusion and anger. One day he declares he is the Democratic nominee for president and has no intention of dropping out of the race. The next day he steps aside.
There have been multiple articles alluding to his resentment and anger at Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and former President Barack Obama for being instruments of his political downfall, according to Politico. Just reportedBiden has called Pelosi “a ruthless person who ousted me.”
One day we may actually know what was said to or about Biden personally to throw him out of the race. In the meantime, the Democratic nominee has Vice President Kamala Harris, the first candidate in the modern primary era to hold that position without winning a primary.
Before that inauguration, several Democrats had publicly said they wanted an open convention with Harris as one of the leading candidates, but that never happened — and in the process, more than 14 million primary votes cast for Biden were thrown in the trash.
Of course, Harris’s campaign and supporters say the primary was “Biden vs. Harris,” but only the vice president’s biggest supporters believe that.
Most of the liberal mainstream media doesn’t seem to have a problem with Harris being the nominee, just as most of the media doesn’t seem to have a problem with her ignoring their questions and their profession.
Just out of curiosity, how would Republican power brokers react if they met behind closed doors, decided they didn’t like the way former President Donald Trump was polling, convinced him to drop out of the race, bumped Senator J.D. Vance to the top of the ticket, and selected former Governor Nikki Haley as his running mate? You can already hear the cries of “illegal,” “unconstitutional,” and “un-American.”
Of course, that won’t happen, and the main reason, at least in my opinion, is that Trump will slowly but surely overtake Harris after the Democratic National Convention and once campaigning gets underway in earnest after Labor Day.
First, as more Americans start paying attention to the election, they will realize they were better off under Trump, and second, as a friend of mine once said about someone he hated, “a little bit of her goes a long way.”
In this case, the more people see Harris shying away from the press or refusing to hold unscripted press conferences, the less interest she and her campaign will have in him. And that’s exactly what happened in the 2020 Democratic primary when she became the first candidate to drop out of the race.
This is already the most surreal presidential election of our lifetimes. I have written many times in this column over the past two years that I never believed Biden would be the nominee, and I was right. I also genuinely believe that Trump will unseat Harris in September and October.
So what happens next? How will the Democratic Party and the Harris campaign respond to that?
Is anything impossible in this strange election cycle? I don’t think so. At some point, might it be politically advantageous for Democrats to have Harris in office for the remainder of the campaign?
Certainly, there are serious and growing questions about Biden’s cognitive problems and decline: Can he really do his job? If not, who is now running the country?
Could Democrats use the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office before the election? Some argue that such a move should at least be considered for the good of the country.
Another possibility is that Biden simply resigns from office, feeling like he’s been stabbed in the back by all his Democratic “friends” and run over by a freight train.
What if, at next week’s Democratic National Convention, Biden walked up to the podium, looked into the camera and declared, “I’ve had enough. I’m done. I’m resigning from office and moving back to Delaware?”
During this wacky and strange election period, I believe anything is not only possible but probable.
Douglas McKinnon is a former White House and Department of Defense official. Follow him Translator.
