The Democratic Party leadership has either been infected by 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 to serve a second term, a matter on which 80 percent of Americans have already concluded he’s unfit.
And what’s the issue Democrats continue to obsess over, their inability to come to a firm conclusion — should he go or should he stay — guaranteeing that it stays front and centre of every media outlet in every news cycle? Why, the President’s fitness to run again and rule for another four years, 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 to serve a second term, a matter on which 80 percent of Americans have already concluded he’s unfit.
To keep on talking about the one issue that will do more to lose you the White House than any other — then not be able to come to a definitive view on the matter — is either a form of collective madness or a sign that enemy conspirators have infiltrated your inner circle.
Since I offer the second explanation only to raise a smile, I’m left concluding that the Democrats really are in the grip of an epidemic of self-destruction.
Trump realises this. It explains why he’s remained uncharacteristically schtum since last month’s presidential debate, scene of an historic slow-motion car crash for Biden from which he’s yet to recover. Don’t interrupt your opponent when they’re making all the mistakes.
Trump’s even postponed announcing his choice of running mate.
Why feed the media alternative headlines when the Democrats are generating a damaging feeding frenzy of their own? Even the most slavish Democratic media outlets are now having a field day at Biden’s expense.
Trump has always wanted to face Biden in the 2024 presidential race. He reckons he’s easy to beat (and that was before the Democrats started doing Trump’s work for him).
When, earlier this year, House Republicans were moving to impeach Biden, I’m told that Trump called them in and told them to back off. The clear message: do nothing to imperil Biden’s chances of being the Democratic candidate.
Trump has always wanted to face Biden in the 2024 presidential race. He reckons he’s easy to beat (and that was before the Democrats started doing Trump’s work for him).
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EXCLUSIVE
ANDREW NEIL speaks to multiple senior Democrats who reveal party's verdict: 'EVERYONE wants Biden to quit'
Biden’s tenacity in digging in and clinging on suits Trump perfectly. The drip drip of defectors to the rebel cause continues but it is, as yet, far from being the tsunami required to force the President to give up running again.
A meeting of House Democrats on Tuesday failed to produce a call to arms for him to stay — or to go. In its aftermath, Mikie Sherrill (New Jersey) became the seventh House Democrat to call on Biden to step aside. Pat Ryan, whose New York district could fall to the Republicans, today became the eighth. It is still not enough of a critical mass to force Biden off the ticket.
Nonetheless, the drumbeat of party dissent continues. Senator Michael Bennet (Dem, Colorado) hasn’t called on Biden to step aside but predicted Trump ‘could win by a landslide’, which is as good as saying he should step aside.
That great sage of Hollywood, George Clooney, penned a piece in the New York Times (where else?) urging his old mate Joe to step down, after the ritual obeisance (demanded of all Democrat apostates) about what a wonderful President he’s 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 donator class only a few weeks ago when he hosted a massive fundraiser in Los Angeles.
Perhaps the most damaging intervention came from former Speaker of the House and fellow gerontocrat Nancy Pelosi, who told MSNBC’s Morning Joe – the President’s very own breakfast fan club – that Biden could still reconsider standing but was running out of time to do so.
She then walked back her remarks saying she was not suggesting Biden should reconsider his position. But, since the President has been adamant that he’s standing, it’s hard to see what else she meant.
Just when it couldn’t get any better for Trump, a number of leading Democrats have started insisting that, should Biden throw in the towel, the crown should automatically fall to Vice President Kamala Harris.
This has infuriated other Democrats who think she’s as big a liability as Biden and want an open convention in Chicago next month to choose a fresh candidate.
Harris’s supporters insisted it would be unconscionable for the Democrats to pass over a black women for a white man, or even a white woman. Thus has the party become prisoner of its own obsession with identity politics in which ability and competence play second fiddle to race and gender.
But Harris boosters, acting in some cases with her tacit support, tickled Trump. If there’s one candidate he is even more sure of beating than Biden, it’s Harris.
The Republicans head for their convention in Milwaukee this weekend in fine fettle, courtesy of the Democrats.
Trump will be master of all he surveys, his candidacy not in any doubt. His hostile takeover of the Republican Party is complete. The convention will produce headlines of its own when he unveils his choice for running mate.
The latest polls give him a comfortable lead in five of the seven battleground states. Only two (Wisconsin and Michigan) are in close contention. Trump has a five-point lead in Pennsylvania. There is no route back to the White House for Scranton Joe that does not go through the Keystone State.
A Trump insider told me that the former president was heard to joke in recent days that he wondered if the convention could be postponed for a week.
Why would you want that he was asked. To give the Democrats another week to stew in their own juice came the reply.