It's Over for Joe

The Democrats need to find a replacement but they probably can't.

No, I’m not going to listen to the President’s SOTU tonight. And yes, I understand that it’s eight months before the election. And yes, I also understand that, at some point in those eight months, Trump stands a pretty good chance of becoming a convicted felon, either on the politically rigged indictments against him or on the one his own behavior earned (and would have earned from a non-politically interested prosecutor), namely, the federal indictment in Florida for misappropriation of classified material and obstruction of justice.

Given all that, Trump is still going to beat Biden.

How do I know? For the same reasons the New York Times, of all things, knows. Here’s the headline of its story: “No Matter Race, Age or Gender, More Voters Say Trump’s Policies Helped Than Biden’s.” Here’s the subhead: “Times/Siena polls highlight how comparatively well-regarded Donald J. Trump’s policies are, even by groups that were affected by policies that Democrats hope will be motivating issues in 2024.”

The Times isn’t shy about announcing the bad news (emphasis added):

Not since Theodore Roosevelt ran against William Howard Taft in 1912 have voters gotten the opportunity to weigh the records of two men who have done the job of president.

And despite holding intensely and similarly critical opinions both of President Biden and of his predecessor, Americans have much more positive views of Donald J. Trump’s policies than they do of Mr. Biden’s, according to New York Times/Siena College polls.

Overall, 40 percent of voters said Mr. Trump’s policies had helped them personally, compared with just 18 percent who say the same about Mr. Biden’s policies. Instead, 43 percent of voters said Mr. Biden’s policies had hurt them, nearly double the share who said the same about Mr. Trump’s policies, the latest Times/Siena poll found.

I’ve seen deadly stories for candidates before, lots of times, but I can’t remember seeing one this deadly. The gap between the two candidates is enormous, and it’s not bridgeable in eight months, even assuming — which I don’t — that things go relatively well for the country over that time.

This is it up close:

This is just ghastly news for Biden — fatal news, in my view. As the Times notes:

Women are 20 percentage points more likely to say that Mr. Trump’s policies have helped them than Mr. Biden’s have, despite the fact that Mr. Trump installed Supreme Court justices who ultimately overturned the right to an abortion and that about two-thirds of women in America think that abortion should be legal in all or most instances.

The Times reporter who wrote that must have been gagging as she was typing.

In polls of six key battleground states in October, 42 percent of women said abortion should always be legal; among that group, two-thirds said Mr. Trump’s policies had hurt them. But women who thought abortion should be more limited — including those who said abortion should be mostly legal — were far more likely to say Mr. Trump’s policies helped them than hurt them.

The RCP average shows Tump leading in all but one of those states.

Another of Mr. Trump’s early signature policies, his plan to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, was opposed by two-thirds of Hispanic voters, according to exit polls taken during the 2016 election. It was part of a suite of policies, including a ban on travel from several predominantly Muslim countries, that helped fuel large turnout by Democratic voters and sweeping victories for Democratic candidates in the 2018 midterms.

Now, 37 percent of Hispanic voters said Mr. Trump’s policies helped them personally, compared with 15 percent who said this about Mr. Biden’s policies.

“Cash was flowing with Trump, even through the Covid years toward the end of his term,” said Henry Perez, 50, who lives in California’s Central Valley. He voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 but switched to Mr. Biden in 2020 because, as a union member, he was not thrilled with Mr. Trump’s policies toward unions.

Mr. Perez plans to vote for Mr. Trump again this fall, partly because of the economy.

“Just go to the pump and go to the store — that will tell you everything you need to know about how Biden’s policies have hurt me,” he said.

You really need to pinch yourself to remember that this is being printed, not by Breitbart or Hot Air or even Fox, but by the New York Times.

Black voters were the least likely to say Mr. Trump’s policies helped them, but they still viewed Mr. Trump’s policies more favorably than Mr. Biden’s.

Gameli Fenuku, a 22-year-old student in Richmond, Va., is planning to vote for Mr. Biden — mainly because “he said he was going to be making college more affordable for students.” But he said that Mr. Biden’s policies had hurt him overall, and that Mr. Trump’s had helped.

“I don’t want to say it was just because he was president, but everything was definitely cheaper,” Mr. Fenuku said of Mr. Trump, adding, “We weren’t just handing out money to other countries.” He said he would consider voting for Mr. Trump, an attitude that was once a rarity among young Black men like Mr. Fenuku but has become more prevalent in recent polls.

Biden will still get a heavy majority of the black vote, but it seems likely to be less of a majority than it was last time, and that could make the statewide difference if it happens in cities like Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta.

Still, the question behind all this is not why Biden’s erosion is happening — the people the Times interviewed pretty much tell you that — but why the most important and reliable of the Democratic bullhorns, the New York Times, is giving it such extensive and prominent coverage almost on the eve of Biden’s SOTU address.

The answer seems clear, at least to me. The Times believes with ample evidence that Biden is going to lose, and wants to get the ball rolling (or maybe get the boulder rolling) to replace him as the candidate. Biden has been mostly loyal to the Times’ Leftist agenda (though with somewhat mixed signals on Israel, which Biden is still aiding, albeit with brain-dead criticism thrown in), but loyalty is yesterday and the election is, so to speak, tomorrow. The Times, like most of the Left, is so appalled by the prospect of Trump’s winning that Biden will simply have to be tossed over the side.

Of course the Times has the same conundrum the rest of the Left has, namely, who Biden’s replacement on the ticket should be. They don’t know and neither do I, but they have a Great Big Nasty Problem. If they nominate Kamala she’ll probably lose, too (her polls are even worse than Biden’s), but if they don’t nominate her — the next in line — they’ll have a revolt among their most loyal constituency.

Being a Reagan/Bush Republican in a party now dominated by Trump is not making me the happiest camper around, but I’m a lot happier sitting where I am than the Democrats must be, sitting in the lobby of assisted living where they are.