Leading Dems demand Biden show he can win
Not that he's fit to govern
Joe Biden’s will soon hold his press conference — the one he hopes will convince the American public that he’s competent to be president and Democratic leaders that he can defeat Trump (or at least is as likely to defeat him as Kamala Harris). The press conference is being billed as a make-or-break event for Biden. Maybe it is.
It’s pretty clear the press corps and the organs it works for want to see Biden replaced. Members of the press will also want to show their displeasure with Biden for deceiving them into believing he’s fit to be president. Actually, it’s doubtful that the press corps was deceived. Rather, it’s very likely that the mainstream media covered for Biden because it thought this approach best served the Democrats.
Now that the approach has backfired, the press thinks it’s in the interest of Democrats to replace Biden. Accordingly, we can expect reporters at the press conference to go after Biden with both guns blazing.
At one level, it will be a disgusting spectacle. Yet, it’s one I’ll relish. How refreshing to see the media train its guns on a Democrat, for once. And no, I won’t feel sorry for Biden. He deserves whatever fire he gets.
I keep reading that Democratic leaders are demanding that Biden show he has a path to victory over Donald Trump. I have two thoughts about this development.
First, the demand is unprecedented. Biden isn’t the first presidential candidate to be behind in the polls and to face long odds against winning. Yet, I can’t recall other trailing candidates who won their primaries and were about to be nominated facing such a demand.
In 1996, did any Republican demand that presumptive nominee Bob Dole demonstrate a path to defeating Bill Clinton, whom he trailed in the polls? I don’t think so.
For that matter, four years ago did any Republican demand that Donald Trump present a plan for winning the presidential election? In July 2020, Trump trailed Biden in the polls by about twice the margin Biden trails Trump now. But I don’t recall anyone demanding that Trump show he could win.
Second, and most interesting to me, is the nature of the Democrats’ demand. I’m not seeing leading Democrats insist that Biden show he’s competent to lead America for four more years. They are just insisting he show them he can win in November.
To be sure, ability to govern and ability to win are related in this case. If Biden shows he’s mentally fit, it increases the odds he can defeat Trump.
Even so, I find it significant that the demand on Biden has been presented purely in pragmatic political terms, with not even a nod to the obviously legitimate concern that a Biden victory might well leave America with a president who lacks the mental competence to lead the nation.
The Dems seem unconcerned about that prospect. As long as they think Biden can win, they are fine with his candidacy.
No one who has paid attention to the Democrats’ behavior in recent years should be surprised about this.
I tend to think Biden will lose no matter what happens today. For months before now, he was slightly but consistently behind. The debate didn't do much more than reinforce, rather than create, what was already there. He's a smaller-than-life figure with an unimpressive record as President, and that more than anything else is what will tell the tale in November.
If the Dems are allowed to continue with mail-in voting and massive ballot harvesting then an embalmed corpse, named “the late Joe Biden”, will defeat Donald Trump in 2024. History repeats itself if apathy and complacency rule the day for the Republicans.