Upon a Star

The Democratic Party has a problem in Joe Biden. Not his age... people understood that he was old when they first elected him in 2020. Rather, it's the perception of cognitive decline. That, and the fact that President Biden, at least publicly, feels that he's entitled to be the Democratic nominee for President based on his willingness to run.

The Democrats are in this unenviable position due to two words: Wishful thinking. There were suspicions that President Biden was unlikely to be up for a second term in 2020. And I think that then-candidate Biden knew this. After all, he said at the time: “I view myself as a transition candidate,” and “Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else. There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.”

It just turns out now that he doesn't want that future to come about prior to 2028. But I think that, as far as the President was concerned, that was always the plan. And in this, yes, I'm accusing the President of being dishonest. Because that's part and parcel of American politics. He told people what they wanted to hear, but without actually making a commitment to anything.

And the Democratic Party went along with him. Which meant not putting in the work to groom successors in the past four years. And so now, they're in the position of having a candidate who more and more people are convinced is incapable of doing the job. There will be attempts to keep the anti-Trump coalition of 2020 together, but anti-Trump is not the same as pro-Biden, and it's likely that many of the people who turned out in 2020 won't bother this November. The only question is whether there are enough of them in swing states to sink the President, and if enough of them skip the election as a whole to sink Congressional Democrats at risk of losing their seats along with him.