To put it in the most blunt terms, about the only thing Biden has
done effectively in recent days is to remind the “elites” — the very
ones who plucked him from the political graveyard to be their hood
ornament in 2020 — of his absolute power, and the golden rule: He who
has the gold rules. Biden holds all the gold and has used every bit of
it to stave off a congressional revolt
in his own party. As the sitting president who has accumulated more
than enough delegates to assure his renomination at the Democratic
National Convention in August, he surely has reminded his panicked
cohorts that it is entirely up to him and him alone to show or go.
Indeed, as he faces the challenge of a lifetime to overcome profound
and widespread doubts about his capacity to serve until he is 86 years
old — or whether he is even up to the job right now — Biden holds almost
absolute power to determine his own destiny. He possesses the awesome
authority of the presidency and has won every single primary contest —
except one in faraway American Samoa — entitling him to his party’s
nomination. It cannot be taken from him without his consent.
End of discussion. And as he digs in his heels more with each passing
day, this president also holds what could be the ultimate ace in the
hole: the full backing of enabler-in-chief Dr. Jill Biden.
What Does Biden Have to Lose?
In the end, Biden might think, what does he have to lose? He will be
sent out to pasture anyway when this is all over, in four months or four
years. Why should he voluntarily forgo the many perks and trappings of
power he sought for his entire adult life? And his pleading is easy to
follow if not accept: He already beat Trump once, helped prevent the
expected red wave two years later, and now they want to throw him
overboard in favor of an unspecified alternative — or Kamala Harris, for
heaven’s sake?
When even the leaders and elders of your own party fail in
confronting you with the grave consequences of remaining on the ballot,
as they have in recent days, only to run into Biden’s stone wall, it
seems accepting defeat is the only remaining option. After all, they
have thrown the kitchen sink at Donald Trump — prosecutions,
impeachments, fake scandals, Jan. 6 — and the 45th president now stands
as a heavy favorite to become number 47. Will Biden, the quintessential
party man, still cling to power if he knows Trump and the GOP are all
but certain to score the trifecta of winning the House, Senate, and
presidency — on top of the decidedly conservative Supreme Court?
Biden has the capacity — and obviously the willingness — to follow
the advice of former First Lady Nancy Reagan, and just say no.
Mr. President, won’t you bow out if you understand that Trump is likely to recapture the presidency if you don’t? No.
But surely you’ll call it quits if you realize your party is likely to lose both the House and Senate? No.
What about stepping down to avoid destroying your endangered legacy? No.
Would you step aside if it was the only way to save your dwindling dignity? No.
Is there any reason you would step aside for the good of your party and the country? No.
Indeed, one word from this president is all that’s required to rebuff
the calls for his withdrawal from the race and the palpable panic
coursing through the veins of the Democratic Party like a cancer: no.
And there is absolutely nothing that congressional bigwigs Chuck
Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi, James Clyburn, or anyone other
than perhaps the first lady, can do about it except swallow hard and
rally around the Biden flag, even if he descends further to the point of
facing a landslide defeat.
All In Until He’s Not
Of course, Biden must behave as if he is all in until such time as he
isn’t, but there has been absolutely no indication he is open to either
resigning his office or ending his re-election bid. In one more
last-ditch effort to talk Biden off the ledge, Democrats have now been
reduced to embarrassing their own president by publicly predicting
disaster if he remains in the race. Already, a dozen or so House
Democrats have publicly called on him to step aside – an act requiring
considerable courage — and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) broke the silence
among Democrats in the upper chamber on Tuesday when he stated on CNN
that Trump “is on track to win this election — and maybe win it by a
landslide and take with him the Senate and the House.” Sen. Peter Welch
(D-VT) joined in Wednesday, calling for Biden to step aside. This, amid
reports of one congressional Democrat after another privately expressing
grave concerns for their own political futures, and some even breaking
into tears over the hopelessness of the situation.
We are fast approaching the point where filing deadlines in many
states will have passed, it will be too late to dump this president, and
the party will have no choice but to put all their eggs in the
congressional basket, hoping against hope they can maintain their tiny
advantage in the Senate and flip Republicans’ equally narrow control of
the House. The process of high-profile donors boycotting until Biden is
gone from the ticket is well underway, and many are redirecting their
support from presidential to congressional races.
One could envision Biden, realizing just how toxic Vice President
Kamala Harris is in the eyes of a consistent and overwhelming majority
of voters, looking at his doubters and asking a simple question: Do you
honestly think Kamala has a better chance of beating Trump than me?
That’s the right question for him to ask if he is intent on soldiering
through this. Indeed, as Trump has pointed out repeatedly, Biden’s
choice of Harris is looking like a great one for his job security. If
the vice president were an attractive alternative, the party might go to
untold lengths to put her forward as a replacement. However, she is all
but dead weight, and Biden knows it better than anyone.
After all, even as the VP increases her public presence with speeches
about the safest of all Democratic issues like abortion and racism, and
prepares to take the top spot at some point, exposing this vice
president to the slings and arrows of Trump would get ugly fast. It is a
race that most Republicans would believe, rightly or wrongly, that
Trump could win, as Rush Limbaugh famously intoned, with half his mind
tied behind his back just to make it fair. If leftists truly believe
what they say about this woman being a viable contender in the years
ahead, why would they throw her into the lion’s den of a race that is
now Trump’s to lose and likely destroy her future prospects for the
presidency?
On the other hand, if Democrats accept that the woman made it to the
second highest office in the land for reasons other than her competence,
popularity, or ability to assume the presidency, then maybe they would
throw her to the wolves, figuring she has no real future in the party
anyway. But the issue remains moot as long as Biden clings to power like
life itself.
What Biden also has destroyed by his intransigence is the moral high
ground he was attempting to occupy, and thus the entire premise of his
campaign that Trump, not he, is a threat to democracy. How concerned can
Biden actually be about democracy if he cocoons himself in Delaware,
denies reality, relies on an inner circle that has been narrowed down
mostly to his immediate family, and rejects every bit of advice from
trusted colleagues?
He screams about his reviled opponent refusing to give up power, and
now that is exactly what Biden is doing. He calls Trump a pathological
liar, and now we have become fully aware of a coverup of mammoth
proportions about his condition that historians will be discussing for
generations. He has relegated his own legislative accomplishments to a
footnote in history, drained a generous well of gratitude and love in
his own party, and set himself up next to Hillary Clinton as an abject
failure whose enduring legacy will be that he allowed the unthinkable,
Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office. And, as ever more panicked and
frustrated Democrats have been reminded of in no uncertain terms, only
he can put a stop to it.
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