It’s no secret that Donald Trump is delighted about Joe Biden’s candidacy and the selection of Kamala Harris as running mate.  Biden is so obviously undergoing a cognitive decline it seems almost unfair to criticize him for his failure to function adequately, but this is a presidential election, not a memory cafe.  And Harris is so obviously not disadvantaged in any way as a result of being nonwhite or a woman that any attempt on her part to play the victim card is easily debunked.  And whilst she’s obviously been chosen to harvest the black vote, her ancestry is not African-American and therefore she cannot claim any direct connection with those African-Americans whose ancestors were once slaves (her father claims to be descended from Hamilton Brown, an Irish-born sugar-planter).  Expect a lot of race-baiting from Harris in the weeks to come.  The proper response to this is disgust at the cynicism involved.  Given that most nonwhite people in the U.S. are as nonracist as their white compatriots, the presence of Harris on the ticket may actually reduce the nonwhite vote for Biden.

The Dem campaign machine will promote the Biden/Harris ticket as the only combination that can defeat Trump come Nov. 3.  But selling is different from buying, and there is much about the dynamics of this presidential contest that makes Biden/Harris far from a dream ticket -- except for Trump. 

For a start, Biden and Harris are not on the same page, not even close.  Harris spent much of the candidate-selection process trashing Biden and his political stance, and is on record saying she believes those women who have made sexual harassment allegations against him.  Her sudden emergence as acolyte to Biden is thoroughly unconvincing.  She knows they have only two things in common: their appetite for power and their cynical attachment to ends-justify-means politics.  But Harris at least looks aware of what’s going on around her, whereas it would seem that Biden now can’t make even a simple phone call without a prompt-sheet.

They don’t look good together, and with Harris behind or beside him, Biden is always going to be aware that he is no longer center-stage.  Standing next to Harris only emphasizes Biden’s ‘yesterday’s man’ demeanor.  From now on, he’ll look increasingly like a confused old man who’s lost his Zimmer frame.  Comparison with the Trump/Pence pairing is illuminating, and needs to be emphasized.

Trump chose Pence back in 2016 because the latter made up for everything that Trump himself lacked.  Pence is a steady presence in the background, a safe pair of hands in which to place the vice presidential functions, a reassuringly measured voice that balances Trump’s startling rhetoric when the latter’s rousing oratory begins to leave the reality of the moment behind.  And Pence has always stayed in the background, letting Trump lead from the front. Trump’s choice was wise and has stood the test of time.  Biden’s choice -- if it were his at all -- is bizarre, given that Kamala Harris is already unpopular with many grass-roots Democrats, and her erratic track-record in politics makes her vulnerable to criticism (which Trump is sure to exploit to the full).

But we should not deceive ourselves into believing that these two are harmless.  It's almost possible the whole point of Biden/Harris is to lose the election by just enough to make it appear credible that Trump ‘stole’ the election from them (yawn).  What is needed here is for Trump to win by a significant margin, and for that to happen, enough voters must turn away from the campaign message of Biden/Harris and see Trump as offering something that America badly needs. 

On past form Trump will not be pulling any punches.  Even if Sleepy Joe goes for the sympathy vote, Trump must pull back the veil and reveal the reality behind the PR front erected by the Democrats.  Because this election is not really about Sleepy Joe.  It’s about whether Trump gets enough of a majority as president, and in both Houses, to govern effectively for four more years.  The key to this, however, lies in enough voters being convinced that all the Dems have to offer is negativity and social conflict -- as is already being demonstrated in almost every town and city they control throughout America. 

Joe Biden has already slipped into the negative campaigning that will lose him the election.  This should be welcomed.  It lost Hillary her chance of the presidency in 2016, and Biden’s handlers have obviously learned nothing.  The ‘deplorables’ will rejoice in new insults.  But the most impressive dynamic of all is one that the Democrats and their supporters in the mainstream media appear blind to. 

The Dems accuse Donald Trump of indulging in dog-whistle politics without any insight into the astonishing irony.  Because when Trump whistles, it’s the Democrats who come running.  They can’t seem to help themselves, drooling and slobbering over their prey.  But their tactics make them appear hysterical, incoherent, and cynical whilst giving Trump free publicity.  They think they are destroying him, when every insult actually makes him stronger.  And he loves it.  In Trump’s dog-whistle politics the Dems are the dogs. 

Consider what happened over the Trump and Mount Rushmore story.  The news media published a story about an alleged suggestion made by someone supposedly acting for Trump that he might like to have his portrait carved on Mount Rushmore.  Cue meltdown in the mainstream media.  For 24 hours or so every possible opprobrium was heaped on Trump by the Dems and their supporters.  The result was millions of dollars of free publicity for Trump, with his name and picture all over the media, alongside the carved portraits of four of the greatest presidents in history.  There’s a reason visuals are most effective when selling anything, and that’s because images have a far greater impact on the human mind and sentiments than words alone can achieve.  Long after the bilious response of his political opponents has faded from public memory, viewers will remember Trump’s face shown against the backdrop of the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.  Greatness by association.  Trump yet again demonstrated that he is the consummate troll of those who hate him, and yet they cannot resist falling for his bait every time the hook drops into their murky political waters.

He’ll do the same to Sleepy Joe and Kamala Harris.  He will relish every opportunity to stoke the indignation and derision of their supporters against him.  It only takes one or two high-profile figures to take the bait, and then the Twitter mob will swing into action, and before long Biden and/or Harris will be pressured by their own supporters to weigh into the fray and that will be Trump’s ‘Gotcha!’ moment.

Love him or loathe him, Trump’s campaigning tactics are brilliant.  His approach is modeled on the tactics of a bare-knuckle street-fighter combined with the chutzpah of a seasoned circus ring-master.  He feints, draws his opponent in, and then administers the knock-down, whilst delivering his own fight-commentary that tells the audience exactly why he wins and deserves to win, and why it’s good for everyone that he is the victor of the bout.  Who wants to back a loser?  Keep the best, junk the rest.

All this should not blind us to the importance of this contest.  Flawed as he may be, Trump is the only man who can hold the line against the radical progressive liberal-Left’s final push to destroy the America Dream and with it Western civilization. 

Because that’s where we are right now. 

Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of edited image detail by Gage Skidmore // CC BY-SA 2.0, YouTube screen shot, and public domain image.