Douglas MacKinnon, writing in The Hill, recently suggested that the Democrats were going to nominate somebody else at their August convention.  No problem here — and his reason is that Ol’ Joe is so unpopular that anybody else would do better against Trump.  But how much better?

Besides the obvious problem of the horrible optics that come with dumping the nation’s chief executive in front of the whole world, there’s also the problem of timing.  August is perhaps way too late to grab a fresh candidate out of (ahem) a rather limited bullpen.  Actually, all of 2024 is way too late from the standpoint of political feasibility.  FYI, Lyndon Johnson withdrew consideration for his second full term on March 31, 1968 — in the face of similar distress within his party — and Johnson was a much more astute politician than Biden...which still didn’t help Hubert Humphrey at all.

Others are also speculating that Biden’s abrupt commitment to debate Trump was really a move by party insiders to expedite Biden’s collapse and subsequent withdrawal.  But to what end? 

Various mythologies are emanating from this general milieu.  Some of my lefty neighbors seriously believe that, should Trump be re-elected, he would remain in office after his term was over — thus earning him the title of dictator-in-chief.  I presume this assumption is the result of Trump’s dispute of 2020’s outcome.  More myths are likely to spring from the debates, since actual transcripts will fail to invoke the true meaning of what was said and implied.

For starters, I expect Biden to strenuously deny the seriousness of inflation.  He will, again, blame greedy corporate price-gougers — as if there were really no such thing as competition among businesses for customers.  He will also point to the Dow going above 40,000 for the first time.  However, using the online inflation calculator, a Dow at 40,000 today would drop down to 32,900 if it were expressed in January 2020 dollars.  That really wasn’t all that long ago.

Cutting to the chase, fear of Trump rather than love of Biden is what the Dems actually have in their toolbox.  Since Trump isn’t all that scary, they have to invent reasons to be afraid of him.  All we can do is watch them try.  That being said, it’s likely to get pretty gross.  Rather than typically pragmatic Republicans, Democrats are gluttons for power at any price.  Their motto should be “the end justifies the means.”  Kind of reminiscent of Vladimir Lenin.  If they had any sense of shame, Trump would not now be on trial.  So don’t take Biden’s defeat for granted.  Desperate desires can lead to desperate methods.

But what about the issues?  “We don’t got to show you no stinking issues.”  All they have are personalities.  In addition to inflation and its impact on the American standard of living, crime is the compelling issue du jour.  Being mostly a local issue, the Dems are still concerned with crime as it affects down-ballot races, often in a big way.  For example, Oakland’s mayor, Sheng Thao, has just begun only her second year in office, and her recall is already on November’s ballot, for an obvious reason.

Yeah, there’s also abortion.  Imagine letting the several states make their own rules.  How authoritarian is this when compared to unelected judges handing down edicts?  The Israeli-Hamas war is front-page, but Biden has lamely pandered to both sides — and suffered the consequences.

So here we are — the Democrats have morphed into a Leninist apparatchik in a traditionally right-of-center nation.  Where to go from here?  First off is a second term for President Trump.  Next off is identifying his successor.  Who may that be?  Nothing is certain, but the other side has much less to draw from.  That’s the big issue, really.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.