It looks like Joe Biden is refusing to step down from the Democrat presidential ticket. Putting aside the legal issues and deadlines resulting from late ballot changes and the undesirability of Kamala Harris taking over, there are problems with removing Biden by force. Let’s take a look at them:

1. Removing Biden at the convention: The delegates are already pledged to Biden. This would require 300 delegate signatures and would be very messy at best, with Michelle Obama (assuming she is their savior) having to compete with other potential candidates. An alternative plan, still very messy and still subject to the aforementioned legal issues but not requiring Biden’s removal, is replacing Kamala Harris as VP on the ticket with Barack Obama, who then, with a Democrat presidential victory, becomes president effectively for a third term when Biden steps down or dies. This frightening possibility seems to hold up from a legal standpoint, assuming the late ballot change is not a barrier.

2. Biden’s cabinet transfers his presidential power to the vice president due to incapacity, invoking the 25th Amendment. This has the added benefit of hurdling barriers in states which permit a late ballot change for a live candidate only if the candidate is declared insane or mentally incompetent. I doubt Parkinson's disease would qualify, so the Democrats would have to be willing to humiliate Biden with an appropriate diagnosis. This transfer of power requires the declaration not only of the vice president but that of a majority of the cabinet members the president himself selected. Even if that is attained, if Biden attests he is fit, it takes the votes of two-thirds of both Houses to override his reinstatement, not a certainty by any means. Republicans -- or a clever subset of them -- could ensure Biden remains on the ticket by purposely voting to reinstate him, leaving Biden even more wounded after this ordeal and the Democrats who tried to oust him looking very silly. Surprisingly, this possible strategy didn’t seem to occur to the media of all persuasions covering this issue. Sure, these Republicans would be criticized for endangering the republic, but what about the Democrat machine that got Biden elected from his basement when he already was mentally incapacitated and continued to hide the decline with MSM complicity to the point of trying to sneak in his reelection? Furthermore, these Republicans could say there will be nothing left of the country to save if the Democrats win the next presidential election.

3. Impeach Biden in the House (majority needed) and then remove him in the Senate (two-thirds needed). This too solves the problem of Biden refusing to step down. Earlier, I speculated that all or just about all Republicans in the House would vote “yay” (to impeach for corruption) and most Democrats “nay,” but then in the Senate vote, some Democrats would surprisingly walk out during the voting so that two-thirds of those present voting for removal is attained. But now, with Biden’s mental incapacity exposed and Biden looking like a sure loser, the voting patterns might change, with a few RINOs joining Democrats in the House voting to impeach, with the rest of the House Republican vote being inconsequential. What happens in the Senate might be up in the air. Some Republicans may feel this is their one opportunity in history to remove a Democrat president for corruption -- deservedly so -- and they’ll take their chances with a replacement on the Democrat ticket and the legal problems it presents. But a surprise walkout by one party or the other during Senate voting could sway the results.

Stay tuned.

W.A. Eliot is a pseudonym

Image: AT via Magic Studio