In the immediate wake of Joe Biden’s heroically disastrous debate performance, Barack Obama tweeted that nobody should worry. It was just one bad night. However, behind-the-scenes gossip held that Obama wants Biden gone. Now, David Axelrod is bringing out the big guns, which means that Obama has spoken. I’d say it’s now a sure thing that Joe is off the ticket in a few days.

Wisely, Barack Obama has kept to the shadows for the last three and a half years. Now that it’s been confirmed Biden is just a sock puppet, that knowledge lends credence to the belief that it is Obama, not Biden, who’s been calling the shots that harden all of Obama’s policies (in effect, Obama’s third term). Still, Obama’s too wily to make that obvious.

Low profile or not, following Biden’s debate disaster, Obama (the grand old man of the Democrat party) felt compelled to calm the masses. It was just a little glitch, he assured us. Things happen. Ignore the evidence of your own eyes. Everything is just fine:

Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the…

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 28, 2024

Democrat insiders, however, know that everything is not just fine. Their finger-pointing reminds me of the song “It’s Your Fault” from Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, which is built around characters in Grimms’ Fairy Tales (e.g., Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, etc.). This song happens when several characters are dead:

(I dislike Sondheim music, but the song’s point is perfect for today’s Democrat party infighting.)

Despite Obama’s attempt to prop up the faithful and prevent them from turning on each other, insiders knew that Obama—who always despised Biden—was furious. Just days after the debate, Tucker Carlson tweeted that he had insider information that Obama was planning to dump Biden:

From an unusually good source: Obama’s tweet supporting Joe Biden was disingenuous. In private, Obama is telling people Biden can’t win, and he is therefore in favor of an open convention. Obama will not say whom he supports, nor as of yesterday afternoon had he met personally…

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) July 1, 2024

Today, we can say that “Project Dump Joe Biden” has officially begun—not because Democrats are squawking and worrying, but because Obama has sent out his top henchman to deliver the message. That henchman is David Axelrod, who was the architect of Obama’s victory in 2008.

In a long essay at CNN about the situation after Biden’s interview with Stephanopoulos, Axelrod brings out the big guns against Biden’s continued presidential run:

But on the big question that now threatens his campaign — whether he still has the stamina and mental acuity to serve for four more years in the world’s toughest job — the 81-year-old president offered little reassurance beyond a proud recitation of his impressive first-term accomplishments.

[snip]

Three separate polls conducted by CNN, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal after the debate all showed Biden trailing Trump by six points nationwide. Previous polls have shown Biden trailing in nearly all the battleground states he narrowly won in 2020. And now a handful of other states he won — Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — appear to be in play.

At this rate, Biden is likely headed for a landslide defeat to a lawless and unpopular former president.

[snip]

Only “the Lord Almighty” could persuade him to give up the race, the president said, as a growing chorus of Democrats, fearful of an electoral disaster, call for him to step aside.

Denial. Delusion. Defiance.

In modern political terms, that essay is the political equivalent of the blood sacrifices on the guillotine or by firing squad that Jacobins and Bolsheviks demanded of those revolutionaries who failed to match their ideological purity test. Biden is lucky that the big guns are merely metaphorical, not real.

And just to make sure that this “Dump Biden” message sells to those who aren’t in the habit of reading their news, Axelrod used CNN’s Sunday morning political show to double-down on his “Biden, you’re politically dead” message:

Again, this message isn’t David Axelrod’s. He’s just a messenger carrying Obama’s orders, all while Obama keeps his hands clean.

With Obama working to rid himself of a troublesome, senile president, I expect Biden to drop from the campaign within the week. The more interesting questions remain: (1) Given his manifest impairment, will Biden be the subject of a 25th Amendment ouster. And (2) whether Kamala gains the desk in the Oval Office or not, will she be the eventual Democrat nominee?

Regarding that second question, Tucker’s claim that Obama wants an open convention suggests he has someone in mind other than Kamala. Perhaps he hopes to change Michelle’s mind despite her official insistence that she won’t run (or he already knows that that insistence was untrue).

Remember: In November, if you vote for anyone other than Trump, you’re voting for Barack Obama’s fourth term.

Image: The Obamas and Bidens. Public domain.