A Lump of Coal

This Christmas Eve, many economists and pundits are predicting a continuously improving economy for 2024 and a job market that remains strong,  as more of President Biden's investments in infrastructure start to be implemented.  So certainly, despite low poll numbers, President Biden must have greatly improved chances for re-election going into the new year, right?

Actually, none whatsoever.  Inflation remains stubbornly high, despite early signs that it's cooled off, and people have been struggling with the high cost of living, and short of robbing a giant snow globe full of money in a shipping mall court,  there's no way to beat it.  Which means there is a way for Trump to beat Biden next year.  This is all reflected in polls taken over the past several months, and a leading pollster made this plain in talking with Jim Acosta of CNN.

"What the President currently is doing, is still talking about progress," he said to Acosta. "And you can’t talk about progress when three-quarters of the country think we’re on the wrong track. So you have to stop on the notion that we’re making progress. You have to get where people are, and where they are is on the rising prices.  They need to stop with their own voters and say, 'We get it. If inflation is the biggest problem, we get it. We know. We know what you’ve been through. We’re in touch with that. Here’s [how] we’re dealing with it.'"

The pollster's name?  Stanley Greenberg.  If that name sounds familiar to you, that's because is married to U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut.  Which happens to work out fine, because Greenberg is also a Democrat.

So this is a Democratic pollster saying that Biden has the whole damn thing all wrong.  A Democratic pollster.  And he didn't say all of this on Fox.  He said it on CNN. 

This all contrasts sharply with the Biden campaign's attitude, as reported by Gabriel Debenedetti in New York magazine.  Debenedetti's article essentially explain that, while Democrats and even some Biden insiders are more or less running around screaming that the sky is falling, Biden himself is like, "Calm down, people - I got this."

What he got is a lump of Christmas coal, boys and girls. The Biden campaign is carrying on as if everything's hunky dory, ignoring discontent in the nation at large, dismissing dissent in the Democratic ranks,  and convinced that Donald Trump will immolate himself politically.  If that sounds like the modus operandi of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign in 2016 to you, congratulations - now you know what I'm driving at.  And you also understand why I'm hoping to use my passport to get out of the country before Trump takes over in January 2025 - and before Trump invalidates all U.S. passports to prevent a human capital outflow and to avoid the indignity of the world seeing Americans leave en masse a country that's supposed to have had its greatness restored.  (More on that later.)

And don't tell me how the Biden re-election effort is going to bounce back or get its mojo working, because I've come to a decision: I don't want to hear it!  😬

Fit To Be Tied

It's September 2023, and all the polls show the same thing . . . President Biden and Donald Trump are tied in a potential 2024 rematch despite Trump having been indicted four times for money fraud,  mishandling secret documents, interfering in the 2020 Georgia presidential election (Georgia the U.S. state, not Georgia the Transcaucasian country and former Soviet republic), and insurrection.  How on earth can Biden not be so far ahead of Trump that he can win a landslide - apart from the fact that Americans are morons?

There are actually several reasons, all of them quite sobering - and scary enough to encourage me to plan for a future in which the Proud Boys (at least those that haven't been sent to prison already) are deputized into a new secret police.  First, despite the improving economy, not enough people are feeling it thanks to aftereffects of inflationary pressures.  Although inflation is cooling,  food and gas prices are still high and many people are still forced to economize.  That's why two people disapprove of Biden's handling of the economy for every one person that approves.

Another reason is that Trump has a solid, loyal following that Biden never had outside Delaware in his entire political career.  Trump supporters would go through fire to vote for him; Biden supporters aren't that devoted to their candidate.  Biden still doesn't get much respect, if any, from the party's progressive base despite all he's done for him.  Whereas Trump could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes, Biden could accidentally spill coffee on someone on Fifth Avenue and he'd be out of the presidential campaign within a week.  

Third, there's the age problem.  Democrats are concerned about Biden being and looking so old at 80 years of age.  Trump, despite being only 3½ years younger than Biden, doesn't have that handicap.  That's because, whatever you say about Trump, he comes across as a feisty, energized, animated fighter ready to take on anyone.  Biden is so low-key, by contrast, that videos of his speeches could put the sleeping-pill industry out of business.  Fair or unfair, Biden looks much older than Trump than he actually is.    

Fourth, Biden is leading an economic comeback based on good jobs at good wages . . . with no Democrats following him.  The corporate wing of the Democratic Party still dominates Washington, a legacy of three decades of trying to please business interests and Wall Street financiers.  Biden has always been a lunchbox Democrat in the tradition of Hubert Humphrey and Tim Ryan, but most Democrats are elitists who spend more time hanging out with movie stars than with factory workers.  Trump has consistently appealed to working-class voters and convinced them that he's the only friend they have when it comes to protecting their interests - which isn't true, of course.  But he did it so well in 2016 that he had blue-collar voters sewn up long before Biden could come around to win them back in 2020.  And  Democratic Party leaders don't seem to care.       

Fifth - Kamala Harris.  She's the one Democrat that is less popular then Joe Biden right now.  Admittedly, that's mainly because she's a black woman who's also part South Asian and whose husband is a Jew - and she prefers Bootsy Collins records to Phil Collins records.  But even leaving all of that aside, she doesn't come across as warm and fuzzy as Biden does, and she seems somewhat strident even when she's in a good mood.  Many people are uncomfortable about her being a heartbeat away from the Presidency when the President is an octogenarian.  There has been talk of another California Democrat - Gavin Newsom, the governor of California - stepping in as the vice presidential candidate in 2024 and the heir apparent in 2028. I guarantee you, that if the Democrats go that route - no matter how logical that sounds, given Newsom's own political gifts - you'll start seeing stickers on car windows that read this:

Because Democrats would rather be politically correct than politically successful, that's how we got Hillary Clinton over Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders.

So what are we left with?  A likely Biden renomination and a rematch against Trump, whose re-election is viewed unfavorably by 69 percent of American voters, according to one poll.  But get this: That same poll shows that 75 percent of voters view Biden's re-election unfavorably.  To say that Biden has a tough fight ahead of him is an understatement, and he just keeps saying, "Watch me."  I have watched his 2024 presidential campaign; so far, it's like watching paint dry.

That said, this is precisely why I'm beginning to view Trump's return to power as inevitable.  I expect that a second Trump administration will last beyond January 20, 2029 because Trump will declare martial law at the first sign of civil unrest, he'll have Democrats bodily removed from Congress, and all of his opponents and enemies - including average citizens, whose IP addresses will be collected by the government - will get one-way train rides to concentration camps in North Dakota, if not sent to the gallows.  

Though some of them may just be taken out to a football field and face a firing squad.

Has Biden Bounced Back?

It sure looks that way.

President Biden is coming off a good period in his time in office.  Unemployment is down to 3.5 percent, the the reconciliation budget bill that includes important climate and health provisions is undergoing numerous votes thanks to U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) deciding to back it once the bill was tweaked to meet her demands, the PACT Act passed to help veterans affected by burn pits, Biden himself is testing negative for COVID again, he's riding high in the polls, and . . .

All right, I made up that last one.  And I did that to make a point.  My point - and I do have one - is that Biden has gotten no credit for any of these wins or reports.  That's mainly because inflation continues at an unbearable pace, no one is feeling or can expect to feel before the midterms any of the legislation about to be passed, Republicans are still within striking distance of taking back the House, and now the United States leads the world in - you guessed it - monkeypox cases. (Oh, yeah, COVID is still a problem.)  Americans are still in the same funk they've been in for over a year now.  And that's why Biden's poll numbers still stink.

Biden has to keep this new momentum going through the fall and try to address the problems with inflation and with public health in order to make change people can feel, not just believe in, if he wants to get anything done in the second half of his term.  And it's not for himself - it's to help the Democrats in the midterms, as they try to do things for the people while Republicans try to do things for Donald Trump. And the Democrats have to be ready for the next presidential election. A Republican Congress in January 2025 serving under a DeSantis or second Trump Presidency will mean the death knell for American democracy.

And yes, I still think it.  President Biden should announce - preferably at the end of his 2023 State of the Union address - that he will not seek another term.  Does anyone really want him to remain in office until January 2029, when he'll be 86?  Shouldn't a younger Democrat comparable to Biden - say, a former Maryland governor 😉 - take his place?

So - has Biden bounced back?  I'm not sure I can answer that question just yet.