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.