Friends, my latest article isn't about shoes, but it is about the fate of the nation, which is almost as interesting as footwear. More specifically, I ask the question: if the Dems are stuck with Biden, and Biden looks like a clunker, then how can they possibly turn this race around and avoid losing to THE EVIL ONE? I argue that there are a variety of extremely crafty, underhanded ruses that they could try, up to and including gifting The Donald an involuntary dirt nap. See if you think that any of these desperate ploys might be feasible...
The Nuclear Option(s)
After
President Joe Biden's abysmal performance in the first debate,
Democrats and progressives are sweating bullets. They have been in
denial for four years about Biden's...limitations, but now his
obsolescence has become impossible
to ignore.
Some Democrats, sensing the danger that the party is in and the
likelihood of a Trump victory, have reached the obvious conclusion:
it's time for Sleepy Joe to climb into his '67 Corvette and ride into
the sunset (or, better yet, be chauffeured into the sunset – in the
interests of public safety).
For a wide
variety of reasons, however, Biden is unlikely to bow out, and, even
if he did, the complications this would create for the Democratic
Party might be fatal to its near-term prospects. Let's assume,
therefore, that Joe Biden will remain the Democratic nominee for
president and ask the natural followup question: what else can the
Dems do to rescue themselves from what they assume would be an
extinction level event, i.e. a second term for Donald Trump?
While right now
all the focus is on Joe Biden and what will become of him, if he digs
in his heels, there is another “Hail Mary” play that the DNC
could try: dumping Kamala Harris as V.P. One of the challenges that
Dems face is that, in Harris, they have an understudy to Joe Biden
who is, if anything, even less popular and viable than Biden himself,
which is saying something! Joe Biden, wily old coot that he is,
probably picked Kamala Harris as his running mate and Vice-President
because of, not despite, her weaknesses. He knew that no one would
relish the thought of pushing him aside in favor of Harris.
Unfortunately for the Dems, this means that they are stuck with Biden
not only now, but, if he wins the election, until Sleepy Joe reaches
the ripe old age of 86.
The solution?
Assuming
Dem grandees are willing to risk offending some of their base, namely
black and feminist voters, they could
keep Joe on the ticket, give Kamala her walking papers, and elevate a
new running mate who was more likable, articulate, intelligent, and
above all presidential. If they did so, they could even assure the
American people, openly and directly or more subtly, that Sleepy Joe
would only be around a little while longer. Soon – very soon! –
he would step aside and allow his second-in-command to take the helm.
And this might give enough voters the necessary confidence to pull
the lever for the Biden-Dreamboat ticket that old man Biden would be
carried over the finish line.
But what if the Dems don't have the guts to cashier Kamala Harris,
or what if she refuses to go quietly into the night? Then they have
to get considerably more creative.
Since,
in Biden-Harris, the Dems are trying to sell the American people a
bill of goods that they adamantly refuse to buy, the only sure-fire
remedy is, as the Dems have been trying, to make the alternative –
Trump – grossly unacceptable. 91 felony charges, and now 34
felony convictions,
were supposed to do just that, but there's no evidence that the
lawfare gambit has worked. Yes, Judge Juan Merchan could pull the
“save democracy” rip cord during sentencing and throw DJT in
jail, but there's no guarantee that he would stay there long enough
to matter, or that incarcerating him wouldn't improve his poll
numbers still further. This would be a risky tactic, indeed. And
that, in turn, leaves the Left with a very short list of even more
desperate and extreme options.
Assuming
leading Dems have watched and paid attention during House
of Cards,
they will know that the democratic process can be massaged in an
infinite number of ways to achieve one's desired result. For
instance, false flag or disinformation operations could be conducted
to paint Donald Trump as a traitor, a foreign agent, or an
insurrectionist. About the only charge that hasn't been flung at
Trump at this stage is murder, so why not frame him for that, too?
Alternatively, his supporters could be portrayed as insane,
bloodthirsty, terroristic, and/or seditious. Since leftists already
believe most of these charges against Trump and Trumpers to
be true,
and journalists are primed to expound on these narratives anyway,
“evidence” to support these lines of attack could be incredibly
thin, but still widely believed and potentially politically decisive.
We
cannot rule out the possibility that political violence or civil
unrest will be used, by either side or by both, as a tactic to
achieve victory, or as an excuse to take other extreme
anti-democratic measures. There is, by some accounts, a growing
acceptance of violence by Democrats, Republicans, and independents,
and a rising
expectation
that the democratic process will be fraught with violence. Whether
riots or terrorist attacks or acts of intimidation or insurrections
would ultimately work to the benefit of one party or the other,
however, is harder to predict.
Many
conservatives have quietly speculated that, in the last instance, the
Dems and their Deep State cronies would have Trump bumped
off,
and this would, without question, definitively end his White House
bid, but the DNC's supply of concrete galoshes and/or sniper rifles
may not be as ample as many conspiracy-minded Trumpers suppose, and,
like the prison option, top Dems may view assassination not only as
impractical and far too risky, but also as morally and legally
insupportable. There are, believe it or not, still norms in American
democracy, and no one has (yet) been willing to use lethal force
against their primary political opponents to win an election, or to
avoid losing one – unless, of course, you believe the January 6th
Committee, which half the country does.
Having
said all that, with respect to a potential assassination of Donald
Trump, there is, as almost anyone with friends on both sides of the
aisle can tell you, no
shortage
of rack-and-file Democrats who openly desire the death of Donald
Trump, and it would be surprising if some elite Democrats did not
share their sentiments. Transforming idle talk into murderous action,
however, is another matter. Of course, even if 99.999% of Democrats
disavow all talk of assassination, it would only take one, with the
means and opportunity, to pull it off.
Assuming
the worst happens, from a Dem perspective, and Trump looks certain to
win it all, the election could conceivably be canceled, based on
concocted “national security” concerns, or it could go forward up
to election day itself, when, for some specious reason, the ability
of voters in certain areas to head to polling places could be
curtailed. Republicans, more than Democrats, rely
on traditional voters
voting on election day, and any diminution of those vote totals,
which did not affect the counting of mail-in and early votes, would
almost certainly lead to massive victories for Joe Biden and all
swing state and swing district Democrats. Pursuing such electoral
chicanery might, however, require Biden and the Democrats to override
the legitimate objections of the courts, including the Supreme Court,
which is a path that no Democrat would go down lightly. Of course,
leftist propaganda has been cultivating
contempt
for the high court for years now, so this stratagem cannot be ruled
out.
Similarly, the Dems could contest the results of an election they
lost – and count on either the courts or the Commander-in-Chief and
his woke military allies to back them up. Rank hypocrisy would dent
the credibility of such a move, true, but, if there's one thing that
Democrats have shown repeatedly, it is that they believe that legal
technicalities and moral scruples should never be an obstacle to the
pursuit of the liberal Prime Directive: “get Trump”.
Lastly,
what if Trump did win the election, but the Dems, believing their own
overheated rhetoric about him, decided that any
action, no matter how undemocratic, would be justified to “save
democracy”? They might, in this instance, consider not only action
against Trump personally, but against his electors, whose affirmative
votes would be needed to make him president. Could those electors be
detained, or in some other way coerced or persuaded to withhold their
votes from Trump? We saw skullduggery along these lines already
in 2016, albeit at a very amateurish level. Who can say that
Democrats won't up their game in 2024? Stranger things have happened
in the history of democracy – or sham democracy, to be more exact.
These are just a few outside the box ideas that Democrats and
progressives may be tossing around to “save America”, and
themselves, from the cataclysm of another Trump presidency. Maybe,
just maybe, their incendiary rhetoric about Trumpian dictatorship,
tyranny, and fascism is just that – hot air. In that case, they
may, at the end of the day, take a deep breath and accept Trump's
victory in November, secure in the knowledge that they tied him up in
political knots for four years before, and they can probably do it
again.
The
alternative is that the Dems and leading leftists believe what they
say about Trump, in which case every desperate measure chronicled
here, and quite a few that we have yet to think of, will be on the
table between now and January 20th,
2025. After all, if Trump=Hitler, then what expedients would not be
justifiable to avoid Hitler 2.0?
There are, in short, two parallel dramas unfolding in this country:
a high-stakes election campaign, sure, but also a complex psychodrama
roiling inside the heads of elite Democrats, progressives, and
Washington insiders. The outcome of this election, and even the
outcome of the American story writ large, may hinge on how these
heads of the liberal establishment perceive Trump, and the degree of
danger that he poses to them and to this country. If at any point
they decide that “losing is not an option”, then, as the saying
goes, all bets are off.
Dr.
Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred
and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com.
He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.
And here it is at World Net Daily: https://www.wnd.com/2024/07/nuclear-options/
***
In other news, the most recent polls paint a very bleak picture for Biden and the Dems, with even the mostly blue state of New Hampshire starting to lean red. I suspect DJT will emerge from this debate flap with roughly the same national lead he had before, and roughly the same advantage in the swing states, but that's hardly good news for the guy who was and remains behind, i.e. Sleepy Joe. Understandably, the Dems are beginning to worry that Biden might not simply lose the presidential election, but he might also drag down his fellow Democrats in a number of Senate and House races. It's a legitimate concern!!! Expect more and more wealthy donors and corporate leaders to back Trump in the weeks ahead, because what they care about, above all, is who is likely to win, and increasingly that man is Trump.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/07/01/trump-takes-two-point-lead-over-biden-new-hampshire-poll/
https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/HHP_June2024_KeyResults.pdf
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/07/01/report-democrats-wonder-bidens-dazed-debate-performance-will-cost-them-senate-house/
Lastly, there's a lot of lefty outrage over today's presidential immunity decision by the Supreme Court, but I view it as an equivocal, ambiguous ruling. The line between official and unofficial acts is by no means clear and sharp. The bottom line is that the Dems' lawfare strategy is alive and well. Whether it's working is another matter!
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/07/01/democrats-warn-trump-immunity-decision-will-let-him-go-after-political-opponents/
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