In recent weeks, I’ve been unable to quell a surging suspicion that a large number of Democrats, led by Joe Biden himself, are actually hoping — and in some cases actively working — to help Kamala Harris lose.

This seems counterintuitive for any political party, especially for establishment federal politicians so ruthless about grasping and clinging to power in the Washington Swamp. Bear with me here.

Recall 2017-24 and all the ways both parties’ establishments there tried to undermine Trump, the renegade newcomer who threatened their shared dominance and federal control. 

It’s always amazed me that a Fifth Avenue billionaire, a political outsider with business savvy, media smarts, and, yes, personal scandals, was the one man who could become a populist and harness Heartland anger and frustrations to take over the Grand Old Party with a White House victory.

He trips over his own ego and flaunts poor self-discipline sometimes. 

But when you look at all the plots, the hoaxes, the malicious leaks, double-standard manipulations, impeachments, lawfare charges, and even attempted assassinations thrown at him, for Donald Trump to be on the verge of a historic, non-consecutive, second presidential term is an undeniably amazing political accomplishment. Underestimate him at your political peril.

In May, a cocky Joe Biden did just that. His handlers allowed him to challenge the former president to the earliest presidential TV debate in history, determined to put Trump out of their own ongoing misery. The incumbent, or the unidentified puppeteers pulling the old man’s strings, were perhaps hopeful the former president would reject their impudent take-it-or-leave offer with their hosts, their date, and their rules. 

“Make my day, pal!” the old-timer challenged in a heavily edited video, ominously indicating he needed many takes to get his lines right.

In hindsight, it appears Democrats and anti-Trumpers fell for their own lies, fables, and subterfuges about Biden’s rapidly declining mental capabilities, that he was in private “sharp as a tack.” 

Trump accepted hook, line, and sinker, a bold move that drew fearful criticism from some Republicans. 

But Biden had set his own trap, and karma was a b*tch.

It was Trump who was sharp as a tack that night. With muted microphones and no audience to play to, Trump was, well, presidential and impressive. 

CNN has billed itself as “The Most Trusted Name in News.” Actually, it’s now the Weather Channel. But not even the liberal outlet could save Joe Biden.

Biden looked like an escaped convict caught in the guard-tower’s spotlight. Flustered. Incoherent. Lost. The haunting nightmare image of everyone’s addled grandfather inquiring why they are eating turkey on Thanksgiving.

Five minutes into the 90-minute torture session, Democrats were exchanging panicked texts nationwide. Publicly, they said, it wasn’t his best night. In reality, it was the most disastrous national debate performance in history.

Immediate calls erupted to replace Biden with someone off the usual list of ambitious alternates. 

Truth is, it was never going to be anyone other than Kamala Harris. Biden picked the 59-year-old former district attorney, former state attorney general, former senator, for two reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with presidential qualifications.

For weeks last summer, Joe Biden maintained that only the Almighty could persuade him to drop out. She came in the form of Nancy Pelosi, whose as-yet unknown threats did the trick. Democrats might lose the White House with Harris. They would surely lose it with Biden.

Pelosi and Biden have not spoken since. If you want a friend in DC, get a dog, preferably one that doesn’t bite Secret Service agents.

What followed were a heady few weeks of manufactured joy and, to be honest, relief over Biden’s absence. 

The new strategy was built around happy interviews with friendly media without revealing the scary details of Harris’ Marxist agenda, hoping enough voters would fall for the historic racial-gender aspect of her candidacy.

It’s also important for them to hide the essential emptiness of the Harris brain, as they hid Biden's malfunctioning brain. Her meaningless word salads are infamous. Also patronizing, actually resembling the speaking style of Barack Obama, who’s now campaigning for her and is kind enough to explain the obvious to his dimwitted audiences.

An essential element of a commander in chief is being serious, which Harris is not. If you’re going to send service volunteers into harm’s way for the sake of the country, you need to appear authentic. Which Harris is not. 

"Sincerity is the key to success," Groucho Marx used to say. "Once you can fake that, you've got it made." 

Harris has yet to master that fakery. 

Kamala's Univision Town Hall Was a Complete Disaster

REVEALED: Kamala Harris' Town Hall With 'Undecided Latino Voters' Was Rigged

For Harris, the plan is to talk about being an agent of change without people realizing she’s been a full partner these last four years in creating the disasters that need changing. 

Harris even admitted on "The View" the other day that she could not think of anything she would have done differently during these past 45 months of the Biden-Harris political duet. 

That wouldn’t be change now, would it?

Here’s where the suspicious stuff comes in. Joe Biden has said the same thing, that Harris was involved in all their administration’s major decisions. 

Joe Biden is a mean man. Remember the New Hampshire town hall four years ago when an uppity New Hampshire college student, Madison Moore, asked Biden about his weak Iowa caucus showing? "How do you explain the performance in Iowa," she asked, "and why should the voters believe that you can win the national election?”

Biden inquired if she'd ever attended a caucus. She said, "Yes."

In response, the allegedly empathetic Biden called her "a lying dog-faced pony soldier."

Biden is simply unable to accept personal challenges, even successful ones like dumping him from the 2024 ticket. And Jill, who leads hubby around by the hand, has never liked Harris for perceived slights.

If the president sincerely wanted to assist someone getting elected who was nominated because she is not him, emphasizing how close they were is less than helpful. In fact, it’s damaging.

Same goes for Biden’s previous complaint that Harris is not mentioning him and his grand achievements enough.

My colleague Bob Hoge points out that two prominent and successful Democrat strategists – David Axelrod and James Carville – are not exactly helping the Harris cause with their frequent carping, kibitzing, and pessimistic prognostications about her campaign.

Axelrod, who steered Obama to victory, has also spoken out, saying the initial Harris excitement was “irrational exuberance” and this election is “Trump’s race to lose right now.”

Then came Biden’s exquisitely blunt and very public contradiction of Harris. Hours after she criticized Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis for wisely declining to take her publicity call, the real president went out of his way to praise the Republican’s cooperation and skills addressing the hurricanes’ havoc. He said nothing about her role, since there was none.

Other Democrat supporters complain that the campaign’s energy has shifted sharply to Trump.

Much of this is because Harris is not working all that hard. She’s been successful at fundraising. 

In fact, as Hurricane Helene raged through the Southeast, Harris was in California at a pair of major fundraisers. Joe Biden was stretched out on his favorite Delaware beach. It was Trump who, at his own expense, flew in relief supplies when visiting stricken areas.

Most media reports make it look like the vice president is busily campaigning in a race that is amazingly close.

However, Politico did a deep dive into the Harris schedule. It found that since the August convention, the wannabe president has spent about half the time in Washington, a known Democrat hideout that needs no campaigning because it has overwhelmingly supported that party in all 15 elections since it got three electoral votes in 1961.

Politico also found that while Obama’s 2008 campaign schedule had him at rallies and events all but two days post-convention, Harris’ work schedule closely resembles Hillary Clinton’s overconfident — and unsuccessful — 2016 campaign.

True, constructing a completely new Harris campaign organization once Biden was ousted was practically impossible. 

That means, however, that with some minor add-ons, Harris got stuck with the old man’s original campaign outfit based in Biden’s backwater Delaware hometown, where his father sold used cars. That campaign team mirrors the sloth-like decision-making habits, lethargy, and chronic tardiness of its original 81-year-old leader. 

All of which is less than helpful if the goal is a quick-react political operation aimed at winning. 

If the happy Harris-Walz ticket goes down to a narrow or whopping defeat on Nov. 5, Biden will see that as vindicating his ongoing claim that he would have surely beaten Trump again. 

Like much of what Biden says, that’s not true. 

But voters delivering a Harris loss would conveniently terminate the political career of the known airhead with no racial fallout. And that would clear the 2028 field of that dead weight for the ambitious establishment survivors who, perhaps you’ve noticed, have been unusually – and safely — quiet since her desperate coronation.