The 2024 Presidential election fundamentals — and what they portend for the future — continued:
The three factors that could change the 2024 election’s trajectory that I mentioned before seem even less likely to be helpful to Biden than they were before. These factors are – major outside event(s); Republican screw-up(s); or Biden’s campaign rights itself – i.e., the campaign more effectively uses its assets:
A major outside event (literally) just happened – the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. This is likely to provide a polling boost for Trump, as it did for Ronald Reagan back in 1981. The most likely major outside events that could still occur are that an illegal alien, perhaps a foreign terrorist, kills or wounds a great number of U.S. civilians at home, or that another foreign war erupts that drags the U.S. in. Neither of these events is likely to rebound to Joe Biden’s polling favor. So, once again, although a major outside event(s) could still (theoretically) save Biden, it isn’t likely to do so.
There have been no major Republican screw-ups (so far). In fact, the only major campaign screw-up was when Joe Biden challenged Donald Trump to debates, and the first debate showcased Biden’s senility. And Trump has clearly been avoiding interrupting Biden in the aftermath of his big mistake.
Some of Biden’s assets have been lost or shown to be not very helpful: A) One of Biden’s advantages, his monetary edge, has totally disappeared, post-debate. Worse yet, now Democrat funders are actually holding back monies from the Biden campaign to protest him continuing to campaign for the presidency. B) Before the monetary advantage disappeared, the Biden groups handily outspent the Trump forces. Biden attack ads often focused on abortion and the idea that Trump is the devil – a Hitler, an insurrectionist, an authoritarian, etc. None of these ads seemed to have helped Biden in the polling. C) The lawfare cases remaining against Trump are not going to come to a head before the election, and it is probable that it is too late to manufacture new cases. Further, if Trump is sentenced to prison or otherwise punished for his New York convictions, the penalty for this joke of a case will only further inflame swing voters against Biden.
Among the significant events to come are the Republican National Convention, where Trump will be promoted, and there will probably be Democrats rioting on the streets; the Democrat National Convention, where Biden will be promoted, but everyone will be focused on whether Biden does/says something senile again (he will), and there will definitely be rioting on the streets by Democrats; and the second debate, where Biden may do better, but he will not do well enough to quiet any concerns about his senility.
To win in November of 2024, Joe Biden will need to carry the national popular vote by at least 3 percent, and he will have to carry all of the normal Democrat-leaning states plus a majority of the battleground states.
As I have said before, the 2024 election is most similar to the elections of 1968 and 1980. In both of those earlier elections, the sitting Democrat president was in deep trouble. The economy was in bad shape. The world was in chaos because of the president’s foreign policies. Crime and violence were rampant on America’s streets. The Democrat Party was bitterly divided, with the left wing of the party strongly protesting the incumbent president. A prominent third-party candidate was running, making a stand in the ideological middle of the two major party candidates. And both times, the sitting Democrat president was humiliated, and the Republican nominee won the presidential election. And in 1980, when the sitting Democrat president ran for re-election, he lost by a large margin.
If the Democrats are able to remove Joe Biden or persuade him to step down, Vice President Kamala Harris is the most likely Democrat nominee. As a half-African American, half-Indian American woman, the Democrats will face incredible pressure from their DIE (Diversity, Inclusion, & Equity) loving base to elevate Harris. Also, they may have problems transferring campaign funds or putting in a new name on the ballots if they attempt to substitute any other candidate. But Kamala Harris, while not senile, is also more unpopular than Biden, presumably because Biden’s announcement that he chose her because she was diverse marks her as an affirmative action-like hire and because she has done nothing to impress her detractors since then, as vice president. Indeed, there are reports that she is a toxic boss who refuses to put in the hard work to become a good candidate; she is unable to manage her staff; and she frequently embarrasses herself with word salads and inappropriate laughter.
See also: It’s the End of the World As the Democrats Know It:
And No, They Aren’t Feeling Fine (Part I)
Based on these fundamentals, I can understand why the Democrats are so concerned. Time is ticking, yet things are largely getting worse for them. And there are seemingly no easy solutions to their problems.
At this point, the Democrats are perilously close to reaching the Bill Murray end of the world stage of complete chaos, which he famously claimed involved: “Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!” But unlike in that movie, there is no Bill Murray around to save the day.
Maybe the Democrats should see if Bill Murray wants to run for president?