When former President Donald Trump accepted the challenge to debate President Joe Biden historically early in the election cycle before the party conventions even officially sealed the nominees in place, my ‘Spidey’ senses started tingling. How could this be good for Trump, I wondered? If the former president somehow lost the debate or had a few bad moments, Democrats - who are much better at making political hay than Republicans - would have four full months to run with it. But if Trump dominated the dementia patient as expected, Democrats would have longer to adjust their game and recover or, if things got really bad, enough time to actually replace Biden at the top of the ticket.
Well, as all of us witnessed last week, things got really, really bad for Biden. Yes, Trump did a great job dismantling the walking corpse, and he deserves kudos. But let’s be real, any of us with an IQ over 100 and a couple of Toastmasters sessions under our belts could have done the same thing. Ironically, Biden’s performance did seem to unify the country that night, but only by invoking pity and a desire to see the feeble president removed from office.
Indeed, after that lackluster, zombie-like, clearly drugged-up performance, politicians and commentators from both sides of the political aisle were openly calling for Biden to step down or be removed. Even The New York Times editorial board got on board. Democrats are truly beginning to panic, and some Republicans, to their credit, are concerned about the horrible things that could happen to our country with this man at the helm.
Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy introduced a House resolution calling for the invocation of the 25th Amendment to remove Biden. TheBlaze host Steve Deace addressed concerns from our side about seeing a more electable candidate in the slot by pointing out that “Xi, Putin, Un, Ayatollah, etc. now realize the clock is ticking” for a Trump return and they could “strike with more mischief and malevolence while the moment is available.” Consequently, we should “put the country first” and support Biden’s removal. In a similar vein, Dave Rubin called for a putting aside of partisan politics because of the prospect of our enemies taking advantage.
All to which I say, “meh.”
All of those guys were fellow supporters of Ron DeSantis during the GOP primaries, and in many ways, they risked their positions, platforms, and audiences to do so. For that, they deserve a ton of respect. However, in this case, I couldn’t disagree more. It’s a well-intended sentiment for sure, but to agree that Biden should be removed based on the obvious cognitive decline that showed in this bad debate performance is to also assent to the idea that Biden has even been remotely running things before that bad debate performance. He hasn’t, not for a long time, and we all know it. So what’s seven more months? Is Kamala Harris going to somehow strike fear in the hearts of our enemies? How would her decisions be any different from the decisions of Biden’s handlers? And even worse, why would we make it easier for Democrats to control the reins for four more years?
As we’ve seen from the past three years, it doesn’t make much of a difference who is at the helm. The job as described is actually too complicated for any one person, no matter how smart and quick-thinking that person may be. It does, however, matter who surrounds the president, who runs the agencies, and who pulls the strings behind the scenes. And if Weekend at Bernie’s gets replaced, the same people will be doing all those things, except they’ll be emboldened by the prospect of getting to repeat it all for yet another presidential term.
Our only goal between now and election day should be to get Donald Trump elected President of the United States. Consequently, the only question we should be asking regarding Biden’s removal is this: Would Biden’s removal at the top of the ticket help Donald Trump get elected President of the United States? It’s that simple, and the answer is simple as well. No, removing the weakest candidate Democrats have run since Walter Mondale does NOT help Trump get elected. In fact, replacing Biden with almost anyone would almost certainly HURT Trump’s chances, which is why so many Democrats are in panic mode to make this happen.
Before the debate started last week I tweeted this: “Should Trump have waited to debate Biden until both are formally nominated? If this is a massacre and ends in Biden being replaced, it would be one of the biggest political miscalculations in history.”
Given how things have played out so far, it seems that agreeing to a debate this soon was a mistake, albeit an honest one. We shouldn’t want Biden - Trump’s best shot at winning - replaced on the ticket, and we shouldn’t help Democrats right their ship by lifting a finger to make that happen.