Dems’ Post-Biden Revival

By Rick Boettger

Apparently Biden got the soul-saving touch of  “the Lord Almighty” he said he needed to drop out, giving salvation a chance for the Democratic Party.  The immediate effect is a revival-tent atmosphere including a surge of tithes and testimonies, to his anointed savior, Kamala Harris.

It has been the opposite of the chaos and confusion  predicted by Biden’s defenders to the end, saying it was impossible to create a new candidate in 100 days—despite e.g., England and France running their entire campaigns in 25 and 14 days, 36 for our Canadian neighbors. Kamala got $81 million in donations in a day, a surge of  endorsements, and has apparently already guaranteed the number of nomination votes she’ll need at the Dem convention.  How hard was that?

Now the Reds have gone from ecstasy to agony overnight. Whiplash from tagging Biden’s age to seeing Trump looking like Kamala’s grumpy grampa.  Also complaining about her “stealing an election!” the wrong way, the right way being storming the Capitol.  The debate drama reverses from cringing at Biden’s brain cramps to cringing at Trump going off into shark electrocution and Hannibal Lecter land.

The two debates have flipped from Trump mauling Biden and Vance body-slamming Kamala to Kamala artfully prosecuting a Trump who should not be allowed to testify in his own defense, and Vance getting a fair fight from any number of equally tough Dem veep candidates.

Trump could have guaranteed his win by choosing Nikki Haley, many say and I agree.  He wasn’t that smart.  I also agree with fellow Konk Life writer Lou Perone and NewsNation’s Leland Vittert that Lynn Cheney or, again, Nikki Haley as Kamala’s Veep would be a sure win for Dems, gaining far more Never-Trump Reds than losing Blue progressives. Lou cites Lincoln’s choosing Southern Dem Andrew Johnson to win re-election. But Dems’ electoral savvy was entirely used up in the Biden drop, and now they merely hope to avoid the worst transgressions of the Clinton campaign, like not going to Wisconsin or disdaining yard signs. Dems will NOT do anything brilliantly out-of-the-box creative, not even to defeat the “Threat to Democracy!!!”

Fortunately for both sides, the issues won’t matter much, except for abortion, and nothing anyone says is likely to change those votes anymore than it already has, it’s fully baked into the polls.  People say they care about “the economy,” but simply don’t vote for their self-interest that way, they vote for their emotional sizzle not their rational actor steak.  Blues love Ukraine more than Reds do, but that won’t be debated nor change any votes.  Wokeness and transgender athletes are worn-out tropes. Blues are happy to see Trump’s legal woes, but those may gain him more than he loses from Independents (Grays?)  Gaza may be the Dems’ COVID bad luck, but Reds can hardly make a big deal out of curbing Israel.  Taxation and the deficit continue to baffle voters and exercise pundits, entirely anterior to any electoral effects.

So we are having an interesting pure-sizzle election after all!  Trump created new drama with his interminable 92-minute ramble closing his convention.  It ran 30 minutes longer than I had DVR’d, so I left thinking he had just wrapped up the Presidency, showing the non-MAGA wider electorate that he is not as wacky as MSNBC makes him out to be.  And indeed he wasn’t, by his standards.  He only spent a few minutes vilifying Biden by name, and on election denying, crazy Pelosi, and Hannibal Lecter, even repressing his shark vs. electrocution fantasy.  By his standards, a tight leash, and relatively boring for the fans of his foaming-at-the-mouth, go-to stump persona.

No, not exactly the Donald’s fault.  The main fear of Dems has been that this time, Trump has been caged and tamed by a wise cadre that would accomplish what the Republican leadership and non-MAGA faithful have prayed for—a Trump with the charisma and TV-star speaking skills but without the tweetstorms and crazy riffs.  They seemed to have succeeded, but then went on and on and on and on.  What public speaking course ever said, in the biggest speech of your life, make sure it sets an all-time record for length—channel Fidel, Hugo Chavez, and Hitler (hey, this is a non-genocidal Hitler comparison, it’s legit).  The much-feared Great Wise Men guiding the wild Trump had a huge chance, but blew it.

The speech, first of all, gave the Dems hope: as one right-wing editor said, “Before Trump’s acceptance speech the consensus was a Trump landslide. After it? Now it’s like find a Dem with a pulse who can read a teleprompter and like: toss up!”

Following that thought, Blue adviser Ezra Klein put it, “The best argument against the party replacing Biden was fatalism; if you’ll lose anyway, may as well lose conventionally.”  Trump goosed the institutionally rigid Dems to try to win, just a bit unconventionally, booting a surely-losing octogenarian and unleashing a torrent of Anyone-But-Biden Blue passion and bucks.

So, if the Dems win in November, it will not have been a “stolen election!”  It will have been a gift-wrapped bauble bestowed by Trump himself in 30 fateful minutes in Milwaukee in July.

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