election-2024

She Who Laughs Last: A Nightmare On Pennsylvania Ave

It’s doubtful any political junkies missed the really big news yesterday. Joe Biden will not be prosecuted for HIS classified documents issues. But the reason why as stated by the special counsel investigating the current President of the United States is that Biden would be unlikely to be convicted by a jury as he would be seen as a doddering well-meaning old man of diminished mental acuity. This is mostly my characterization of the special counsel’s language but, trust me, I’m not cooking the books here.

Former Bernie Sanders campaign staffer Krystal Ball gives her reading of the report and what it signifies here.

And even though Krystal is a prominent face of the indie-left media, her take is pretty much an accurate characterization of the mainstream establishment media’s reading of what it all means.

Look at the lead story on the New York Times this morning. I’m gifting it via this link so if you don’t have a Times subscription you can still read it here

But that’s not the most significant part of this story for me. After the report was made public and the media tongues began to wag, and as the sun began to set over the Biden White House, Sundowner Syndrome himself decided to hold a somewhat impromptu prime-time address and press availability in order to defend himself and attack the special counsel’s characterization of his mental state.

Biden looked like an angry old man but we’ve certainly seen worse examples of his mental decline in just the last few days. That’s also not the story for me.

What I found to be absolutely JAW DROPPING (but still not the point of this piece) was the behavior and treatment of the president by the White House press corps.

It seemed (at least in the edit I saw last night) to start with Peter Doocy the FOX News reporter who is a constant daily thorn in the administration’s side.

But this wasn’t that.

It quickly became very clear to me that someone told the piranhas that it was finally okay for them to go ahead and start eating this president and, let me tell you, this was one HANGRY grouping of this nation’s most prestigious news organizations’ top correspondents. You knew these probably once idealistic journalists had been deprived of doing their actual jobs for FAR too long.

They all but ran poor Joe out of office right then and there. I’ll start this (I hope) at the point where that good White House applesauce Joe likes hits the fan.

But none of this is why I’m writing this piece.

So I started this year with a prediction that either Biden or Trump or both were very likely to be unavailable to voters come November. Astonishingly bad poll numbers along with some of the most uncomfortable video examples of the president’s mental decline yet in the past week or so has resulted in what can only be called visible cracks in the fuselage of this Boeing Boeing gone idea that Joe Biden will ever be re-elected President of the United States. But hey, Joe. Never say never. There’s always 2028.

So why am I writing any of this here today? It’s all over the news. See it for yourselves. None of this is why I’m really here pounding on my laptop.

This all is presenting the likelihood of what can only be described as the Democratic Party’s worst nightmare scenario.

Is it that Joe will announce that he’s not seeking re-election? Nope. That’s not how this is going to go down. Biden has to go now if not sooner. He has to resign the office of the presidency. Full stop. I believe that’s coming very soon. 

If Biden were simply to declare he’s not seeking a second term he would still be there. He would still be a story that would be running parallel to the story of whoever the Democratic Party is running at the top of their ticket. He would continue to be a doddering leader of the free world during these so very treacherous times. So, while the Democratic Party would be desperately trying to establish their replacement candidate as the story, Joe Biden’s continuing mental decline would still be an issue for all of us and a competing headline for the Democratic Party’s preferred election year narrative.

Enter Kamala. Yep. There she is, the cackling nightmare we’ve all been dreading. But this is also the Democratic Party’s worst nightmare. And here is why.

Many are the reports coming from inside the White House about how recalcitrant the vice-president has grown over the last year or so. She has been bristling at how she’s being used or not used by the administration. She is reported to be one unhappy camper. Yes, she probably still laughs uncontrollably for no reason, but this shit is no longer funny for her and especially not funny for the Democratic Party because, while they will be more than happy to celebrate Kamala as the country’s first female president, they do not want her to be the candidate that replaces Joe Biden on the ballot in November.

Joe Biden resigns the presidency and the Democrats and the news media celebrate the nation’s first woman president. Personally, I too would love to celebrate this historic moment. I once thought Kamala Harris was a pretty sharp cookie. But no one thinks that anymore. 

The Biden administration has never found a way to use her in which she doesn’t end up embarrassing herself and the administration in short order. So they’ve hidden her away. The public has had her number since she first entered the 2020 Democratic Primary. Senator Kamala Harris of California was exposed over and over again during her short and painful primary season run as the walking, rambling, inappropriately laughing personification of an empty pants suit. VP Harris never caught on with the American public in the three years she’s been in office and the real-life VEEP’s poll numbers to this very day are worse than even the ever-declining numbers not enjoyed by the president.

But now he’s gone and she is president. There was no deal to be made. Ha-Ha Harris was the Vice President of the United States and the Democratic Party put her there. THAT was the deal that was made. Now they as well as the rest of us are stuck with her. Certainly someone is going to have to impress upon her the Democratic Party establishment’s desire that she forego any attempt to run on her own at the top of the party’s ticket in November. “No way, honey,” Someone’s going to be thinking. “This silliness stops right here!”

But now (or then) behind the scenes, is where the nightmare truly begins. The party has no power over her. She’s the President of the United States. If leaks from the administration and her former staffers are to be believed, and they are believed here inside my head, she probably hates every White House face she sees. And so I think President Kamala Harris will go rogue on the party that put here there. I think she will not go quietly into that good-night victory column of history as merely the first woman president of the US. I think she’s going to want to hang onto what she has and try for the brass ring of being the first woman, and a woman of color at that, to be elected President of the United States.

And that, ironically, could end up being a massive nightmare for the Democrats. Best case scenario for the party is an all-California Harris-Newsome ticket and I’d be looking for that announcement even before Joe Biden can remember where he put his PJs.

The however many months Kamala Harris will actually be president could very well be a nightmare for the country and the world. Maybe not as bad as we might imagine. Maybe better than we could have hoped. But this is one pissed-off lady with a wildly inappropriate sense of humor and poll numbers somewhere down in the basement of poll numbers for public figures. I can’t imagine that she’d be someone the Democratic Party can control.

Even I, who rightfully imagines this party to be the most powerful disorganization of humans in the history of the world, have to admit that once Kamala Harris is president she’s going to possess, albeit probably quite temporarily, the power to do whatever the hell she wants to. And, to paraquote a familiar boast from her current boss, to anyone who doesn’t believe that, I would say, just watch her.

The Process of Elimination

The first abbreviated work week of the new year is now all but behind us and nothing truly ground shaking has happened yet in the 2024 presidential election year story. So there’s still time for me to go out on one of those limbs that is, unfortunately, my happy place. 

Obviously I can’t see into the future (okay, maybe that hasn’t always been so obvious) but here’s some things that I think are very likely to happen this year. 

I think it’s ever more likely that either President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump or both might be unavailable to voters by November. That’s about the most generic way I can put it. Don’t over think it. I’m not. Whatever, however. And look, typically in American politics, election year is almost as much about selecting the eventual party nominees as it is choosing a president. And I get that. In the old days, we didn’t even know until after the conventions late in the summer. So in normal election years past, the parties could take half the year to decide upon their candidate. 

But these are different times and this is a vastly different election year than any of us has ever seen. Trump is now like a mythical American political figure. He’s both a former president and the leader of a movement. MAGA. He has the Republican Party base in a passionately emotional heart and soul head lock. That part of the country is ready to explode as it is right now. Look at January 6th. However you feel about them, those people and that part of America is exponentially more agitated now than they have ever been before. They see these really corrupt banana republic legal efforts (I mean, who doesn’t?) by multiple partisan jurisdictions and entities to remove Trump entirely from the elective process—either by indicting and convicting him or by literally having his name taken off the ballot—and they are quite literally seething.

But no matter the passionate displeasure of so many of our fellow Americans, I think it very possible that these efforts will be successful to the degree where it becomes impossible for Trump to win due to the pile up of enough disqualifying cases and successful efforts to remove the former president from ballots so that the Republican Party, maybe as late as the convention, will then be forced to put forth another candidate at the top of their ticket. Somehow, some way. It might happen.

So let’s just stop right there and consider what that would be like in this country coming at some point later in this already guaranteed to be explosively chaotic election year. 

Everything this massive base of Trump supporters believes is wrong with their party, their country and their elective processes will unfold exactly as they fear, right before their eyes. That alone is going to make for a s— show unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Trump is already a folk hero in much of this country. This will elevate him to political martyrdom. If MAGA can’t vote for Donald Trump on election day the national turmoil this is going to create is going to make, in my opinion, every political uprising we’ve ever seen in this country pale in comparison. JMO. 

But now think of the mad scramble AGAINST THOSE HEADWATERS of the Republican Party trying to replace Trump on the ballot. What an absolute losing proposition. Mission accomplished, Democrats! It’s VERY hard to see any Republican candidate other than Trump bringing out the 80 million or so voters it’s going to take to win the White House. 

Okay? So what about the other side? Well, I think it’s even LESS likely that Joe Biden will be available as the Democratic candidate come November. I’m not even going to go into arguments why. Come on! He’s the incumbent and yet he is DEEPLY unpopular, and the American people believe, quite correctly, that he’s not physically or mentally up to the job and they are, I believe, very disappointed in his policies and in the direction the country is heading. You can pump up, as I know some will, his accomplishments but you’re talking to yourselves. Out there in the eyes of America, this is a president and a party that is in deep trouble. I’ll leave it at that. 

So, just like the Republican Party’s problem, but not as explosively problematic, they’re going to have a hell of time selling either Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsome as America’s best choice for its next president. You could even trot out Michelle Obama and it’s not going to sell with much of this country. Look, I hate to break it to anyone who isn’t quite there yet, but people are REALLY starting to see through this elite duopoly that controls our country and they are, I believe, desperate for another option. Hold that thought. 

But step back now and take in the entire picture. Election Year 2024. Starting right now. Week One. Incumbent president running against his immediate predecessor. Then suddenly, slowly, whatever!, like a disaster movie, one by one or together in short order, both candidates fall out. I’ve only hinted at the actual chaos that will ensue. That chaos, all of it predictable, will only further disgust the American people. 

The spectacle put on by both parties will cause Americans to be even MORE disenchanted with our current national politics. They will be looking for some safe harbor in what would be a complete s— storm of an election year meltdown by both of our major political parties. 

Have I set the stage? I believe I have. 

So now there’s this guy out there named Kennedy who’s managed to get himself on all 50 states’ ballots. There he will be. The son of RFK. People will be hearing his message, which is EXACTLY what they are going to want to hear. If you haven’t heard him, trust me, it’s exactly what the people of this country are going to want to hear, and HAVE wanted to hear, for DECADES. 

These things are all very possible to even more than mildly likely to happen this year. And I think this is how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will become our next president. And that’s what I’m predicting will happen.

The scenario that I’m describing and predicting is, of course, completely unprecedented. Here now in the year of the election, the two major party candidates, an incumbent president and his immediate predecessor as president, both involuntarily rendered by, in Biden’s case age or infirmity and in Trump’s case the actions of his political opponents, no longer available for the voters to choose as their president. This alone would be something none of us have ever seen before and would set the stage for further unprecedented upheavals.

I mean, we’re clearly heading for something like that on the Trump side of things. This is already very likely to be a quite ugly possibility. But if MAGA can’t vote for Trump because he’s not on the ballot then I predict they’re going to vote for Kennedy.

If both Biden and Trump aren’t on the ballot then I believe Kennedy will win fairly easily and that’s really the point of this piece. I don’t, at this time, want to get into all of the things that have gone wrong in the last seven years under both of these candidates’ administrations and by way of the actions and direction changes of their political parties, but all of that is weighing against the establishment at this time. This is a country that elected a TV guy seven years ago. It remains vastly misunderstood and willfully misrepresented as to why that happened. But here it is. People were just that desperate for someone else. An outsider. Someone who was telling them what they wanted to hear as opposed to someone telling them the same old s—.

This country is on the brink right now. People are already scared. If you had a clean election without RFK Jr. in it, Trump would likely win, but it would be very close. The Democratic Party is scaring the hell out of so many Americans and no one more than those of us who now self-identify, reflexively, and as a pre-emptive act of self defense, as life-long Democrats. And I’m predicting that no matter who is running for either of the major parties the most important collection of letters on the ballot won’t be Kennedy or Trump or Biden or any other candidate’s actual name. It will be the word INDEPENDENT. And that word will be sitting right next to Bobby Kennedy’s name. For that reason alone, even with Biden and Trump still in the race a Kennedy win is possible. But if you remove Trump or both Trump and Biden I think RFK Jr is going to be our next president.

The context all this is taking place in now is so different than anything we’ve ever seen with the exception of what the climate must have been like in America leading up to the Civil War. We are truly living on the brink as a nation of democratic ideals because we have so often and so routinely betrayed those ideals. The chickens have now come home to roost and, as I’ve said, the American people really are waking up and seeing through their government, the relationship between the mainstream media and their elected officials, the donors and industrial complexes who ultimately call the shots, etc. LIKE NEVER BEFORE. The election of Donald Trump in 2016 is all the proof anyone should need that this is the case. Now more and more Americans are there. It’s a trend and it’s going to continue to trend for the rest of most of our lives.

The people of this country are attempting to take it back from those who control it. I would agree with anyone who maintains that it is doubtful as to whether we will actually be able to do so. But the only thing that will stop we the people is undemocratic authoritarianism as realized by the now all powerful duopoly, its donors, and maybe most especially the vast landscape of NGOs that employ the elite political classes that inhabit the Washington DC area and the other affluent coastal regions of the country. This element is already using authoritarian and even fascist tactics to smother free speech on social media or wherever else they may find it and they are NEVER going to stop. Should Bobby Kennedy Jr. become the second President Kennedy he has vowed to dismantle the national security anti-free speech elements in our government and most prominently within the Democratic Party and allow the people of this country to once again speak on their own behalf and be heard. 

Is this Kennedy simply telling so many of us what we want to hear in order to get elected? If you stay tuned you’ll get my take on that and so many other questions and issues that are sure to bombard us here in 2024. Buckle up. This is going to be an election year like no other.