Biden's withdrawal sends both party's into delusional tailspins

Joe Biden deserves credit for stepping down as the Democrat Party nominee for President, but both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are both weak canddates who just won't do what needs to be done

By Ray Hanania

FREE/Politics National/Monday July 22, 2024

You have to give President Joe Biden credit for “standing down” and withdrawing from the presidential re-election contest, given the overwhelming challenges he has faced.

He is the nation’s oldest president, and I know older people can be stubborn about dealing with cognitive issues. As a Baby Boomer I am aware of the challenges that creep up on us as we get older, everyone in different ways and levels. But when it is an issue, it must be addressed.

“Standing down” as Biden called it allows him to leave on a much higher level in terms of his legacy than if he refused to remained as the candidate.

But sadly, that is the best that can be said about this presidential election. The rest of what we have is horrible and gets worse by the day.

Americans are in for another mudslinging political battle that will only drag this country down further, because of both sides and the bias of the “news” media.

The push to lock in Kamala Harris as his successor, even though she is the current vice president, could set up the Democratic Party for one of its greatest election losses since President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush won 49 states over Democrat Walter Mondale and his running mate Geraldine Ferraro on November 6, 1984.

The polarization that widely separates the Right from the Left locks in support for each side and will prevent a repeat of the Reagan-Mondale blowout. There is no way former President Donald Trump can win blue states like Illinois, the way Reagan did. But at the same time, I am not sure Harris can win many of the states that Biden won four years ago.

Harris is a weak candidate, not by virtue of her resume but by her lack of presence during the past 3 and one half years as vice president. Her speeches in the past were always anemic when it came to substance. As Vice President, she looked more like a “Political Trophy Wife” for Biden adding an aspect of support among the important African American community, even though Harris is not African American.

Harris’ father is Jamaican American and her mother is Tamil from India.

The only time I actually heard her speak with any measure of substance was in the wake of the crescendo of calls for Biden to withdraw. Apparently, Harris’ speech writers finally were able to give her something substantive to speak about and her last few speeches were very good.

But can she transform herself from the ridicule of being so invisible during the past nearly four years in the few months remaining before the election? Leveraging African American support as a Black politician — again a major core constituency of the Democratic Party — Harris has been able to lock in most of the major party backing to give her enough delegate votes to win a nomination in the open primary.

Her biggest problem is not to fall into the trap of fighting from the mud-filled gutter that has been American politics for the past eight years.

It almost looked like former President Donald Trump might also have changed, walking away from his obnoxious fixation on responding to personal attacks and engaging in pettiness that demeans him and the office of the president. Most importantly, the more he spent attacking people the less he could spend on advocating for some of his good ideas.

For a while there, it looked like Trump would be a changed person.

Trump seemed to change during the debate, and it appeared as if his new demeanor was the result of CNN’s biased efforts to gin-up the system in Biden’s favor by restricting Trump’s habit of interrupting and injecting himself into arguments during the first debate on June 27.

CNN implemented a plan to cut off the debate microphones, forcing Trump into silence. But that backfired and allowed the country to see Biden unhindered by distractions expose his own weaknesses. clearly without distraction. In fact, with Trump silenced, America got to see how bad Biden really had become. Had Trump been allowed to interrupt Biden, he would have put the focus on himself as a bully and scrapper, disrupting Biden and making the causes of his lapses look like they were the result of Trump interruptions.

I was there in Atlanta and watched after the debate as Republicans and Trump allies rushed down to meet with reporters, eagerly answering every questions. Dozens of Republicans spoke each individually as media ran from one person to another to get react.

In contrast, the Democrats were shell-shocked by Biden’s dismal debate performance and they delayed coming down to meet jouralists. When they did come down, they came down as one group, and refused to take questions even though they were being peppered by questions about Biden’s dismal debate performance.

Trump seemed to maintain this tamer, smarter political style in the weeks after the debate. When he survived the shocking assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, his defiant fist pump with blood dripping down the side of his face made him look even more powerful.

His personality was rising to meet voter expectations and admiration.

But it didn’t take long for Trump to toss the reasoned, tamer and smarter leadership approach and he quickly reverted back to his disruptive, ugly name-calling, petty bullying style, which turns off many voters and fuels the angry acrimonious American political divide which undermines this nation.

Rather than being magnanimous, and showing true leadership by congratulating Biden as a President for making a tough decision, Trump responded by unleashing a round of petty rhetoric that served only to make Trump look like a school yard bully.

In an NBC TV interview, Trump said, “There has never been a president who has done such damage to our country, from energy independence to letting in millions and millions of illegal immigrants,” adding, “He should never have been there int he first place.”

For a quick minute there, I thought maybe Trump could curtail his ignorant rants and pettiness, but it looks like he can’t, leading us to another four years of political turmoil, polarization and the failure to get anything done in a substantive manner.

Trump could easily win simply by being the bigger person, and pursue his conservative ideals. But as a longtime television personality who understands the television industry, he knows conflict and pettiness win the ratings. He can’t get away from the Hollywood principle that negativity gets more attention than kindness. Trump can never be the bigger person, only the most petty person who is distracted from great ideas by ridiculous personality feuds.

A person who can’t control their anger is not a person who can implement good policies, even if he advocates them.

It doesn’t help Trump to have picked J.D. Vance, an obnoxious politician who has used the trauma of his life to forge a mean and vengeful persona that will only serve to fuel Trump’s tendency to turn away from important issues and focus on name calling.

And it doesn’t help the Democrats that they are doing exactly what they have accused the Republicans of doing, subverting the political process and changing the rules to achieve their goals.

In the 2016 election, the DNC altered the rules to prevent Senator Bernie Sanders from winning the party nomination, to hand it to Hillary Clinton, whose arrogance and entitlement knows no bounds. More liberal than Clinton, Sanders could have mounted a stronger campaign against Trump.

And it looks like the DNC is now doing exactly the same thing to shore up Harris’ weak foundation to ensure she is the party’s Democrat party candidate to avoid a floor fight or challenge from other potential candidates. They are changing the rules and will hold a “virtual” convention soon before the Democratic Convention to lock in her nomination and deny the party members their right to offer alternatives and voice concerns.

The news media, which is a major cause of America’s polarization, and which fuels Trump’s pettiness and even the pettiness from Harris. They continue to pump up Harris with a chorus of shallow praise. You can’t even listen to the talking heads on cable “news”” channels like CNN and MCNBC to get an accurate picture of what’s happening. Even the mainstream news media seems to be fawning over Harris and piling it all on Trump.

American voters are not stupid, even though both Trump and Harris, and the news media think they are. They see what is happening and they recognize the failings of both candidates. And, they recognize the bias of the so-called “news” media. The public sees through the media’s partisan spin, and they dislike it as much as they dislike Trump’s pettiness and Harris’ lack of experience for national leadership.

No matter who wins, this country is going to go through another four years of turmoil where nothing gets down and the evil-doers around the world exploit our growing weaknesses to enhance their own evil agendas.

Get your political raincoats on people. A tsunami of mud will be flying in the next few months, more than we have ever seen before.