A comfortable majority of Americans do not want Donald Trump as their next president. It is very clear on any trip to the US. The problem is a similar majority don’t want Joe Biden either. The only candidate each one could beat is each other, which is why they both need a Biden versus Trump fight.
Biden failed last night…
Last night’s presidential debate just made it harder for Biden to win. All the fears that he is in cognitive decline and simply too old for a second term came to the fore. This was Biden’s chance to put such concerns to rest. Indeed, the debate so early in the campaign was his idea. He flunked it.
Biden is a decent man and has actually been a reasonable president. Democrats have consistently performed better in elections than opinion polls. Since Trump was convicted in the hush money trial, Biden had been drawing level in polls. Trump has become wilder and more dangerous in his views and has his own cognitive decline problems at 78.
After last night, none of this is now enough. Biden must step down, or Trump will almost certainly win.
The problem for Democrats is that Biden might not agree with this analysis and, if he does and reluctantly steps down, they are left with the deeply unpopular Vice-President Kamala Harris. Trump may win on this scenario, too.
If Trump is a mess of the Republicans’ own making, Biden is now a mess of the Democrats’ own making.
At stake is the future of American democracy, the integrity of its legal system, a triumphant Putin, the NATO alliance to name but a few issues…
Democrats better come up with a solution to the Biden/Harris conundrum fast. Otherwise, America and the wider world will enter a very dark phase indeed.
Inside Right Politics 