Biden and Harris Should Sit Out the Next Election

Things look very bad for Democrats in the upcoming midterms. According to 538, Republicans now have a 53% chance of gaining control of the Senate and a 85% chance of taking over the House. Here in Pa., the Senate race between Mehmet Oz and John Fetterman is listed as a "toss-up." The same is true of the US House election pitting Lisa Scheller against Susan Wild.  Democrats, who should have been mindful of the usual midterm backlash, instead overreached. 

Josh Barro sums thing up rather nicely:

First of all, they have been insufficiently attentive to economic factors they now acknowledge are likely to drive this and future elections. Joe Biden knew that world events beyond his control could spike gasoline prices, yet his fear that voters might punish him for this did not give him pause when he pursued an agenda from day one that discouraged North American production of oil and gas, including pausing drilling leases and canceling the Keystone XL pipeline. He was blasé about the risk that the American Rescue Plan would overstimulate the economy and spur inflation, ignoring the warnings of mainstream Democratic economists like Larry Summers. He spent much of 2021 trying to get Congress to approve a multi-trillion dollar package of new social spending that would have been even more inflationary. He approved an extra-legal cancellation of hundreds of billions of dollars of student loan debt in a manner never contemplated by Congress (so much for democracy!). His party has coalesced around increasingly rigidly progressive positions and rhetoric on issues including abortion, sex and gender, and immigration, and Biden himself moved in a more extreme direction on abortion by rejecting the Hyde Amendment, which he had long supported — hardly an effort to broaden the coalition."

Instead of attacking Joe Manchin, Democrats would have done better to heed his warnings. Instead of being champions of the working poor and blue collars, we've become elitists who've become the standard bearers of wokeness. Biden had to choose a black woman as his VP, even though making those two attributes a requirement is  itself both racist and sexist. 

Now, in the wake of the Paul Pelosi assault at the hands of mentally unbalanced right-winger who was also a left-winger at times (he's frickin' cRaZy), President Joe Biden piously asserts that the midterms are a referendum on democracy itself.  No, they are a referendum on him and his failed presidency. A vote against Biden or a Democrat is not a vote against democracy. It's a vote against him. Biden's attempt to spin this any other way is itself anti-Democratic. 

While I agree that political violence has increased and must be taken seriously, Biden politicizes the matter by speaking about it on the eve of an election that his party is losing. 

That's why, as George Will has pleaded in The Washington Post, both Biden and VP Kamala Hrris need to step aside in the next Presidential. Will notes that Biden is "past his prime," and to be honest, that's being charitable. His gaffes used to be amusing. Now they are disconcerting. The President of the United States must be an effective communicator. Biden is simply the worst in my lifetime. It's little wonder he'd endorse John Fetterman, another ineffective messenger. 

VP  Kamala Harris, according to Will, "sounds like someone giving a book report on a book she has not read."  Just a few days ago, in remarks about investing in clean school buses, there's this: "So here’s the thing: Who doesn’t love a yellow school bus, right? Can you raise your hand if you love a yellow school bus, right?"

This person, who has been unimpressive in nearly every outing and goes through staff the way I go through toilet paper, needs to go. 

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who until recently wanted to be President Newsom, acknowledges Democrats are getting destroyed on messaging. You'll have this when President Biden claims there are 54 states or VP Kamala Harris cheers our alliance with the Republic of North Korea. Newsom himself sent a rather shitty message when he was caught at a rather swanky French restaurant at the very time he was telling everyone else to stay home. 

We need to do some soul searching and return to what we once were  - the party of the little guy.