HURRICANE KAMALA IN PRIMETIME

What a difference a day makes. Fareed Zakaria on his “Global WPS” program had minutes before bemoaned the decrepit Democratic Party, (DP), who were catapulting to disaster with geriatric Joe.Then with no leaks to the media, Joe Biden announced he was withdrawing from the race. Twenty - minutes later he endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris as the DP Presidential nominee. In so doing he stunned the world including Trump and his party. The 45th President could not imagine putting country before self. In his words such citizens were “suckers and losers”.Consequently the GOP presidential nominee did not seriously consider in his election strategy such an outcome. Biden’s late in the day bold sacrifice was not without risk. However 90 percent of all voters polled immediately after the President exited, agreed with his decision. 

Three days after his earth shattering revelation, Biden, bowing to the will of his party, declared, in a speech for the ages, why he was putting duty before ambition. The 46th President also made it crystal clear that he was with the program and would be at the helm for the remaining six months of his tenure. He communicated that the last six months of his amazing 52 years public service would be ensuring that America’s rocky experiment in democracy would be advanced. Little could he have believed in 2016, when he ran because of the inflection point in history where democracy was at stake, that the crisis would have increased exponentially In 2020. He reflected on his phenomenal record at home and abroad - remarkable in its breadth, including the first massive infrastructure boost since President Eisenhower, the lowest unemployment record, navigating the country out of the Covid pandemic and the strengthening of world democracies in Europe even increasing NATO’s membership and consolidating the South Pacific alliances. 

Vice President Harris sprinted out off the blocks and within 96 hours had raised over a 150 million dollars, (200 million in 6 days), from small donors. The billionaires, emitting an audible sigh of relief, opened the geysers to contribute to the "The Harris For Victory Fund", the DP gained over 100,000 volunteers, 200 applications for full time offices and the whole doomsday scenario was reinvigorated by her elevation to the top of the ticket.  All this to the seismic shock of the Trump GOP who were caught flatfooted by the swift seamless events. The Democratic Party, the Trade Unions, Interest groups, the State delegates, activist entities, the representatives of all legislative bodies unified behind her candidature. 

Even the 7/24 news cycle couldn’t keep up to either get behind the story or fashion out what was to come, so Jay H. Ell will give it a whirl.

HOW THE RACE CHANGED IN A HALF AN HOUR ON A SUNDAY MORNING JULY 21

“YES WE KAM” screamed the heartbroken yet relieved, bewildered and energized Democratic faithful. Harris was pumped up stumping with prosecutorial precision into felon Tump. The DP now had a dynamic exponent of their case. Not since Barack Obama in 2007 has there been this excitement. For the uninitiated this didn’t just happen spontaneously. The events which brought near hysteria didn’t occur in a vacuum. The timing itself was perfect. Just as the Trump/Vance crowd awaited the traditional post Conference bump in the polls with them holding forth on the Sunday morning talk shows, the narrative was rudely snatched from them. Days later Trump was wailing that he couldn’t get any coverage even castigating Fox News for interviewing a hopeful for Vice Presidency, Tim Walsh the Minnesota Governor.

This historic earthquake must have been shaped over weeks. Biden and his family didn’t suddenly have an epiphany induced by the anti Covid medicine Paxlovid. This was meticulously thought through. Kamala Harris just pitching up in Wilmington Delaware to take over the election apparatus within a few hours after Biden’s endorsement was no fluke. The transition was not just happenstance. 

The same way Democratic hopefuls had patriotically dropped out in the 2019 race to be behind Biden the other potential contenders for the 2024 DP nomination unselfishly bowed out. The deep talented Democratic bench within hours pledged their support to the anointed nominee, for the same patriotic rationale that the 2019 contenders had fallen in line behind Joe Biden.

But who and how was this brought about?

WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN JUNE15  AND JULY 21

The Democratic strategist in chief for change was that old warhorse Speaker Emirata Nancy Pelosi who has guided the Democrats through many seemingly impossible legislative victories. She made it quite clear that she would not take “no” for an answer. In every interview she argued that she was waiting for “his final answer”. In the hapless incumbent’s inner circle was his life long friend that powerhouse Jim Clyburn, who in 2019 acted as his kingmaker for the very reason he was now counseling him to get out. 

Barack Obama was accused by Biden as being the mastermind. He had had a preview of the Democratic presumptive nominee’s shortcomings at the fundraiser, on June 15, in Los Angeles, which he and his close friend famed Hollywood star and philanthropist George Clooney had hosted. When the incumbent President on June 25 confirmed their worst fears with a disqualifying debate they obviously went into action. For all the world to see Clooney produced a scathing op ed piece in the NY Times on July 10 calling for Biden to pass on the baton. But much had to have happened between those two dates and that is where Nancy Pelosi played the dominant role. She communicated to the Biden team the internal poll numbers of legislators who believed that the antipathy towards Biden was risking their own candidacy. Daily, increasing number of legislators including close Pelosi confidant, Adam Schiff the high ranking Democrat who led the first impeachment team against Trump asked for Biden to step down. 

The former Speaker challenged Biden’s assumptions that he was neck and neck with Trump warning him and his team of enablers that his candidature threatened a trifecta of losses for the Democrats. The pressure was piled on with the donors all joining in and the liberal media going ballistic. (See Blog: I Write What I like, July 10, “BIDEN’S HUBRIS - A MOVIE RERUN”. Having detailed the process the outcome was still solely in the hands of Stately Joe who finally bit the bullet and sent Hurricane Kamala to the races. She was now in Primetime.

So how did the Trump crowd greet Kamala?

TRUMP ET AL GO INTO COMPLETE FUNK AS KAMALA REPLACES BIDEN

If there was hysteria from the Dems greeting the Harris for Biden sweep it was matched by the complete and utter funk Trump and his MAGA crowd exhibited as they appeared totally unprepared for this eventuality. Trump suddenly embraced democracy, “This guy goes and he gets the votes and now they want to take it away. They talk about democracy’”. Then he gets more resigned, “He never should have been President in the first place. He should have stayed in the basement.We will remedy the damage he has done very quickly. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN”. Trump, reflecting on where the party was at demanded that the Democrats pay the GOP back the tens of millions they spent on fighting Biden! 

Vice President nominee Vance was already on record smearing childless “cat ladies” to the anger of Taylor Swift fans and "childless Kamala", who as a result, “…had no stake in this country” Previously Vance had argued that women with no children should have less political power. Vance is a liability and someone should tell Trump he can chuck him off the ticket as there is precedent for that type of thing! The MAGA ex President seems to be even more unhinged rallying at a Conservative Christian meeting, “Beautiful Christians you won’t have to vote anymore if I am elected in November”.

The famed “Republican” pollster and strategist, Vince Fabrizio, attempted to calm all nerves by reassuring Trump that the bump that Harris will get in the polls will be temporary and he will pull away once it dies down. Fabrizio forgot to mention that it was Trump that was supposed to get the post Convention “bump”. He also ignored Nikki Haley's January prophesy in the Republican Primary where she argued that if Trump was the Republican nominee, Harris would become the President. She tried to dial it back, while admitting that it was "very wise" of the Democrats to choose a young person, Harris was "the worst" option!

So onto whether the new candidate  stacks up better against Trump.Time will tell.

KAMALA’S STRENGTH AND WEAKNESSES

The immediate post announcement polls showed a tightening of the race but most of what data there was, was pre Biden’s departure. The Democratic hope was at 47 - 48 precent. While that was Biden’s ceiling hopefully it was Kamala’s floor. There was a definite indication that the youth vote that was shunning Biden was energized. David Hogg, the student gun law reformer, claimed that his organization spontaneously collected nearly 400,000 dollars in small donations. They were backing Harris. Hogg heads a massive youth group, “March for Life”, which conducted one of the largest demonstrations this century. In play are at least two other GenZ outfits, "Run for Something" and "Voters for Tomorrow" who are oozing "Kamalove". Seventeen youth groups have joined "Voters for Tomorrow"  in support of Harris. There are 41 million GenZ eligible to vote in 2024, 8 million being able to participate for the first time. 

The new DP nominee bolstered her support among Black women. Indications are that she is in a better position to mobilize the Hispanic vote as well as the men in the minority groups are supposedly leaning towards Trump. She is a much stronger advocate for women’s freedoms than Biden and has already blazed a trail on the stump in that regard. It is hard to imagine that the suburban Republican women that flipped to Biden in 2020 are going to return to Trump/Vance. Every referendum on abortion including those in deep Red states has gone against restricting a woman’s right to choose. 

The big question mark is whether Harris can keep that slither of white voters in the Rust Belt that swung to Biden in the last Presidential. That is the largest crucial test she faces although it is maintained that she has Labor Union support. So for the moment it is wait and see. Also her Vice Presidential pick will be sure to help with that demographic.

In the final analysis the fundamental movement against Trump and his candidates since 2016 and the fact that in all the swing states Biden was behind the Democratic Senate nominees, who were winning, bodes well for the new DP nominee. And one final word of encouragement, nearly 30,000 million viewers watched Stately Joe herald in Hurricane Kamala while Trump could only hold 25 million for 15 minutes in his rambling acceptance speech. 

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Untested Kamala has one helluva road ahead. She has to prove that she is up to the job otherwise the waverers will either stay at home or pick the strongman, who is smearing her like only he can. Harris admits that she is the underdog. 

If the Vice President loses the election the recriminations will come thick and fast to the Biden enablers who hid his potential for "disastrous days". 

At the end of the day, it is no longer the end of the day. There is hope. 

TRUMP - JUST SMOKE AND MIRRORS

While Joe Biden’s transformation from Joe Bader Ginsberg Biden to Joe George Washington Biden obliterated the giddy past week which begun with former President Trump’s near death experience and ended with theTrump/Vance three ring circus the latter does warrant some attention……

Following Trump’s assassination attempt with an AR 15 Semi Automatic Assault Rifle, he indicated that he would rewrite his acceptance speech at the Republican National Party Congress, (RNC), and call for national unity. In the next breath he nominated J. D. Vance who had just posted on Elon Musk’s X,“Today is not an isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination”. The nomination of 39 year old Vance was evidence enough that whatever Trump may say, MAGA white authoritarianism extremism is here to stay. 

In fact the whole gaudy RNC Congress dystopian reality was a presentation of George Orwell’s, Nineteen Eighty - Four, which was written 75 years ago. In short, like everything about the man who in his last Presidency was going to build a wall which Mexico was going to pay for, is just “Smoke and Mirrors”. This Convention was all about El Duce himself, Donaldo J. Trump who is in the words of that iconic Sinatra song “ King of the Hill,, Top of the Heap, A number one”. But first to dispense with the VP nominee, J. D. Vance, who is Trump on steroids. 

ADVANCE NOTICE ON VANCE

Just to give the scoop on the newest version of the multiple retreaded Hillbilly J.D. Vance before getting onto Trump himself. JD, as he is affectionally known, in his weakly delivered prime time never ending “eulogy” to the Maestro took us down memory lane in order to show how old President Biden was. In so doing he forgot that his hillbilly history also reminded the long suffering audience how geriatric the other contender was.  He, JD, was just an ordinary graduate from Yale, who was a hedge fund manager and whose campaign was financed by billionaire Peter Thiel. Apparently JD, who aspired to be the spokesperson for the workers, wanted to bite the very hand that feeds him.

But Jay. H.El digresses as JD's epic was far more newsworthy for the missing blood and thunder red meat that got his youthful self on the double IMAX stage on night three of the Trump Convention. Missing was his sweeping cultural agenda - such as a national abortion ban and that middle class men should be able to earn enough for their “women” to stay at home. Then the tax cut for Peter and his good self which presumably could be balanced by axing Medicare, Social Security and the Affordable Care Act was not part of his oration. He also wants a weaker dollar for all those crypto guys sitting in the VIP boxes not to mention he and The Boss’s tariffs, (sales tax), that they want to put on all imported goods. 

Then forgotten in the endless litany of BS was his support of Project 25 supposedly to rid America of the Dark State which is out to get Trump. But enough already of the understudy and onto The King himself. The last word on Vance is that he opined to the American Conservative, that Trump was America’s Hitler.

EL PRESIDENTE - THE 45th THAT IS  - ON HIS BIG NIGHT, BY G-D’S GRACE

Hooray for Hollywood! What an irony, Hulk Hogan for heavens sake. If you are uninitiated, professional wrestling is as phony as Trump. In addition a 50 year old Kid Rock performing like he was at a Bar Mitzvah party. To put on this circus Trump is not really looking to expand his base. Nevertheless he claimed that he wanted to be a President for all Americans.

Reverend Franklin Graham, his daddy was the famous Billy, confirmed what Fox and all the right wing media had long ago concluded, namely that G-d was on Trump’s side. Trump himself did not have too many doubts about divine intervention in his bid to Make America Great Again, “I am not supposed to be here. I am supposed to be dead,…many people are saying it’s by God I am still here”

Notwithstanding his resurrection,Trump was not juiced up like in his rallies. He harped on the assassination attempt with all the theatrics. Not so subtly he confided that G-D backed his immigration policy and the bullet clipped his ear as he turned to look at the made up graph that proved that “Sleepy Joe” was allowing the illegals in to vote for him in November. 

The paranoia had to come sooner or later as he, with controlled anger, confronted the Democratic Party in their judicial  onslaught against him. Then he admitted that he was trying to buy votes. Then the BS followed big time as he bragged about his wonderful Presidency and Biden’s disastrous administration and the world mess which is all “their fault”, which he will fix up with everything else.The hyperbole had to come - the hundreds of thousands killed by the illegal immigrants and the197 percent of the jobs he created that the illegal immigrants have taken when they weren't busy killing everyone in-between their crime sprees. 

He asked the unenthusiastic crowd to “get excited”.He did mildly warm up towards the end which took forever to come. Before relief arrived the tissue of lies sprayed the arena, He really harped on and on about the invasion of immigrants. It was drill baby drill, deport the illegals and close the borders. The economy sucked big time. The Democrats cheated in the 2020 election. In order to wake up the crowd Trump adlibbed for a third of the 90 minutes including the bilge about the criminals, the murderers, the mental institutions and drug dealers being released into America. Venezuela was going to be the venue for the next RNC Congress!. He can stop wars and cure all diseases. He poured 250 million into Wisconsin not Biden’s Infrastructure Act.  Hannibal Lector as did “Crazy Nancy”, merited mentions. 

Some of this was patent cognitive decline. The crowd remained unenthusiastic, Eventually it mercifully came to an end about a week after he started. 

EL PRESIDENTE - THE 45th -  JUST SMOKE AND MIRRORS

The lies came out rata tat tat. The key message was the same old same old PLUS he now had proof that G-D had sent him to save America. Like “The Savior” he was being martyred to save them. 

As a matter of mundane politics the 45th President  did not touch on abortion nor plans for that “Highly respected by all jurisprudence experts, Judge Eileen Cannon’s” possible appointment to the Supreme Court. No mention of the political prisoners that the Biden Justice Department has prosecuted and his promise to let them out. As for Project 25, written by a 140 members of his former administration which included his promise to axe all civil servants of the “deep state” and replace them with Trump loyalists, not a word. In case anyone doesn’t believe he is capable of the latter that is what he did with the whole RNC infrastructure and put in his daughter in law in charge as Chairperson to boot. 

Trump didn’t detail that his massive tariff on all imported goods was inflationary as economists had forecast. Nor did he elaborate that his tax plan was only for the rich and would Increase the deficit even more than he had in the first four years.  His axing of regulations would expose the masses to risk and allow big business to ride rough shod over citizenry. He didn't offer his previous explanation for the record breaking stock market which he had claimed was in anticipation of his Presidency. Nor did he offer any theory as to why if he was still President he was running to remove Biden!

He ignored the self dealing and grift he and his family are involved in. Two billion for Jared and a Trump Hotel in Saudi Arabia for starters. Or how his gullible followers have forgotten his campaign promises back to 2015 that he didn’t need any money for the campaigns because he was “really rich”. Nor did he bother to explain how he was creaming their contributions for his massive army of lawyers who were successfully making a mockery of the justice system.

Like abortion, which was dealt with in the weakest RNC platform motion in decades, in the hope that everyone would forget his boast that he delivered the justices that axed abortions, he didn’t mention his unconditional support for guns. That was jolly decent of him, bearing in mind that he was shot with an AK rifle that the Democrats have tried to ban for ever. 

Jay H. Ell could go and on but the assassin’s bullet that nearly brought him to his Maker hadn’t altered his world view one jot. Everything about Trump is just “Smoke and Mirrors”.

Just a few of his choice quotes to end this off. 

‘They’re not after me. They’re after you. And I just happen to be standing in their way.”

“In 2016, I declared, I am your voice. Today, I add I am your warrior,  I am your justice. and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution”.

'“ They, (Illegal immigrants), are poisoning the blood of our country”.

“I will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country”.

“Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath  That’s gonna be the least of it” 

“If this election isn’t won, I am not sure that you’ll even have another one in this country”.

 For Trump there is not one America, His war is not with the evil empires of Russia, Iran and North Korea. His war is with his fellow countrymen who don’t want to install him as a King. He is no patriot, it’s all smoke and mirrors.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

It would be the end of the day if “law and order” Trump was re elected. Don’t forget he is the twice impeached, convicted of 24 felonies, four times indicted, declared a rapist by a federal judge, had his fake university closed, his charitable organization shut for donating other donors’ money to himself, fined 350 million dollars for his fraudulent Trump company that has been criminally convicted and is the alleged instigator of an insurrection to overthrow the Constitution of America. It is appropriate that Trump's opponent will be a prosecutor. 

Even Moses had to pass the torch to Joshua. 

Funny how Wall Street is so readily funding Trump/Vance who argue that they are wholeheartedly against it. 

It is going to become real ugly fast. 

BIDEN’S HUBRIS - A MOVIE RERUN

The 2020 USA Presidential election was a referendum on Donald Trump. The hope has been to repeat that scenario in 2024. However the race is turning to a poll on Joseph Biden as a result of the fears he realized in a debate between the two geriatric candidates. The majority of voters don’t want either. It stands to reason that if any reasonable candidate from either party were to run the remaining geriatric in the race would be at a distinct disadvantage. In that regard it won’t be a candidate from the Republican Party as Trump is the Party. The Democrats could grab the narrative from the smirking authoritarian sociopathic 45th President who is even more impaired.  Biden, through his hubris is ignoring history where leaders fail to recognize the destructiveness of their own perceived omnipotence. This is not the Biden of yore. Jay H. Ell has seen this movie before in his native South Africa and fears a rerun. 

JOE BIDEN  - RERUNNING THE MOVIE

Joseph Biden’s insistence, for whatever reasons, that he is the only one who can run against Trump and beat him is a movie Jay H. Ell has seen before. Apartheid, the post holocaust crime against humanity, would never have happened in South Africa if a forgotten leader with similar national and international credentials as Biden, hadn’t exhibited the same arrogance and lack of insight at an inflection point in South African history. As frail as Biden is he is aware enough to know that the debate he delivered, way past his admitted bedtime, disqualified him in the current crossroads in American and world history as a candidate to easily beat the existential threat to mankind, Donald J Trump.

 The majority of Democrats want him out of this race and 53 percent of the electorate believe that his age is a bigger disadvantage to the Presidency than the 43 percent that argue that Trump’s criminal convictions are. Seventy - five percent of the electorate claim he is too old. Biden challenges the polls that say that no president with his low approval rating, 36 percent, has ever been re elected. In 2020 he was way ahead of Trump in July now he is behind.

DENIAL IS THE COIN OF THE REALM FOR POLITICIANS AND EVERYBODY ELSE

It is myth to believe history will judge a self centered Biden harshly rather they will just forget about him. Denial is a mechanism not only of politicians who want to romanticize even recent history, but of the electorate as well. Trump’s whole schtick is predicated on denial and lies. He claims he will “Make America Great Again”, Again, referring to a mythical past that he didn’t define or achieve last time out. Everyone in the “GOP” appears to have forgotten that he promised in 2016 in to build a wall that Mexico was going to pay for. Memory even fails recalling the 1,200,000 Covid deaths and the greatest increase in the deficit in any presidency in history, close on 8 trillion dollars. 

Although World War 11 is in the living memory how many Americans are aware of the massive Nazi presence in the country during that war and for years after? If you asked a focus group whether they could articulate why Senator McCarthy was infamous how many would know? (For the record he was an active Nazi sympathizer who sort to cover up major Nazi atrocities in addition to his witch hunt of anyone left of center. All this is detailed in Rachelle Maddow’s “Prequel” and her podcast “Ultra”.

 Biden if he remains on the ticket, whether he ekes out a victory against Trump, which will be challenged creating another constitutional crisis to be resolved by the hairy Supreme Court, or loses ,will be erased from memory notwithstanding his transformative presidency and his stellar career as a public servant. Lyndon Baines Johnson would have been forgotten if he would have attempted a second term after his disastrous handling of the Vietnam war. He knew when to hold em and when to fold em. Rather he is revered for his landmark transformative Civil Rights legislation. 

So the movie has been played over and over. But back to Jay. H. Ell’s experience of how apartheid may have been avoided had the South African Prime Minister, Jan Smuts, not ignored what his advisors were telling him. 

WHO WAS SMUTS AND WHAT WAS HIS MOVIE?

Are you aware of the shocking result of the 1948 South African election that heralded the apartheid era? Let Jay H. Ell remind you. As a seven year old child he witnessed it all being a member of a politically conscious family and it is indelibly sketched in his memory. Smuts lost a 1948 election he could have easily won and then threw away an opportunity to still remain in power all due to his hubris.  But first who was Smuts? He is not remembered like Mandela or even Bishop Tutu or De Klerk who were three of South Arica’s four Nobel Laureates for Peace. In fact history has regarded him unfairly as an agent of apartheid.

The 77 year old Field Marshall Jan Smuts was a remarkable guerrilla and conventional warrior, politician, statesman and philosopher who failed his most crucial historic test through arrogance and, who knows, elderly cognitive dysfunction not recognized in the fifth decade of the nineteenth century. However he too like Biden certainly was enough in touch with reality to make informed choices. For the whole sorry saga on this catastrophe see, “Jan Smuts, The Man Who Might Have Prevented Apartheid”, I Write What I Like, January 22, 2014.

Smuts towered over South African history in the first half of the twentieth century but more significantly in the British Commonwealth which was the most powerful entity of that period. He was the most influential member of the British war cabinet in WW1. In WW11. Churchill informed King George that should anything befall him Smuts should be made leader of the allied world in his place. In other words a South African was to head the British war cabinet. Albert Einstein wrote to him in 1936 confiding that his book “Holism and Evolution” was the most influential work in his thinking. He was the only statesman to have been involved in the founding of The League of Nations and the United Nations Organization. 

Most significantly in 1948 he was about to lead South Africa and set an example for the world in fighting segregation. Yet through arrogance he lost the opportunity and is confined to the dustin of history. He allowed the introduction of apartheid and the authoritarian and abrogation of the rule of law that was inherent to its application. As someone whose life was overshadowed by that decision and who was white and not subject to the harsh lash of discriminatory policies it was a living nightmare. It is a movie that Jay H. Ell would not want to see again. So how can it be prevented?

WHAT HAS BEEN THE FALL OUT OF THE DEBATE

It took 8 days for a Biden response. Eight days as the punditry descended on the Biden candidature like a hurricane. He did have a rally in North Carolina the day after where the faithful cheered, but for the rest a stoney silence.  His most loyal backers such as Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd of the New York Times more in sorrow than in anger said he had to hang up his Presidential badge and call it quits. There was also justifiable rage as to how his enablers had misled the electorate that he was alert and with the program. Stories abounded that manifestations of his debate behavior had been on the increase. 

So before damage control began in earnest he met with his wife Jill, son Hunter and the rest of the family. The latter never advised him to go back to Delaware like he said he would when he decided to run in 2020  -“You were always going to be transitional”. In so doing they would have gently ushered him out. But no way. Wife Jill had even after the grossly impaired debate publicly congratulated on him exclaiming, “You did such a great job. You answered every question”. So having got the go ahead from the family who had put his feelings ahead of America’s democracy and the free world’s future, they handed him over to his other enablers to face the world.

An interview without a teleprompter was scheduled with George Stephanopolous of the ABC  network. Biden’s answers were in many ways incredulous. He simply disagreed with the polls and his rock bottom approval ratings. They just weren’t true. He wasn’t going to undergo neurological and cognitive testing that might well assuage public opinion.  Besides denying reality and arguing that he had the best chance of beating Trump, there were two answers that produced a sense of shock. When asked whether he had watched the debate, that vacant look of the debate night flashed onto the screen and with hesitancy he muttered, “I don’t think so”. He didn’t know whether he had watched the most consequential encounter in Presidential debate history. If that was true then his team were guilty of gross negligence. Then he responded that he wouldn’t feel bad if he lost to Trump as long as he had given it the good old college try!

The Democratic candidate then took to the road and held donor meetings and a couple of rallies where he was cheered on by the faithful as he stated bizarrely, with no apologies to Trump, that “the party elites” were trying to run him out of his candidature. In an attempt to put a lid on the simmering Democratic legislators calling for him to drop out, he wrote a public letter telling them to shut up.He said the quiet part aloud telling them if they didn’t like the idea of his persistence they could challenge him at the Democratic Convention The leadership were in no hurry, also being anxious on the eve of him hosting a NATO  meeting not to render him impotent. 

Meanwhile from Trump there was an eerie silence. He had in one of his word salads way back offered that he was going to lose the debate on purpose to prevent the Democrats from dropping ”Sleepy Joe” and substituting another candidate. Meanwhile his team are busy preparing ads with clips from the debate and the interview.

So how might this end?

HOW MIGHT THIS END?

The two campaign chiefs of the last two Democratic Presidents, James Carville and David Axelrod both believe that Biden will lose to Trump  The two Democratic politicians that are central to the 46th President’s fortunes are Nancy Pelosi and Jim Clyburn. Both have been very circumspect. Significantly the pair, have suggested that “Should Biden drop out there should be a mini Primary’ or words to that effect. They fear that the conventional wisdom to hand the candidature to Vice President Kamala Harris would have the impression that a candidate was been foist on the Party. Without Clyburn Biden would have not been President so the fact that he is publicly even hinting at the possibility that Biden might not see it to election day is dramatic. 

The Democratic candidates for down ballot elections are fearful that Biden might kibosh their leads in the polls. A crucial factor in American politics that doesn’t enter into other countries’ electoral processes, are the money donors. Without them a presidential candidate is sunk - not the grass roots type  but the ‘heavies’. A number of the latter have called for Biden’s ouster. Carville believes that they together with the Democratic elders pressure will drive Biden out. It is not a question of if but when. 

This is being written before Biden’s press conference and his interview with Lester Holt of NBC but nothing can change the reality that with Biden at the top of the ticket Trump  and his party can clean sweep the Legislature and the Presidency. George Clooney saw it months ago. Jeffries, Schumer, Pelosi and Clyburn need to take Biden on if necessary and threaten a Convention challenge. 

AT THE END OF THE DAY

While Jay H. Ell will pull the lever against Trump whoever the candidate might be, Biden could help his PTSD by not rerunning the movie .