Facing Biden’s Decline: Why Sticking with Him Might Be Democrats' Best Bet for 2024.
Presented with a brutal Hobson's Choice, Dems must now focus on damage control to save down-ballot candidates and avoid a colossal top-of-ticket loss that could exile them to the political wilderness.
The human brain adapts to shock over time. It forms new pathways, and life moves on. I know. Around two years ago, I suffered a COVID-induced stroke.
Democrat voters were similarly shocked by the horror show they witnessed at the June 27 CNN presidential debate. That’s because the White House, Democratic Party, incurious media, and now, it seems, corrupted medical staff had, for four years, conspired to impede the truth about Joe Biden's cognitive decline. This was done with the sick and cynical goal of crushing their bogeyman, Donald John Trump.
Courageous, clear-eyed, and capacious readers of the Crotty Farm Report (CFR) have long known the unvarnished truth: Joe Biden is a corrupt old coot, a scallywag, a mountebank, a fabricator, a plagiarist, a schmaltzy cornball hack. These select but influential CFR readers additionally know that many Democratic claims about Trump are empirically, demonstrably, and unreservedly false.
But now, as previously hoodwinked Democrats stare into the abyss of a cataclysmic election smackdown––or “payback” in MAGA terms––they are publicly thrashing about like harpooned whales, desperately seeking succor and solvency from their usual partisan sources. For instance, Democrat Nate Silver, of 538 fame—who’s gotten pushback for not being a “team player” in the collectivist effort to “Get Trump”––draws upon his love of poker to make a reasonably convincing case for dumping Biden. As alternative options get more challenging with each adamantine Biden outburst—Joe, like a latter-day John Paul Jones, figuratively vows that he has “not yet begun to fight!”—Silver urges Democratic apparatchiks to grasp the game the president is playing. He’s bluffing, says Silver. His hand is weak. His frailties will not magically improve, let alone voter perceptions of them.
What Silver won’t probe is why Biden is bluffing. Like so many Democrats, Silver swallowed the Heroic Joe narrative hook, line, and sinker. Dems in 2020 painted their Chauncey Gardiner as a Cincinnatus-like savior of the republic. Voters now see that was more Trump-deranged hype. Joe Biden is a career politician, a dopey, gropy grifter in love with being President. That’s the root betrayal lurking beneath the Biden cognitive cover-up.
Biden can no more relinquish power than the Corleone family. Understood in this light, a hard-nosed observer might say that Biden’s medical team has long known of the president’s neurodegenerative struggles. And that Joe is hanging on not only out of elderly cussedness and addiction to power but also to protect Hunter (“I’ve got my dad right here”) and Biden Family, Inc.
Thanks to stellar reporting by the Wall Street Journal and a maturely managed debate by suddenly journalistic CNN, voters can no longer unknow or unsee Biden’s decay. Silver thinks that even if the deeply flawed Vice President, Kamala Harris, offers merely a 10% better chance of winning than Biden, it’s political malpractice not to choose her since the prime directive of parties is to maximize chances of victory for their candidates.
But the beguiling Mr. Silver, an infectious purveyor of statistical candy, like many East Coast pundits, misses what only a detached, experienced, and common-sense Midwestern political observer can see: slow and steady wins the race. It’s why famed Omaha value investor Warren Buffett has historically performed better than his jumpy East Coast peers, who flock to his yearly Berkshire Hathaway shareholder’s meeting only to promptly forget his folksy Plains wisdom once they return to their Manhattan skyscrapers. It’s also why the Nebraska Cornhuskers dominated college football from the 1970s through the 1990s. They continually ran the ball “up the gut” behind big, beefy offensive linemen until defenses broke down from the relentless pain. When Nebraska adopted flashy East Coast or West Coast offenses—ill-suited to our manly climate, steady-as-she-goes temperament, and the Brobdingnag physiques of our proud Midwestern farm boys—they started their long, steep decline on the gridiron.
Democrats don’t listen well. Republicans don’t either, frankly. But, if you are a rare, open-minded Democrat, consider sticking with the horse who brought you. It’s the best option for party unity. You already see the internecine chaos indecision hath wrought. It’s also best for hanging onto your electorally reliable cohort of elderly voters, who were essential to Joe’s 2020 triumph, who bridle at ageist claims about “fitness,” and whose disaffection will offset gains with younger but flakier voters if you switch to an identity-based figurehead. Ironically, it’s also the best option for the party’s "saving democracy" whopper.
Several helpful data points make the case.
Data point 1: As a planned 2016 “October Surprise,” the infamous Access Hollywood recording, prematurely published by The Washington Post, was designed to end Trump’s campaign. Democratic operatives at NBC hoped to release the 11-year-old tape later in the campaign for maximum electoral effect. Per TMZ, on October 12, “Multiple sources connected with NBC tell us ... top network execs knew about the video long before they publicly said they did, but wanted to hold it because it was too early in the election. The sources say many NBC execs have open disdain for Trump and their plan was to roll out the tape 48 hours before the debate so it would dominate the news cycle leading up to the face-off."
In the casual walk-and-talk with Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush––in poetic justice, the nephew of NeoCon George W. Bush, for whom Mr. Trump, ten years later, had rather unkind words––Trump said despicable things. Many Republicans rightly denounced Trump's boorish braggadocio. Many asked him to withdraw lest he contaminate their chances for reelection.
Hillary Clinton, who orchestrated hit pieces on women who’d accused her husband, Bill, of rape, also called Trump out. But Trump stayed the course and edged out an overconfident and tone-deaf Clinton––who famously called Trump’s supporters a "basket of deplorables"––in a tight race.
The shocking Access Hollywood moment shows why Joe Biden could, and maybe should, stay in the race. Voters slowly get over an event’s initial shock. And Biden’s de facto Access Hollywood moment happened far earlier in the campaign. He, his staff, and his voters will have time to recover against a flawed opponent who will continue to say outlandish things that also shock voters.
A second data point comes from Trump’s 2020 election campaign. From 2016 to 2019, as President, Mr. Trump delivered record-low inflation and unemployment, a protected border, a defeated ISIS, a less financially derelict NATO, and peace at home and abroad. Then the Wuhan virus hit. During the pandemic’s peak, Trump held far too many unnerving press conferences. Meanwhile, a cognitively compromised Biden lay low in his Delaware redoubt, making few public appearances, hiding his infirmities from reporters––except, it seems, from Miranda Devine, Mollie Hemmingway, and myself––reassuring COVID-panicked voters through his comparative silence.
Biden beat Trump easily, letting the Democrats' prodigious vote-getting, ballot harvesting, censorship, disinformation, and CIA-assisted election interference machine do the hard work for him. Hiding Biden worked in 2020, and it could work again in 2024. Biden could barely operate without a teleprompter in 2020. Nothing’s changed. Dems should let their Soros-funded machine do its dirty work again while Biden continues to deliver high-level set pieces.
Data point number 3: in 2012, a rusty and misinformed Barack Obama had a pathetically weak first debate against Republican Mitt Romney. His base was shocked as tales of doom abounded. Obama won that election comfortably because the Democratic Machine got Obama’s low-enthusiasm voters, particularly black voters, to the polls. Besides elderly voters, Biden’s most reliable constituency is African Americans, who overlooked Joe’s infirmities in 2020 and will likely do so in 2024.
With these data points in mind, here's why Democrats might want to "Keep Ridin' with a Cognitively Impaired Biden."
1. Like equity investors, voters embrace certainty and the status quo. This is why it’s so hard to beat an incumbent. As an incumbent, Trump would have won in 2020 until COVID destroyed his robust economy and forced him to spend trillions on inflationary government relief.
Joe’s disastrous June 27 debate performance also seemed like a black swan event. But it wasn’t. Those with eyes to see knew this was no surprise. They’d seen Joe’s deterioration for years. But now that the cognitive cover-up is out of the bag, the President’s neurodegenerative issues can be appropriately and transparently managed by doctors untainted by Biden family corruption. Over time, voters will become accustomed to Joe’s unique medical situation. As with Trump’s Access Hollywood moment, Biden’s disastrous first debate will fade into the rearview mirror as a long drumbeat of good days and Trumpian missteps will grow back some of Biden’s popular vote numbers.
The certainty that Biden remains the Democratic candidate will also quell the current carnage caused by the relentless interrogation of his competency. The White House helped that process on Wednesday by finally admitting that Biden had seen a Parkinson’s specialist in January and been given the green light to run. Still, rumors will continue to swirl until Biden is re-tested by an outside neurologist. If Biden now has Parkinson’s, his run is over. Cruel and ageist as this might seem, voters will not trust Biden’s 3 AM decision-making, given the late-night hallucinatory effects of the disease.
2. Voters do not like their electoral will being trashed. It's why voters were angry when Trump-deranged officials in Colorado and beyond tried to remove the former President from ballots. The Supreme Court intervened to stop that un-democratic election interference. Democrat voters will not be happy if their overwhelming choice of Joe Biden is overturned by Vice President Harris via the 25th amendment, by elite party donors like George Clooney, or at a convention. The whole endeavor will undercut the Democrats’ main argument that they will "save democracy." You can't save democracy while destroying it. Never mind that we are a republic.
3. Voters ultimately adjust to reality. President Ronald Reagan appeared slow and senile in his second presidential run. According to his biological son Ron, he showed signs of Alzheimer’s late in his first term. However, Reagan was not officially diagnosed with Alzheimer's until five years after he left office. Voters adjusted to Reagan's diminished capacities, knowing his policies were better than the alternative. They will make the same adjustments for Mr. Biden.
4. Biden is a proven Trump-killer. Even if he requires more sleep, a less-packed schedule, and other accommodations due to his age and frailty, Biden is still the only Democrat to beat Donald Trump in a general election and subsequent proxy battles in midterms and special elections. There is no conclusive evidence that Trump can suddenly beat Biden even with all the tailwinds at Trump's back. Trump is horrible on policy details. He exaggerates. He makes unforced errors. He proposes cockamamie ideas like debating Biden again but with no moderators and no restraints, forgetting that those restraints are what allowed the world to see Joe’s decline. Trump stupidly chose the weakest argument—ballot fraud—in protesting Democrats’ sundry election shenanigans in 2020, keeping the Democrats’ “saving democracy” canard alive despite their own successful election interference using 51 CIA operatives. And Trump has never crossed the 50% popular vote threshold, even now when Democrats are at their most vulnerable.
If Biden were running against any other Republican, I'd recommend that he drop out. But this is Trump, a known, grossly imperfect, and mercurial entity, whom Biden has regularly beaten despite the odds against him.
Reason 5. Elections are won in the trenches. Democrats got their low-enthusiasm Obama voters to the polls in 2012, and they can do the same for Joe in 2024. Their vast and well-funded army of teachers' union members, service worker union members, pro-abortion activists, sex workers, marijuana enthusiasts, and BLM types will get the job done as Republicans flounder, un-unified, incoherent, and arrogantly unwilling to reach out to people who can help them, such as yours truly. Never forget that Democrats know how to cheat and get away with it. See their plan to register illegal immigrant voters.
This might all come as cold comfort to Democratic friends’ struggling with the transparent reality of their standard-bearer’s decrepitude and the elaborate cover-up to keep that abatement from voters. I feel your pain. You’ve been lied to. And it’s heartbreaking, as I detailed in the Crotty Farm Report, to watch any family member in such a precarious state.
But let's be honest: y'all knew. You were so blinded by your hatred of Trump that you looked the other way on Biden's severe mental, physical, and political handicaps, including his clear influence-peddling as VP and beyond with Russia, Ukraine, and China. As James Comer knows, "The Big Guy" would have been impeached and convicted in a fair world. But he dodged that bullet by having media, social media, and search censor and downrank that story plus coverage of Joe, Tony Blinken, and their 51-intel-chief election interference scheme.
Now, Joe’s trial and conviction will never happen. With the Supreme Court’s expansive ruling on presidential immunity, Joe and his criminal surrogates can count themselves lucky. They got away with it. All of it. Democrats may end up thanking the Biden White House staff for lying and covering up for so long, preventing Comer from making the links between the Biden health cover-up and the Biden family’s far more extensive quid-pro-Joe. Now with the SCOTUS ruling on immunity, the clock has run out, just as Team Biden hoped it would.
So, “here’s the deal,” as Joe would say. Now that the Biden family health secret is out of the bag, Joe can finally get the best medical care to be the best version of his current self. As the cliche goes, he will have good days, and he will have bad days. Magnify the good ones.
Democrats need to grasp that this is now about damage control, saving down-ballot candidates, and avoiding a colossal top-of-the-ticket loss that includes reliably blue states like Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Virginia, not to mention the Magnificent Seven swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, where Trump is already winning. If a Reagan-like landslide occurs, Democrats could find themselves in the political wilderness for another 12 years.
Joe might not win, but for all the reasons I’ve articulated, he might still be the best person to make the race closer than it might otherwise be. I realize, Democratic friends, that you face a brutal Hobson’s choice. But contrary to the advice of media, money, and entertainment elites, your best bet might be to keep running it up the gut.
I can agree with a lot of this.
1. Biden can absolutely still win. The Democrats still have a lot of structural advantages. It's
2. Switching candidates this late in the race is not something one does lightly. The precedent doesn't seem good -- every time your candidate is polling poorly and seems to be worse than you thought he'd be, you talk about switching him out? Even if he's the incumbent President.
3. On Nate Silver's piece, I don't really think Biden's hand is weak. No one can make him budge without self-destructing the party. And the party has nothing to offer him for stepping down, aside from talk of "legacy", which is pretty weak sauce when the only way he truly redeems his legacy is by beating Trump again. To me, it seems like Biden has all the cards.