Democrats find themselves at a crossroads that we haven’t seen in presidential politics. While there have been past instances of presidents suffering from physical or mental decline, it has never happened in the internet age where it’s impossible to keep things under wraps, and to the extent that any cover-up of Joe Biden’s mental and increasingly physical decline was succeeding, it all blew up in late June after the president showed the world who he was on the debate stage.
WATCH: Trump Lands a Knock-Out Blow Early in the Debate
That’s left Democrats scrambling for a solution. Do they allow Biden to take them down with him, or do they make some kind of move to force him out? It’s impossible to answer that question without considering the alternative: Kamala Harris.
As I’ve opined several times since this rolling disaster for the White House began, there is no viable scenario where Harris can be passed over were Biden to step aside. A party that is built on diversity quotas can’t plug in Gavin Newsom for the “first black female vice president.” It would tear the party apart, and I think there’s been a realization of that over the past few days.
With that said, the rallying effect around Harris as a possible “better” option than Biden is dipping into delusion. There’s this idea that the vice president becoming the presidential nominee would lead to a clean slate and refocus the race on Donald Trump. As the headlines are proclaiming, Harris is “having a moment.”
Is that true? As far as the press is concerned, perhaps. There’s no doubt the feeding frenzy around the White House would cease if Biden were to step down. With the vice president becoming the president, reporters would feel free to go back to being stenographers for the Democratic Party again. Never mind the intersectional factors that would provide an even thicker bubble around a newly elevated Harris.
What about voters, though? I’m not so sure they’d buy the bait and switch. The following video is one reason why.
VP Kamala Harris rips the special counsel’s report into President Biden’s handling of classified documents:
“The way that the president’s demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts, and clearly politically motivated, gratuitous.” pic.twitter.com/DO1M4ompYs
— The Recount (@therecount) February 9, 2024
That’s Harris viciously attacking former special counsel Robert Hur for detailing Biden’s cognitive decline in his report. At the time, the administration rallied behind the president, dismissing the entire thing as not only a political exercise but a blatant bout of “disinformation” about Biden’s condition.
SEE: It’s Time for the Press to Apologize to Robert Hur
They were all lying, including Harris.
It is wishful thinking to believe that Democrats can just shove Biden out the door and every swing voter will simply forget that a massive conspiracy was undertaken to deceive them. Harris knew that the president was in severe decline. She could have told the truth. At best, she could have kept her mouth shut. Instead, she becomes a chief accessory to the cover-up, and as they say, the cover-up is often worse than the crime. Voters are not going to forget who lied to their faces and insulted their intelligence, not for weeks or months, but for years.
To think anything else is indeed delusional. Democrats can move on with Harris if they’d like, but the problems will remain. The lost trust isn’t coming back, and the scandal they perpetrated is only going to get bigger. The time to do the right thing passed long ago, and now the reckoning is upon them. Voters aren’t stupid, and they aren’t going to be fooled by cheap media campaigns and political stunts.
