By Grace Vuoto
This week, following the Fourth of July, we have witnessed the usual misbehavior by a political party that should review basic civic lessons on how to operate in a democracy. Evidently, Democrats enjoy our national holiday but do not grasp its meaning. Following a disastrous presidential debate, they are thus far sticking with the failing President Joe Biden and ignoring the will of the people who are clamoring for change, especially given the president’s frail mental state.
Democratic strategists set traps for their GOP rivals but have been hoist in their own petard.
The 2024 Democratic primary was a coronation of the incumbent, rather than a true contest to determine who voters really want to lead them into the future. Biden sailed through a process that was largely rigged. His only real challenger, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was marginalized, vilified, bullied, intimidated and muffled to the point that he left the party in utter disgust. Biden refused to engage him—and a willing press participated in the charade.
Democrats sharpened their political knives against the likely Republican nominee, Donald Trump, by unleashing a vicious, unprecedented lawfare campaign, violating our Constitution. The plan was simple: elevate Biden quickly and squash Trump in a judicial process that would humiliate him, eventually leading to a collapse in political support.
However, it turned out to be a gross miscalculation. By the time Biden debated Trump on June 27, all the problems of the president’s diminished capacities emerged full-blown; they would have already been discovered and dissected had the Democratic Party not been too cute by half. Hence, the first part of their plan—a speedy aggrandizement of Biden—completely backfired. Now, they have a weak leader at the helm, causing massive fissures in their party. And to make matters worse, Kennedy, running as a third-party candidate, is attracting a sizeable share of the disaffected Democratic vote.
Had Democrats truly allowed a primary contest, if Biden won fairly, he could then unite Kennedy voters into the fold. Now, many of those are gone for good. Kennedy is attracting 10 percent support in the latest poll by FiveThirtyEight—a margin that could prove decisive and catastrophic for Biden in November.
In addition, the lawfare campaign against Trump resulted in vastly increasing his support among Republicans, rather than lowering his fortunes. Hence the very opposite of their goal was achieved. Democratic strategists imagined that as a result of all their machinations, by now, Biden would be soaring and Trump descending in national polls. Yet, Trump is now surging ahead as Biden’s ratings collapse: Trump leads by six points in the latest New York Times/Sienna College survey. We could call this karma, or justice, or stupidity—or all of the above.
So who can bail them out now? Here’s the climax of the sordid tale: if Biden is dropped, they are stuck with Vice President Kamala Harris, another antidemocratic choice. Harris performed terribly in the 2020 primary when she ran to be the nominee of her party. The voters rejected her, loud and clear. And yet, once Biden became party leader, he selected a running mate based on gender and diversity, not character, competence or popularity.
Thus, Biden and Harris are now locked in a political death spiral: who should lead? Both have very low approval ratings and are being propped by their party’s elites rather than by their very own voters. Astute senior Democratic analysts like James Carville are calling for an open contest of some kind to allow for a robust selection process to take place before the convention, perhaps based on a series of town halls. Evidently he has no confidence in either Biden or Harris.
Now, it is his turn to learn, like Kennedy before him, that his desires as a member of the Democratic Party are irrelevant. Carville, like so many others on the left who are now lamenting their party’s fate, are the victims of a tyrannical structure they erected and enabled.
Perhaps next time Democrats celebrate July Fourth they should focus less on food and fireworks and ponder the true meaning of what is required to be an honest citizen in a free republic.
-Grace Vuoto, Ph.D. is a political commentator and columnist. She can be heard Wednesday mornings at 9:00 am on The Kuhner Report WRKO-AM 680.
- Photo courtesy of Marie Hickman / The Image Bank Unreleased / Getty Images