And the brash, often crude, candidate had even less business tapping into the boiling discontent of the Heartland to defy polling that year to defeat the GOP establishment, the Deep State, media, and Hillary Clinton. They thought she was perfectly positioned and widely expected to inherit her husband’s Oval Office throne and become the first female commander in chief. 

So shocked was Clinton with the historic upset that she literally lost her ability to speak on Election Night. 

So shocked and enraged were her party’s puzzled politicians — and those hidden allied forces whose influence was severely threatened by the unorthodox outsider — that they’ve spent the past eight years plotting in innumerous subversive and legal ways to eliminate the Donald Trump who lives rent-free in their minds.

So far, unsuccessfully.

This historic marathon campaign has shown Americans very eager to vote. Despite an assassination attempt, Trump was coasting to a second term against a mentally baffled Joe Biden. 

Then Democrats, who’d claimed the president was sharp as a tack, simply dumped the old man as no longer politically useful, not because he was a genuine, shuffling threat to national security, which he was and is.

They dumped him because they accurately sensed losing their grip on political power, which is the most important reason for being in that moldering swamp of Washington.

Once again, without thought for the nation’s welfare or anything beyond grasping power, that party’s geriatric oligarchy, led by an even more ancient Nancy Pelosi, discarded the expressed wishes of 14 million gullible party primary voters. 

And those party old-timers installed, instead, the most marketable political persona at hand, Kamala Harris. 

She has all the attributes necessary for success in a modern U.S. political campaign that is based on sounds and appearances and nothing resembling substance.

Harris seems a fresh face, a woman of color with immigrant parents, 22 years younger than the old guy and 19 years younger than her GOP opponent. She’s a California liberal in the most extreme way possible, even donating bail money and campaigning to release rioters in other states. 

Perhaps most importantly but intentionally hidden for now, Harris’ mind is an empty vacuum. She is mentally incapable of expressing an original thought, if she had one. Which she doesn’t. Like a chameleon, she melds into whatever political surroundings she’s in.

She’s a perfect-looking receptacle to enjoy the perqs of power in exchange for saying what the oligarchy tells her to say, even more loyally than the 81-year-old senile receptacle she replaces. And she can win with Trump’s help.

In a blinding instant, this craven political maneuver bizarrely turned the incumbent political party and its female figurehead into the agents of change in an election that’s perfectly suited for that after four years of disastrous policies from that very same Biden-Harris administration.

It’s like packaging an 0-17 NFL team as the Super Bowl champions. And media buys into it.

Here, according to the White House transcript, is what Harris read from her teleprompter unveiling the specifics of her Soviet-style price-control economic initiative Friday:

We will build what I call an “opportunity economy” -- (applause) -- “an opportunity economy” -- an economy where everyone can compete and have a real chance to succeed; everyone, regardless of who they are or where they start, has an opportunity to build wealth for themselves and their children; and where we remove the barriers to opportunity so anyone who wants to start a business or advance their career can access the tools and the resources that are necessary to do so. (Applause.)

An apparently shocked Harris, who lives with servants in government housing, shared a statistic with her North Carolina audience that shocked no one who buys their own foods: 

A lo- -- a loaf of bread costs 50 percent more today than it did before the pandemic. Ground beef is up almost 50 percent.

According to Harris, everyone already knows the historically high rate of inflation during her time as Joe Biden’s vice president was caused by the pandemic. And not by flooding the country with $5 trillion in newly-printed money to cover their administration's wild spending.

“We all know that prices went up during the pandemic when the supply chains shut down and failed,” she continued reading.

If you’re confounded by this thinking and sudden turn of events, including the addition of Harris’ sidekick, fellow radical Tim Walz, imagine how it hit Donald Trump.

In that same instant, Trump lost an incompetent opponent and easy target. Now, Trump is suddenly the old guy. And the incumbent vice president, whose inactions directly encouraged the invasion of more than 10 million illegal immigrants, has somehow co-opted his vital campaign role as agent of change to thunderous media accolades.

The Trump campaign was not only set on its heels; it’s been knocked on its butt. And that’s before his likely September sentencing in a New York court.

Since Harris’ ascension, Trump has shed his handsome new persona as a serious president unfazed by distractions and reverted to the brawler from Queens. 

He’s engaging in personal attacks once again. He’s even revisiting the 2020 election, attacking a Republican governor and his wife, and disputing Harris’ crowd sizes. All of which is self-indulgent, and none of which attracts new supporters.

We’ve always assumed that presidential candidates sincerely want the job. Why go through all this otherwise?

Trump’s obvious flailing has him engaging in unnecessary fights that drown out his message and impressive first-term record, and it hands hostile media all the cartoonish caricatures it needs to extend Harris' honeymoon deeper into the closing weeks.

Trump’s more recent counterproductive behavior has caused some supporters to wonder, in fear, if he’s really in this campaign to win or just to hear his crowd cheer and to scrap with opponents because he can. 

As it happens, that question came up at the very beginning, 20 months ago.

I’m sure Trump listens to and enjoys the adoring chants of rally crowds. Who wouldn’t? Their picture should be in the dictionary, illustrating the definition of “Loyal.” 

His fervent supporters crop up online to denounce any criticism, even if it’s constructive and comes from supporters who not only oppose but fear a Kamala Harris presidency. 

Nikki Haley, who enthusiastically endorsed Trump at the convention, has been denounced for suggesting the former president needs to reach out beyond his base, which is large but not large enough to win.

Now, even a staunch Trump advocate like Vivek Ramaswamy wants a campaign reset. He says he’s talked with a receptive Trump several times, urging a sharpened focus on his policy differences with the low-wattage, radical Democrat ticket.

One possibility is highlighting Harris’ first decision as a would-be chief executive. That was selecting as ticket partner Gov. Walz, an extreme climate advocate who raised state taxes, wants free health care for illegals, stole some valor, and facilitated violent rioting by not summoning the National Guard for days. 

Harris could have gone with a moderate partner to broaden her appeal and tie a key tate. But he was a Jew. Think about that.

In a private memo, veteran GOP strategist Alex Castellanos suggests focusing during this week’s Democrat convention in Chicago on “the eliminate-ICE Kamala, the defund-the-police Kamala, and the bail-out-violent-arsonists Kamala, whose weakness on crime has turned going for a jog into running for your life.”

Candidate Trump has expressed dissatisfaction with his own campaign. If past behavior is an indication, he’ll likely fire people, as on his "Apprentice" TV show. But Trump likely won’t change himself.

So far, Trump’s circle has publicly rejected outside advice suggesting sharper focus on real issues like the border and economy.

His VP partner, JD Vance, offered this familiar excuse:

We’d much rather have an American president who is who he is, who's willing to offend us, who's willing to tell us the truth, who isn't a fake.

That supports Trump and sounds principled. But the former president needs to tell the truth about things that matter to voters, not just himself. It’s not too late to regain his position in the campaign — and in the White House. 

Trump can be Trump, just smarter than the angry one. Otherwise, despite our wishes and by his own choice, he will remain a former president.