Trump v. Biden: Not the Candidates We Deserve - but Maybe the Ones We Need?

As always, the standard disclaimer: It's early. Not one primary vote has yet been cast. It's ten months until the 2024 election, and that's an eternity in politics. But let's acknowledge the state of the primary polls at the moment, and assume, for the sake of argument, that the 2024 Presidential election will be a rematch of 2020, with former President Donald Trump in the gold trunks in one corner, and current President Joe Biden in the Depends in the other. Not the candidates we deserved. But maybe the candidates we needed.

What might that look like?

Less than three weeks from now, after Iowa’s January 15 caucuses and New Hampshire’s January 23 primary, don’t be surprised if all significant challengers to Trump and Biden throw in the towel.
Why is this happening? Maybe it’s because Biden and Trump really are the candidates we’ve wanted all along.
Much poll data in the past year has suggested majorities of voters did not want Biden and Trump to run again, were not enthusiastic about their campaigns, and would not be satisfied if they were the nominees. But a poll from USAToday and Suffolk University, sampled in the last week of December, adds some essential nuance.

Nuance, you say?

The pollster asked Republicans how enthusiastic they are about Trump as their nominee, “on a scale of one to 10,” and the same of Democrats about Biden.
As expected, Trump got far more 10s than Biden, 44 percent to 18 percent. But the average response for both was similar: 7.2 for Trump, 6.3 for Biden.
That’s because the Democratic feeling towards Biden is not especially unenthusiastic. In fact, Trump had a few more 1s compared to Biden, 16 percent to 10 percent.

Why is this the case? Well, partly that the lawfare being waged against Donald Trump is backfiring; his poll numbers seem to rise with each new indictment.

Another part of it is that people are becoming nostalgic for the pre-COVID-19 Trump years when gas and groceries were affordable and inflation was under control. And part of it, yes, is because the fringes of the Democratic Party are acting like some kind of weird political magnet, dragging the whole party to the left, and in so doing alienating a big part of their former coalition. They are alienating voters like the Rust Belt folks, for example, people my father used to describe as Truman Democrats (he was one himself). Most of these folks aren’t interested in Medicare-For-All (in fact, quite a few of them have generous, union-negotiated health plans), and they sure as hell don’t want to hear a lot of finger-wagging over the carbon footprint of their pickups and SUVs. They do like cheaper gas and groceries, decent schools for their kids, and some semblance of control of our borders, and on this, the Biden people have failed them catastrophically.

The Democrats are in danger of becoming a regional party, catering to coastal elites and government dependents in the major cities. That’s not a winning strategy. And the great irony is that they are being driven to this by Donald J. Trump, who by all standards is a Truman Democrat on many issues and who was in fact a Democrat for most of his adult life.

One takes his ironic humor where one finds it, no?

But the real problem with the Biden White House is that the supposed president just isn't there, mentally or physically. It's a Weekend At Bernie's presidency, with the incumbent increasingly befuddled, confused, and let's be honest about it, incompetent.

The Trump campaign - or indeed, any GOP candidate, should Trump not end up being the guy - needs to offer something, though, instead of just slamming the Dems. Owning the libs is fun, but you have to be the alternative, not just the attack dog.

What should that alternative be? Liberty, of course. Promise deregulation. Promise lower tax rates. Promise smaller government. Promise that people will be able to keep more of what they earn. Promise to make it harder for looters and moochers to coast in neutral. Get control of the border. And, while you’re at it, talk about bringing order back to our major cities, and maybe eliminating some extra-constitutional Imperial agencies - I could provide a list if that would help.

Then deliver. Talk is cheap. Action is priceless.

But back to the initial point. Should the 2024 election shape up this way, and I'm still skeptical in the extreme that Joe Biden will be the ultimate nominee, it may well be exactly representative of the state of American politics: Bitter, angry, divisive, and partisan to a fault. Not the campaign we deserve, but the one we need, the campaign that might just prompt Americans to start demanding more than rhetoric from their elected employees.

If these two end up facing each other, expect a campaign that will be fought to the bitter end, and beyond. Because, in politics, one either dies a hero or lives long enough to see themselves become the villain. We just don't know yet what will happen.