LOS ANGELES.–When 59-yer-old Vice President Kamala Harris was speaking to a crowd in Michigan last week, President Joe Biden decided to banter with the press in the White House, prompting the media to divert programming away from Kamala. But Biden made bizarre statements showing that there’s a lingering undercurrent with Joe over his July 21 decision to drop out of the race. For nearly a month since the June 27 CNN debate, Joe vehemently said he would not leave the race under any circumstances other that if “God Almighty” told him to get out. Yet less than a month later Democrat Party bosses, led by 84-year-old former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and 63-year-old former President Barack Obama, convinced Joe to pass the baton to his Vice President Kamala Harris. Former President Donald Trump, 78, said there’s lingering bad blood between Biden and Harris over the pressure he received to bow out of the 2024 presidential race.
Trump told an enthusiastic crowd in Juno, Wisconsis that he’d like a “mandate” coming off the Nov. 5 election, giving him the public’s blessings to go after illegal aliens at the porous U.S. border and implement his anti-inflationary economic policies, not to mention his dramatic change in U.S. foreign policy to end the Ukraine War. Trump asked Wisconsin voters to turn out in “record numbers,” what he called “too big to rig,” hoping that the same election issues wouldn’t arise in 2024 like he thinks they did in 2020. How ironic that Special Counsel Jack Smith bases all his Jan. 6 Capitol charges against Trump because he believes Trump lied to the public about thinking he won the election. Smith thinks, without any facts, that Trump knew he lost the 2020 and lied to the public. Whatever happened it 2020, Trump would like a decisive result or “mandate” on Election Day.
Trump and Harris both want a “mandate” but know that whatever the Nov. 5 margin, neither candidate will have a convincing victory, even if it’s in the popular vote or Electoral College totals. Electoral College votes are the only ones that count in U.S. presidential elections for good reasons. Founding fathers didn’t want presidential elections dominated by prevailing parties in population centers in the East and West coasts. West Coast were hardly a factor back when the Founding Fathers signed the Constitution in 1987. But it’s certainly a factor now with California containing 10% of the U.S. population. “But we need a mandate in the vote, and we’re going to get it,” Trump said. Judging by current polls, the election should go like the last one with Democrats winning the popular vote.
Democrats hope to hold onto their one vote majority in the U.S. Senate where Republicans look poised to pick up at least two seats, giving them a narrow majority. When it comes to the House, the same can be said with the GOP holding onto a slim majority like they have today. Trump is a far better position that he was in 2020 when polls showed Biden with significant majorities in battleground states one month out from the election. Whether Trump thinks voter fraud made the difference in 2020 is anyone’s guess. He’s certainly been consistent speaking publicly that he thought the election was rigged with rampant unverified mail-in ballots. But looking at the politics of 2020, there was plenty going on with Covid-19 to torpedo Trump’s reelection bid. Voters were scared out of their minds watching their families and friend sickened and die from Covid-19.
Trump’s prospect are far better in 2024 than they were in 2020, primarily because Covid is not longer dominating the headlines. No one should forget how Dr. 83-year-old Anthony Fauci and 81-year-old Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward blamed Trump for the Covid-19 crisis. Democrats main argument against Trump is that he’s a convicted felon for arcane financial crimes that normally get prosecuted as misdemeanors. Democrats insist that Trump planned and orchestrated the Jan. 6 Capitol riots but have no facts to back it up. Special Counsel Jack Smith has built his case against Trump using mind-reading, saying Trump didn’t really believe he won the 2020 election. Trump has never shown in any circles that he didn’t believe the 2020 was rigged. Polls in key battleground states in 2020 showed Biden with a 5-10% lead, showing today a dead heat.
Whatever happens on Nov. 5, it’s doubtful either Trump or Kamala will get a “mandate” with the country closely divided. But the U.S. can’t take any more years of runaway inflation and foreign wars plaguing the U.S. Treasury with federal budget deficits and the national debt at record levels. Kamala has big spending plans, the same kind that fueled today’s inflation leaving ordinary Americans strapped. Biden and Harris never talk about the Russian oil embargo as one of the biggest drivers of inflation in the U.S. and overseas. Once Biden committed to proxy war against the Kremlin, he ended decades of diplomacy, détente and arms control that dominated U.S. foreign policy since WW II. Biden was the first and only U.S. president to go to war against the Kremlin under the false premise that 71-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to take over Europe. Trump promises to end the Ukraine War.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
