“If you don’t believe in what you’re doing, you’re not going to last very long at it.”
I usually remember the names and faces behind little sayings and pearls of wisdom I’ve accumulated over the years, but the original source for this one eludes me. Maybe it’s because the meaning is just basic common sense; everyone knows if your heart isn’t into whatever you’re undertaking at the moment, the chances of success aren’t very high. Just imagine legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady heading into his next season without a full commitment… it could even result in retirement! And maybe even un-retirement…
At any rate, Democrats under the “leadership” of president senile Joe Biden are realizing that their prospects for retaining the presidency for another term after the 2024 election look pretty bleak. Biden himself achieved another record low (for him, at least) approval rating last week and members of his own party whisper that they’re fed up with his flat-footed responses to the myriad of crises raging all around him. No baby formula? Eight-plus percent inflation? Record gasoline prices? Record murders in America’s cities? Really, Joe?
Plus, Biden’s White House staff is leaving in droves. Veterans of previous administrations observe that there is a notable lack of joy across the White House complex. My question in this regard is, why would anyone expect to be “joyful” in Joe’s house when the main occupant grits his teeth and cusses all the time? Democrats searching for an easy and basic operational resolution to their increasingly hopeless political situation will be sorely disappointed. It’s not like changing a tire or replacing a battery in a malfunctioning home device, is it?
In a piece titled, “Democrats’ 2024 Dilemma”, Longtime liberal TV political analyst Jeff Greenfield wrote at Politico:
“What happens if the Democratic Party — through whatever ‘leaders’ it has or even through a competitive primary — effectively states: ‘After 60 years of elevating a sitting vice president, we have decided to break precedent now that the vice president is a Black woman.’
“If Democrats do not appreciate the possible impact of that repudiation, they have only to look all the way back to… 2016. The marginally lower turnout among Black voters in Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee — attributable to a relative lack of enthusiasm compared to the times when Obama was on the ticket — was a key reason why Hillary Clinton lost those three traditionally blue states, and with them the presidency. Whatever difficulties Democrats will face in 2024, even a modestly disenchanted Black electorate would surely doom the ticket.
“To offer the compulsory disclaimer: none of this is set in stone. Biden’s vitality may get a boost if the national mood brightens, or new evidence makes the danger of a Trump second term compelling. If her prospects seem dim enough, Harris could simply choose not to run — though recent polling, likely a measure of name identification, suggests she’s the front-runner for the nomination if Biden bows out.”
Yes, all those things could happen, and leprechauns and unicorns might suddenly fly out of undiscovered orifices and appear to carry the Democrats back into power, too.
Democrats got themselves into this mess by not engaging in forward thinking during the lead-up to the 2020 party primaries. The leadership at all levels was so singularly determined to displace Donald Trump that they neglected to seriously consider what would happen once The Donald -- who was a pretty darn successful president from a policy and implementation standpoint -- was switched for one of the twenty (or more) rabid ideologues who competed for the 2020 Democrat nomination.
Remember Marianne Williamson? How about “Howdy Doody” Tom Steyer (who dumped $191 million into campaign ads but didn’t win a single delegate)?
The rest is history. When committed socialist Bernie Sanders drew ahead in the early stages of the actual voting, the Democrat establishment panicked. Someone, somewhere, decided that Joe Biden was the only candidate who had a chance against what seemed to be an extremely strong pre-COVID Trump reelection effort. They had to have known Obama’s veep was a gaffe making idiot who wasn’t that bright to begin with, but his decades in the swamp and detachment from the real world had turned the man into a walking/talking disaster.
There’s no easy solution to the quandary that confronts the Democrats in 2024. If only it were as simple as changing a power source in the midst of a household mini-crisis.
A brief personal challenge may illustrate: The smoke detectors/fire alarms went off recently in a house we took possession of a couple years ago. In our previous abode, a failing single detector would beep obnoxiously every five minutes or so as if to say, “I’m here, my battery is low and if you don’t get me a new one, I’m going to keep you up for hours beeping as though it was Chinese water torture.” To make matters worse, these units that were installed twenty or so years earlier when the house was built took 9-volt batteries, not exactly something one normally stocks during regular visits to Costco or Home Depot.
In other words, we were periodically stuck in the middle of the night with the random beeping warning and sometimes without the means to deal with the sleep-depriving predicament. There wasn’t always a voice in our heads saying, “Don’t forget to check and see if we have any 9-volt battery replacements.” You live and you learn. In our new surroundings, however, all the detectors went off at once and a mechanical voice kept repeating “Fire! Fire!” until the minute or so passed and waited until someone addressed the problem. Since the entire house triggered simultaneously, it wasn’t clear at the outset which detector was the needy one. A household member then noticed that two little red lights were blinking on one detector in the basement and investigated further. Sure enough, the red blinker was the perpetrator, and these newer vintage alarms accepted AA batteries, of which we had plenty in reserve.
The moral of this anecdote? Think of the current Biden White House as the “old” smoke detectors with the inherent design flaw of only accepting the somewhat rarely purchased 9-volt batteries. When a problem arose with them, the “fix” wasn’t always readily apparent and sometimes not even available until making a time-consuming store run to squelch one squeaky wheel (so to speak).
Democrats face this issue in the upcoming 2024 nominating cycle. They have a broken-down party leader who did manage to get elected and technically still functions, but it’s not like installing a new battery in Biden’s deteriorating cognitive situation will definitively solve their long-term deficiency and desire for credible leadership.
Yes, Biden’s “battery” could conceivably last another four years, but it won’t help his fellow Democrats, because the whole internal system is flawed. Some other “battery” in Biden’s orbit would just run out of juice and then the beeping starts again -- and you’re clean out of 9-volts. After a while, you just want to sell the proverbial house and get one with a better set-up, right?
This may be an extreme example, but Democrats can’t be guaranteed that anyone they anoint to succeed senile Joe after he’s haphazardly kicked to the side will be an improvement over his shaky decision-making. Their entire membership is flawed, not just the individual unit. Here, the “system” is the leftist, socialist Democrat agenda and it’s “woke” companion, the indefensible liberal cultural priorities, neither of which enjoy broad public support.
Continuing the analogy, all Democrats beep without warning and all of them require a 9-volt replacement. Some maintain quiet longer than others, but they’re all running on borrowed time.
In his piece, Greenfield seems particularly concerned about Biden’s age, once again pointing out, as many others have, that on day one of his tenure senile Joe was older than any chief executive had ever been. The commentator also touched on the unique and unceasing demands that the presidency has for its unique fraternity members, which is no small consideration for Democrats in their current position.
Fewer and fewer Democrats believe in what they’re doing these days. They aren’t lasting long, either.
Greenfield pointed out that Democrats tend to anoint their vice presidents as the next-in-line, and if the string is broken under Biden, it could and likely would result in disastrous consequences for the party. Will identity-politics adhering black Democrats come out in force to vote for a nominee like Pete Buttigieg or Gretchen Whitmer when one of their own, an African-American woman, was passed over for a lower profile ultra-liberal hack?
Perhaps Democrats should’ve tucked away their get-Trump-at-all-costs fever in 2020 and done a more thorough job of vetting their presidential candidate rather than allowing him to dwell in his basement while the world raged on the outside.
Keeping everyone happy will be a supreme task in 2024 for Democrats. Biden himself is having trouble convincing people that he’s actually in charge and that he’s working on the issues of the day. The party is almost certain to receive a well-merited drubbing in November. There will be a virtual parade of staff changeovers within the administration; and any hope of passing “big” issue packages will evaporate once Republicans take over.
It definitely won’t be as simple as changing the AA batteries in a smoke detector. Democrats had better believe it.
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