For months, many have questioned whether former Vice President Joe Biden really wanted to be president. Some argued he wanted to be in play as a candidate to shield himself and his son from scrutiny regarding Ukraine. Judging by how poorly he performed from November until last weekend, that conspiracy theory seemed to hold some weight. But now he appears to be all-in and the DNC is fully behind him. Did something change?
Actually, yes. Three things have changed over the last couple of weeks that forced everyone watching this nomination race to adjust our calculus. The first thing that happened was billionaire Mike Bloomberg bombed. It wasn’t just his abysmal debate performances, unearthed videos of past indiscretions, or Senator Elizabeth Warren turning into his worst nightmare. It was a realization by powerful Democrats that putting him up against President Trump is the same mistake the GOP made when they put Mitt Romney up against President Obama. The biggest weakness of President Obama was Obamacare, so the worst candidate to hit him was the architect of Romneycare. President Trump’s biggest weakness (other than the fake news media) is he’s a rich New Yorker who rubs certain people the wrong way. Bloomberg is richer, more New Yorkish, and rubs people worse because his personality is so elitist.
The second thing that changed was South Carolina. Biden’s huge win didn’t just rejuvenate his campaign. It seemed to rejuvenate him as well. He’s been campaigning like a lost puppy for months, one who growls feebly all the time but had no real bite to him. That changed with the South Carolina primary. Now, for the first time in months, he’s acting like he actually wants to be President of the United States.
When the Democratic Establishment in the DNC and beyond saw his big win and realized he was their only hope of defeating Senator Bernie Sanders for the nomination, they went into overdrive. Powerful Democrats called on other powerful Democrats to call on everyone they knew to back Biden. They applied pressure to Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar to get out of the race. They probably even pressured Senator Elizabeth Warren to stay in the race so she could pull from voters from the far-left lane who would likely switch support to Sanders when Warren bows out.
What does all of this have to do with Beto O’Rourke? The former Congressman has failed in his last two elections, but he’s still fairly popular in Texas. Biden needs Texas to go his way today. Without it, this race may be over.
The fact that Biden, who has been relatively moderate when it comes to gun control (at least compared to Sanders, Bloomberg, and especially O’Rourke), gave a full-throated verbal embrace of man who wants to take away all AR-15s and AK-47s in America, just as a starting point.
As The Blaze reported:
After O’Rourke’s speech, Biden told his audience, “I want to make something clear: I’m gonna guarantee you, this is not the last you’ve seen of this guy.”
Then, addressing O’Rourke, Biden declared, “You’re gonna take care of the gun problem with me. You’re gonna be the one that leads this effort. I’m counting on ya. I’m counting on ya. We need you badly—the state needs you, the country needs you, you’re the best.”
That may all sound like standard primary pandering to a fellow partisan, the type of rhetoric we’ve grown accustomed to hearing every four years or so. And that’s a problem. Biden’s sudden willingness to pander so hard for votes means he is, for the first time since announcing is candidacy, as all-in for his campaign as his campaign is. On the surface and for any other current candidate, this wouldn’t be an issue. But for Biden, it’s a huge one.
This is where we get a bit controversial. I’m neither a neurologist nor a psychologist, but in my amateur opinion, Biden would be a figurehead president at best. He simply no longer has the mental capacity to do anything other than fake it, and he doesn’t do a very good job at that. Unfortunately, he has set up the nation to dismiss at least some of his lapses in cognitive ability because of his history with stuttering. That excuse has been coming up more and more lately because he’s saying stranger and stranger things. But even when he’s not stuttering, he’s still saying strange things that demonstrate a lack of mental stamina.
If he’s falling apart on the campaign trail, the stress of being President of the United States going into his 80s is utterly terrifying. To get there, he’s pandering to people like Beto O’Rourke. That means if, by some very foul spirit, he gets the nomination and defeats President Trump, then people like Beto O’Rourke will be running the executive branch from their little fiefdoms.
This is, of course, how the White House is supposed to run to some extent. Nobody expects a president to do everything. Otherwise, they’d all be like President Carter. But the president needs to have the final word on important issues and I sincerely doubt Biden is capable of handling it all. In other words, all of these favors he’s promising in exchange for endorsements will end up putting the wrong people in the wrong places in the White House. These people will have more control than under a normal presidency. The results of an executive branch run almost entirely by cabinet members and department heads will be a complete and total mess.
Joe Biden is writing out an awfully long favors list. That should scare people considering where he stands mentally. If he somehow wins the presidency, people like Beto O’Rourke will get their wishes, and that should terrify us all.
