When President Joe Biden was beating Donald Trump in public opinion polls, leading Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, House Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, were saying ad nauseam that Biden was in top form, alert, engaged, on the ball and clear-sighted.

Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, when asked about the president’s mental acuity, said, “He is as sharp as ever as I have known him to be in any engagement, in my experience with him. And I know when I walk into the Oval Office or see him on Air Force One, I have to be on top of my game.”

The “party line” throughout the 2024 primary season: Biden’s in tip-top shape. And any public figure who dared to disagree was demonized as a purveyor of disinformation.

Even though most Americans suspected that Biden’s mental acuity was declining, Democrats did not mind denying it was true so long as they thought Biden could win.

However, when battle ground state polls started trending towards Trump after Biden’s awful debate performance on June 28, the Democratic establishment turned on the president.

Throughout July, the pressure began to build on Biden to withdraw even though 14 million Democrats voted for him in the primaries and 99% of the delegates to the Democratic Convention were pledged to him.

When Biden wouldn’t budge and said only the “Almighty” could get him out of the race, the Democrats’ secular “Almighty,” Barack Obama, decided to save the nation from Joe Biden.

Obama’s behind-the-scenes coup succeeded. In an Oval Office speech on Sunday, July 24, Biden told the American people he was withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race.

While not giving a reason for dropping out, Biden said he was passing the torch to a new generation to save democracy and reminded listeners we were a republic not a monarchy.

Afterwards, Biden stuck it to Obama and his coup collaborators by endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed him.

Harris was not the first choice of Democratic Party power brokers. They considered her a lightweight whose low 30s approval ratings were worse than Biden’s.

Throughout her term in office, Harris struggled in news interviews. Unable to talk substantively about major issues, she tangled up words, spoke in non sequiturs and tautologies, and in awkward moments, would burst out laughing no matter what the topic.

Thanks to Biden, however, there was a sudden rush of support for Harris and the skeptical Democratic Establishment had no choice but to jump on her bandwagon.

Harris is the nominee although she never received one vote from the party’s rank-and-file. (So much for the democratic process Biden lauded.)

Harris has been crowned—just like unelected potentates in despotic regimes. (Maybe Biden was wrong about the U.S.A. not having monarchs.)

Choosing Harris without a competitive process, New York Times columnist Bret Stevens has pointed out, “is a recipe for disaster.”

“The whole point of a competitive process,” Stevens noted, “is to discover unsuspected strengths and to test for hidden weaknesses, which is how Harris flamed out as a candidate the last time before ever reaching the Iowa caucus. If there’s evidence that she’s a better candidate now than she was then, she should be given the chance to prove it.”

Despite media adulation and well-scripted campaign appearances, there remains a laundry list of Harris’s weaknesses. Stevens sums them up thusly: she’s unpopular; she’s been a bad campaigner; she’s been a bad manager; she has a penchant for excruciating banality; she’s a blue-state Democrat who needs to win purple states; she’s anchored to Joe Biden’s record; and her career smacks of connections and favoritism.

I couldn’t say it better myself.

All of this is good news for Republicans. But Trump being Trump can blow it if he bases his campaign on name-calling and not on the issues that matter most to Americans: inflation, high cost of living, crime, border safety, and federal budget deficits.