European observers should not be deceived by the window-rattling ululations of joy emitted by the formidable and disciplined Democratic Party machine and its hallelujah chorus in the American national political media.
Once former president Obama, former speaker Pelosi and others had threatened President Biden with recourse to the 25th constitutional amendment which enables presidents to be removed for mental incompetence, and he then, as his wife explained to the Democratic convention on Monday, “looked deep into his soul” and decided not to seek re-election after all, the jubilation of his party at not having to try to carry this decrepit and scandal-ridden political corpse across the finish line with all of the baggage of ten million illegal immigrants, skyrocketing crime rates, the Green Terror, unfeasible inflation, and an incoherent foreign policy, was such that it pulled out all the stops in fabricating an instant partisan come-back.
Almost all the national polls in the United States, except Trafalgar and Rasmussen, are conducted by left-wing media outlets and universities, and they always underestimate Trump, as a measure of policy as well as a reflection of the skewed echelon of voters that they consult. This week CBS News reported Harris leading nationally by three per cent, while Rasmussen reported Trump leading by four per cent. The Rasmussen number is much more likely, not only on the track records of the two polling organizations but because Trump is such an outsider that the American left-of-centre federal political establishment has never been able to figure out the source and strength of his appeal.
It is also more likely to be accurate because the same polls uniformly show Trump ahead in the main policy areas of the economy, immigration, crime, and general competence. Trump only left office four years ago and all polls continue to show that the majority of Americans considered that they were better off then they are now.
Apart from that, Trump can always win with a minority of the popular vote because the Democrats win California and New York by four million votes more than the Republicans win, comfortably enough, in Texas, Florida, and Tennessee, which have slightly more electoral votes than California and New York. The impact of this is that even if Trump loses by three per cent of the popular vote, he will narrowly win the other 45 states and breakeven in the electoral college from the five states mentioned.
Six weeks ago, Kamala Harris was the least-respected vice president since J. Danforth Quayle 20 years ago, and anyone prior to that since polls were taken. She was responsible for the Southern border which has been an unmitigated disaster and which responsibilities she now denies she had, though her confirmation of authority for that border has been recorded on news film both with her and with the president, whom she served on many occasions.
She is as subject to malapropisms and wandering, syntactically-faulty sentences as Biden, without the excuse of being an octogenarian. Her entire public career is speckled with far-left posturing from defending smash-and-grab burglaries on the great boulevards of Los Angeles and San Francisco to panhandling for the defendants in the nationwide riots four years ago to pro-Hamas demonstrators occupying university campuses in the last few months.
She has chosen an extreme-Left vice presidential candidate, who as governor of Minnesota cheerfully allowed Minneapolis to burn after the death of George Floyd four years ago, and who has lied for 20 years about his rank and service in the military frequently, referring to his combat experience in Afghanistan, a country he has, in fact never been in, and who dismisses the influx of many millions of illegal vagrants across the Southern border by saying that, if the wall is completed, it will still be swarmed by millions more desperate people carrying 30-foot step ladders.
Once the campaign begins in earnest next week, the Republicans will unfurl the banners of illegal immigration, reduced taxes, stimulus to economic growth, a clear definition of the country’s national interest and an unmistakable defence commitment with allies to maintain those interests. The obsessive preoccupation with carbon use will be relaxed. The Democratic practice of allowing harvested ballots to be collected in large numbers and voted without verification or scrutinization, which is what won in the last election, will be ended, and to prevent a repetition of this, Trump has engaged 100,000 special campaign workers this year for a resurrection of a voting and vote-counting system of unquestioned integrity.
Trump has been caught to some extent between those who travel hours to see him speak at huge rallies around the country, and like him to speak in a humorous way for 90 minutes or more, and the larger numbers watching on television who would prefer that he summarize the issues and did not at this point over-focus on his undoubted comedic and forensic talents.
The Democrats will not be able to keep Harris away from the press and focused entirely on reading a teleprompter for two months, and while she is an attractive woman, and at times a charming, public personality, she is an incurable lightweight, who is incapable of discussing any substantial issue, let alone debating them with a battle-hardened, political campaigner like Trump. He is now only the sixth president to have been nominated by a major party three times for president and has been the most energetic presidential campaigner since Harry S. Truman in 1948.
Even the questionable polls that are floating around now indicate that Trump would win narrowly if an election were held this week. Twelve weeks from now, he should still win safely — the country cannot re-elect the co-captain of the Titanic, especially when she can’t be trusted to speak a single sentence spontaneously. Europeans terrorized by the thought of the return of Trump should in fact rejoice that it is likely, and overcome the customary European affection for weak American leaders other than when they have to have strong leaders to defend Europe. This is something that Europe should outgrow; all of us in the West can stand with some leadership, and America is going to get some.
Zelensky drags America into war, or Zelensky loses