Biden preps for a rematch with the GOP’s might-be candidate
The New York Times informs readers that Team Biden is already assuming “Scranton Joe” Biden will face a rematch with Don “The Con” Trump. Cue the “Rocky” training music:
The sharpened focus on Mr. Trump isn’t happening only behind the scenes. Facing waves of polls showing soft support for his re-election among Democrats, Mr. Biden and his advisers signaled this week that they were beginning to turn their full attention to his old rival, seeking to re-energize the party’s base and activate donors ahead of what is expected to be a long and grueling sequel.
Team Biden wants to nudge Democrats past their handwringing phase, David Axelrod says, “into a shared sense of mission.” Because “We can’t live like this!” as Adrian told Rocky on the beach.
“Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy,” the president said. “And I will always defend, protect and fight for our democracy. That’s why I’m running.”
Mr. Biden is planning to follow up those off-camera remarks with what he has billed as a “major speech” about democracy. The White House said the speech, in the Phoenix area the day after the next Republican debate, would be about “honoring the legacy of Senator John McCain and the work we must do together to strengthen our democracy.”
Real real America (not the proto-fascist movement backing Trump) gets that democracy is at stake, not anodyne kitchen table issues. Former GOP strategist Rick Wilson gets that democracy and liberty are at stake. “[A]lmost 600 retired Generals, Admirals, Ambassadors, cabinet and service secretaries, appointed leaders, elected officials, and Senior Executive Service leaders” understand that “Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy.” Voters knew it in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Those are the only polls that matter and will again in 2024.
What’s in question is whether Trump actually will be on the ballot next year. Even his critics are waffling on the 14th Amendment:
A little more than a month ago, a law professor who helped found the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, enthusiastically endorsed a new law review article arguing that Donald J. Trump was ineligible to be president.
Citing a Wall Street Journal opinion article by Michael B. Mukasey, Steven G. Calabresi has since had a change of heart.
I won’t bother you with Mukasey’s position on the 14th Amendment. Akhil Reed Amar, a law professor at Yale, on his podcast called it “a genuinely stupid argument.”
Adam Liptak of the Times:
Professor Calabresi is, of course, entitled to change his mind. As Justice Felix Frankfurter put it in a 1949 dissent, “Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.”
In an interview on Saturday, Professor Calabresi said his revised position was the product of study and reflection.
“I carefully reread the materials on whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment applies to Trump,” he said, “and concluded that it most likely does not.”
He added that politics had not figured in his thinking. “I will support,” he said, “any Republican or Joe Biden over Trump in the 2024 election.”
Or perhaps Calabresi woke up with a horse head in his bed.
For now, Team Biden is training as if Trump will somehow manage to appear atop the GOP’s ticket in all 50 states. Best not to underestimate that slippery character.