Biden’s announcement that he’s going to run for a second term was really Kamala’s campaign.
The ancient politico, who was born a little over a year after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, would be 86 years old at the end of a hypothetical second term. It’s unlikely that Biden, who already seems confused during press conferences, has trouble walking up the stairs and spends much of his time away from the White House would be able to function throughout a second term.
“With regard to age, I can’t even say – I guess, how old I am – I can’t even say the number. It doesn’t register with me,” Biden recently blathered.
It registers with everyone else.
Before his campaign launch, Biden had the opportunity to pick a viable vice presidential candidate who might be ready to step into the job. Instead he doubled down on Kamala.
With approval ratings in the 30s, Kamala is even more unpopular than her boss. And that’s why he picked her. Biden may be failing but he cannily understood that his best defense against a 25th amendment scenario was a completely unacceptable vice president. Despite the expectations of many Republicans, Biden intends to cling to the office as long as possible.
But what happens when he can’t anymore?
Kamala isn’t just a face on the ticket the way that most vice presidential candidates are, she’s the presidential candidate. A second term for Biden is really a first term for Kamala.
That’s a problem not just for Republicans or Democrats, but for Americans.
Sent off to wave the bloody shirt on abortion, Kamala claimed that abortion pills had been legalized by the “federal drug administration”: a wholly imaginary agency. Prepping for a second term, she still doesn’t know what the FDA stands for or much of anything else about her job.
This is how all of Kamala’s public-facing appearances go.
The White House sends her out to take ownership of a core issue, immigration, international relations or abortion, she botches it with an unserious presentation and verbal flubs, and then her defenders blame racism and sexism.
Right on cue, Ron Klain, Biden’s ex-chief of staff, popped up to claim that “sexism and racism are part of the problem”.
They are, but not the way Klain meant. When Kamala wasted $36 million and dropped out without ever going through a single primary, she blamed racism and sexism.
“Is America ready for that? Are they ready for a woman of color to be President of the United States?” she demanded.
America may be ready, but Kamala isn’t. After a primary campaign in which she only gained traction by accusing her future boss of racism, she spent the election accusing Trump of racism and then spent her time in office accusing America of racism while her defenders blamed racism for her unpopularity. That’s not an original gimmick, but Kamala’s identity politics is defensive, not offensive. And that’s why not even the biggest wokes take her posturing seriously.
The most oppressed woman in America is running for president on the “poor me” platform.
All the whining about racism and sexism is pure deflection with nothing behind it. Kamala isn’t Obama. She’s not an activist and doesn’t have a vision. She’s a sorority girl and socialite from a wealthy family who’s well-connected, but not particularly bright and everyone in politics knows it. The only reason she got this far was California’s incestuous tangle of corrupt networks and identity politics which took her from being the girlfriend of one of the most crooked figures in San Francisco politics to being a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Along the way, Kamala has failed at every pre-presidential task, from running for office (her campaign dissolved into infighting between her sister and her staff before collapsing), running her vice presidential office (most of her key staffers have fled the sinking ship) and making her boss look good (she’s consistently had worse approval ratings making her a drag on the ticket.)
Despite constantly playing identity politics by reminding everyone that she’s sorta black, sorta Indian and probably a woman (assuming we can still define what that is), none of those groups like her. Biden performs better with black voters than Kamala does. That’s why he got the nomination and she didn’t. Despite Biden’s habit of sniffing and groping women, and accusations of sexual assault by a former Senate staffer, she performs only a little better with women than he does. Kamala still doesn’t have a base or anyone who really likes her.
Biden administration staffers spent years running her down anonymously to the media. Now they face the horrifying prospect that she might end up being their boss. That’s a problem she could have fixed. Hillary Clinton, who intended to be Obama’s successor, managed to build a relationship that took her to the nomination despite being a venomous and unlikable harridan. Kamala couldn’t manage to do it because she’s fundamentally inept at every basic political task.
All of this is fine for her current role as Biden’s human shield against the 25th Amendment. Like some medieval European monarchs, Biden has deliberately made such a hash of his succession that his staffers and the entire party will be forced to prop him up to avoid the horrifying disaster of a Kamala presidency. But does Biden envision having his presidency function like Feinstein or Fetterman’s hospitalizations? The Senate has allowed disabled Democrats to play this game, but the Constitution bars such presidential shenanigans.
And the commander in chief role is too important to be conducted from a hospital ward.
Biden’s decision to stick with Kamala is on par with the self-serving cynicism that governs all of his actions carried out for the sole goal of staying in power, but it’s spectacularly destructive in an non-ideological way. Biden has been slipping for a while and instead of gracefully stepping down, he’s clinging to power using every dirty trick only to hand that power over to someone he knows is unfit to serve because he chose her for that reason and kept her for that reason.
If Biden manages to get into office and survive a second term, Kamala’s career will be over. Her only shot will be for her boss to step down. Once a second term ends, there will be a long line of successors, beginning with Gov. Gavin Newsom and she won’t even have a shot at the job. The relationship between Kamala and the rest of the White House is bad now, imagine it in Year 6.
But what will she do if the most oppressed woman in the country becomes the most powerful?
The trouble with Kamala is her hollowness. And, unlike Biden, that hollowness isn’t just ideological, it extends throughout her entire being. Never has there been anyone this close to the presidency with no apparent skills, agenda or any purpose beyond checking boxes.
Given total power, Kamala will still botch everything, and then blame sexism and racism. But for the first time, her actions will have real consequences. And we may all end up paying the price.
{Reposted from FrontPageMagazine}
