Pandemic of Convenience?

Every likely Democratic voter in the United States who is even remotely aware of current events knows that Joe Biden is absolutely not up to the rigors of a conventional presidential campaign, either mentally or physically, and furthermore that he can no longer even be dragged uneventfully through an ordinary televised debate by the friendliest moderators, regardless of which sentient being the Republican Party puts up against him on that stage.

It therefore almost goes without saying that those remotely aware Democratic voters — not to mention the fully engaged party operatives — are acutely aware right now that there are only three plausible ways for a Democrat to win the White House in 2024: 

1. Biden is replaced by a more physically and mentally capable Democratic candidate. (The second half of that requirement disqualifies Kamala Harris as a viable alternative.)
2. Donald Trump, draped with dozens of criminal charges, and likely at least a few serious convictions, is the Republican candidate, so that the Democrats can run an “Anything but Trump” campaign in an attempt to avert the Biden problem altogether.
3. The presidential election, which as everyone knows cannot be won by Joe Biden on conventional terms, is somehow turned unconventional, and specifically in a way that circumvents Biden’s peculiar liabilities, namely his mental and physical deficiency in the face of the rigors of a “live,” real-time campaign.

Option 1 is definitely on the table now in some people’s minds, with the problem being how the party leadership can reasonably introduce a new, alternative candidate without implicitly revealing their support for Biden up to this moment as the unconstitutional puppet show it has so clearly been.

Option 2 is the easiest — because the most likely to actually happen without much manipulation of conditions as they now stand — but also the riskiest, since Trump’s peculiar strengths as a debater, especially his total lack of gentlemanly restraint or statesmanlike dignity, could make Biden look so foolish on that debate stage that, with a repeat of 2020’s contest causing a general malaise on the part of a weary and jaded electorate, the blatant exposure of Biden’s mental unfitness might allow Trump to squeak through in spite of himself, even against an opponent less universally hated than Hillary Clinton (to whom Trump somehow still managed to lose the popular vote).

This leaves Option 3 as the Hail Mary pass that one would never imagine could be on the table, had we not all witnessed the 2020 election, and lived through all the irrational power grabs and sheepish compliance foisted on the American (and world) population such a short time ago. One might think people wouldn’t put up with such a brazen assault on their credulity and freedom a second time around. On the other hand, the events of the past three and a half years, in America and around the globe, have certainly done nothing to instill confidence in the will to freedom of late modern humanity, let alone the willingness of this generation to apply the barest minimum of common sense in the face of the onslaught of experts and fear-mongering that modern media and corporate interests are capable of bringing to bear, should they decide to do so. And after the Democrat’s great electoral success wrought during the first round of the most non-cataclysmic cataclysm in world history, what would cause the main players to hesitate in employing the same methods again?

Cynical, I know. But what evidence is there to mitigate such cynical thoughts these days? That is not a rhetorical question. I am actually on the lookout for mitigating evidence. None found yet.