The news and social media are full of rumors that President Biden may announce his withdrawal from the 2024 Presidential election. That doesn't mean he'd leave office as well, of course: that could happen, but there's no certainty that he'd be prepared to bow out early. I suspect he'd be more likely to continue in office until his present term expires in January next year.
That could be a very big problem. Biden has already demonstrated on repeated occasions that he can be vindictive, nasty and vengeful to those he thinks have slighted him. Just how much damage could a lame-duck president do in the final half-year of his term in office? I suspect the answer is "A heck of a lot!"
It may be that Congress and the Senate could prevent or mitigate the worst of the damage, by refusing to pass enabling legislation. However, presidential executive orders can operate without such support. Biden could install his supporters in critical positions in the Executive Branch; reallocate budgets to support his preferred agenda, even at the expense of defunding other parts of government that are just as (or even more) essential; increase his efforts to dilute the electorate by bringing in millions upon millions of foreign "migrants", and getting as many of them as possible to register as voters, even though that's illegal (just as his administration and Blue states are doing right now); and so on. Sure, some of those steps may be actionable in court - but it takes time to get such measures on a court docket, and there's no guarantee they could be blocked or suspended in time to avert the damage they might do. So much depends on the perspective of possibly biased judges that it's hard to make that call.
It might be better for the country if he were to leave office at the same time that he withdraws from electoral contention; but we have no idea how well Vice-President Kamala Harris would perform in his stead. Based on her track record, I think she'd get even less respect and cooperation, nationally and internationally, than would President Biden - and that might make her vengeful, bitter and retaliatory in her governance.
A lesson one learns early on the African plains is that an animal is never so dangerous as when it's wounded and weakened. It'll lash out and try to kill those threatening it, no matter who or what they are. (I've never forgotten the dik-dik - a tiny antelope - that charged a game ranger near Rhodes Memorial on the slopes of Table Mountain in Cape Town. He was trying to see whether any young were in her bush nest, but she was having none of it. Her short, sharp horns penetrated his thigh and punctured his femoral artery. He bled to death next to the nest before help - only a few minutes away - could reach him. I was nearby that day.)
Biden and/or Harris might demonstrate similar pugnacity. If they're politically weakened to the point that they believe they can't win, and/or have nothing to lose, they could retaliate against Democrats, or Republicans - even the entire nation. That's a prospect not to be taken lightly, particularly given President Biden's ever-loosening grasp of reality, and Vice-President Harris' growing (and, IMHO, probably justifiable) outrage at the lack of respect, verging on contempt, shown towards her by her own party's leaders.
We might all live to regret something like that happening.
Peter
19 comments:
Withdrawing from the campaign isn't going to cut it.
He needs to decamp to the Delaware Home For Senile Old Fools, and hand the reins over to Sen. Kneepads.
Who will then be challenged by dint of being non-eligible to serve as president, being born to two foreign nationals.
Leading to the transition to Acting President Johnson from now until Trump is sworn in again next January.
QED
The Bidens have to hang on until after the election. Issuing the pardons before that. . .
And they probably don't trust Harris any farther than they can possibly upwind in a hurricane.
What's the bet that Biden will tragically die from covid? I mean he's officially old and wasn't willing to step down from the presidential race. I wouldn't put it past them at the current rate things are happening.
Biden has been known to be nasty. So have many in his party. My hope is their scrambling for survival leads to attacking each other for power, and an ultimate failure. In my opinion, they've resorted to murder to keep their power, and considering their current position, this is a bigger crises than any in the near past.
Re Harris's outrage over lack of respect ... To me, it seems she's getting all of the respect she's earned, and more. But people like her never seem to look in a mirror when trying to understand such things.
As to how much damage a vengeful outgoing admin could do, it depends on part whether the people under them support them, or not. Biden could ask Trump about that, as a for-instance.
The point to all this is destroying the system. Thats the goal, the end-game they have in mind. There will not be any attempt to stop or fix anything. They are using incompetence as a cover.
we all remember BHO explaining his vison of "change" for the United States of America.
I believe the pResident could, per EO, grant citizenship to every invader (call 'em illegal aliens or paperless persons, if you wish) presently within our borders; it might be unlawful, but it would be a generation or more before it would be straightened out and by then ...
or maybe it's an attempt by the Left (American Communist Party led by Bernie Sanders) to turn our conntry into Europe of the '30s where everyone had to carry papers (and expected to be stopped by the "police") to prove their citizenship
I admire your use of that particularly named animal as a comparison to Biden. Bravo!
You don't have to worry about what Joe will do
You need to be scared what Jill will tell him to do.
https://youtu.be/dIHD4a8_N50?si=lZN0yPttODQo8Ccj
@Aesop: Unfortunately, that won't work. Her parents may not have been "natural born citizens", but she was born on US soil; therefore, birthright citizenship applies. Yes, we should get rid of the latter, but for now it's the law, and it probably can't be revoked retroactively.
"What's the bet that Biden will tragically die from covid?"
I'm sure he'll be fine. After all, he's been vaccinated, what, nine times?
In all seriousness, even with all the momentum he's got going, Trump's biggest hurdle will be the millions of criminaliens who will be allowed to vote come November. If anything positive comes of that, it will be the fact that his "loss" will bring about Civil War, The Sequel and we can rid ourselves of the Leftists who brought about all this lunacy to begin with.
Interesting times.
@Aesop, The whole issue with Obama's birth certificate is if he WAS born overseas when his mother was still a minor he was not a birthright citizen.
Harris was born in the US for sure but raised in Canada by her mother, so she may have the birthright but she is not culturally an American.
It's been about ten years now (give or take) since I first had the thought that current happenings were uncomfortably close to the over arching storyline of J.Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5.
Maybe not direct parallels, but an awful lot of similar tracks....
Harris expects RESPECT after becoming vice president for no other reason than being "a woman of color," and then doing NOTHING but CACKLING on TV??? She should just shut up and count her blessings. She was SO disliked as a CANDIDATE that she folded her tent after losing the FIRST PRIMARY, and ended up a heartbeat from the Oval Office! Even her own party sees that she's as dumb as a bag of hammers!!!
In just about every article concerning the rumors of Biden's departure, there's inevitably an "Obama this" or an "Obama that." No one will publicly ask the salient question "Obama has no place at the table. WHY is he still influencing things?" Of course, the likes of us already KNOW that answer...
@Peter,
Ark v. U.S. is long overripe for revisiting by SCOTUS.
This case would get it there in about 15 minutes, and be granted writ in about 0.2 seconds.
What do you figure the odds of them defining "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" according to "founders' original intent"...?
My wife and I were in fact pondering, recently, on the prescience of goodfacts vs realfacts.
Reexamining Won Kim Ark and
getting the "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" correct would get rid of the anchor babies of the illegals, but might not reach Kamala, as both her parents were here on valid student visas.
ODammit is another matter. I don't know whether he lied about being born in Kenya or not. Both the Jenyan and Hawaiian birth certificates have been challenged as faked. IMO, his lack of citizenship comes from his adoption as an Indonesian national as a child, Barry Soetero.
Thus might also be why his college records have been so tightly sealed.
He might also have attended Claremont as a Fullbright Scholar, open only to foreign nationals.
Biden and Kamala are both the kind of people to try to burn the house down on their way out, and not to just steal the furniture like Hillary.
John in Indy
"...Sure, some of those steps may be actionable in court - but it takes time to get such measures on a court docket, and there's no guarantee they could be blocked or suspended in time to avert the damage they might do. "
And yet the left were able to get court injunctions passed against Trump's EOs on e.g. border wall and entry of people from certain nations, within 24hrs.
We need entities with standing ready to file in a friendly circuit court at a moment's notice. That the GoP doesn't is indicative of their lack of interest in what they claim to represent; they prefer to be in perpetual opposition to the administration rather than actually in charge because, I suspect, it is more lucrative.
Didfer
Post a Comment