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DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS ARE GETTING READY FOR A TRUMP PRESIDENCY
BY: Nathaniel Ballantyne
Washington, DC—As the Biden campaign scrambles to calm nerves about the president’s disastrous debate performance, Democrats on Capitol Hill are growing increasingly furious at those around him and despondent about his re-election prospects and their chances of winning the House and Senate majorities. Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the minority leader, is raising a lot of money using the prospect of losing the White House.
Conversations about a strategy shift are underway, with some Democratic lawmakers and many deep-pocketed donors plotting how to ensure a congressional check on a second Trump term should Biden continue in the race and lose.
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)
The House is the last firewall, folks. We have to flip the House,” said one high-ranking Democrat. “Ninety-nine percent of the people I talked to can’t get their credit card out fast enough.”
Those private discussions could eventually morph into an explicit campaign to put a Democratic check on an expected Trump presidency—much as congressional Republicans did back in 1996 when BOB DOLE was on his way to a thumping.
Democrats aren’t there yet. Top party leaders, we’re told, are prepared to continue stumping for Biden as the party’s best choice for November, as they did on yesterday’s Sunday show circuit. Part of it is a collective action problem; no one wants to be first and potentially the last, and part of it is that many believe that speaking out might only make Biden dig in further.
But make no mistake, the despair and frustration are real, and it is pushing upward inside the party. It has been felt acutely by frontline members. The swing-district Democrats who would be the cornerstone of any majority: Donors blew up their phones over the weekend, with some prodding them to go public with a group letter calling for a new candidate, an idea that some discussed over the weekend.
“The leadership of the party should be going to the White House and knocking down the doors and saying, ‘Time’s up,'” an adviser to top Democratic donors said. “Anybody trying to prolong the inevitable here is just basically putting us on a giant fucking death march towards the end.”
That sense of anger is palpable among rank-and-file congressional Democrats, many of whom blame Biden and his family for hiding the reality of his condition. The House Democrat lamented defending the president on the campaign trail despite getting political advice to run away from him, only to find out how bad things were on Thursday.
“It’s just his egotism and his family’s enabling,” the person said. “JILL [BIDEN] of all people — she sees him every single day. She’s the one person who could end this train wreck. This should have been a one-term president.”
This should have been no president at all. We knew Biden had health issues before he was elected, and those issues have worsened since he became president. His family is enjoying power and prestige, and asking his family to convince him to drop out is an exercise in futility. Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress are bracing and preparing for a second Trump presidency.
Who knew a single debate performance could alter the course of history? Should Biden decide to step aside, who should replace him? And what would happen to the delegates pledged to him?
