Gradually And Then Suddenly

In January of this year I predicted that there was only a 1% chance that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump would be on the Presidential ballot in November, 2024.

I don't like making political predictions because it is too easy to be wrong. I prefer analysis based on data.

However, if I were to place odds on Biden 2.0 vs. Trump 2.0 right now, I would suggest there is only a 1% chance that both Biden and Trump will be the candidates on the final ballot in 2024.

In fact, I believe there is less than a 50% chance that even one of them will be on the ballot in November, 2024 as I forecast the next Presidential race at the present time.

There are too many cautionary signs out there for both Trump and Biden right now.

The principal reason I placed those odds as low as 1% was not because I believed that Donald Trump would not be on the ticket (although Trump has his own issues to overcome to make it to the 2024 ballot), it was because of a number of risks that could derail Biden.

His age. His physical and mental health. His ineptness. The economy. Any one of these could do him in where the Democrat establishment and /or the mainstream media might turn on him.

However, I believed that the biggest risk for Biden was the fact that the Republicans had just taken control of the House who would have the power to investigate Biden without being protected by his Department of Justice.

This is what I wrote in January.

Biden's biggest problem over the next two years is that he is going to have the cloud of investigations hanging over his head. House Republicans are going to dig deeply into Hunter Biden's business affairs and Biden's connection to anything that Hunter was doing. The focus will be on possible influence peddling with Ukraine, China and other countries.

This is all playing out right now and the optics do not look good for Biden.

The most explosive piece of evidence that IRS whistleblowers produced last week was this WhatsApp text message to a Chinese businessman with ties to the Chinese Communist Party that the IRS obtained based on a search warrant of Hunter's iCloud account.

Of course, Joe Biden has always claimed he never spoke to Hunter about his business dealings. He claimed he knew nothing about what he was doing.

Here is a small sample of just a few of the times that Joe Biden made those claims during the time he was running for President. These claims were repeated over the last couple of years when Biden sat in the Oval Office.

Interestingly, the response of Biden's White House counsel to the IRS whistleblower testimony says nothing has changed. Counsel wants you to believe there is nothing new here. However, if you look closely at the statement that wss made in response to these allegations, they are no longer saying that Biden never spoke to Hunter about his business. They are now saying that Joe Biden "was not in business with his son."

“As we have said many times before, the President was not in business with his son. As we have also said many times before, the Justice Department makes decisions in its criminal investigations independently, and in this case, the White House has not been involved," Sams said Friday. “As the President has said, he loves his son and is proud of him accepting responsibility for his actions and is proud of what he is doing to rebuild his life.”

We have gone from "never spoke to him about his business" to "was not in business with his son".

There were reports this weekend that Joe Biden is in the process of retaining individual legal counsel.

Take what you will from that and the change in messaging.

The scent of scandal is circulating around Biden pretty strongly.

It appears that the mainstream media is even starting to take notice whereas in the past stories about questionable activities of Joe and Hunter Biden were ignored.

The DOJ's friendly plea deal with Hunter and the revelations that came out last week from the IRS whistleblowers seems to have changed the political landscape in all of this for Biden.

Contrary to the past when almost any negative story about Joe or Hunter Biden was never covered or buried deep in the back pages of the paper or the nightly news, we are seeing changes in news coverage.

Both The New York Times and Washington Post have covered the IRS whistleblower story,

ABC, CBS, NBC, and even CNN, have devoted considerable air time to the story.

The White House press corps seems to have awakened from their slumber since Trump left office and are beginning to actually practice journalism by asking some direct questions about Biden and his son.

It appears that we are nearing a tipping point for Joe Biden.

He may soon find he has a lot fewer friends and supporters than he thought he had.

For example, I thought it was interesting that CNN is now fact-checking Joe Biden.

This is what is now appearing on its "Facts First" section of its website regarding false claims that Biden made just over the last two weeks,

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/21/politics/fact-check-biden-guns-africa

CNN reports Biden made five false claims just about guns.

Here is one of those.

Biden claimed that gun manufacturers are the only industry in America you can't sue. That is not true. They can't be sued if someone uses the gun criminally but they can be sued for defects, negligence etc.

On the other hand, the pharmaceutical industry has near total liability protection for vaccines.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/21/politics/fact-check-biden-guns-africa

Here is another claim Biden made about traveling 17,000 miles with Chinese leader Xi. The only way you could get that number is if you counted the miles Biden flew to his meetings with Xi.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/21/politics/fact-check-biden-guns-africa

Here is Biden claiming Texas is getting 70% of its energy from solar and wind because it is cheaper. The most recent usage of wind and solar in Texas? 26%.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/21/politics/fact-check-biden-guns-africa

All of this suggests to me that Joe Biden is going to be getting more and more scrutiny over the next few months.

After all, when you are a Democrat and CNN starts to turn against you the future does not look bright.

It may not be long before Joe Biden is no longer in the conversation for 2024.

In fact, it would not surprise me if few are willing to even admit that they voted for this man for President when all is said and done.

As we see how all of this plays out it might be worth keeping in mind what Ernest Hemingway wrote in his 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises".

The subject was bankruptcy but the same thing can be said about how a politician descends into disrepute and irrelevancy.

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

            ---Ernest Hemingway, "The Sun Also Rises"

Joe Biden has been sowing the seeds of his destruction over a 50 year political career.

As the veneer of his political privilege and power is subject to the harsh light of real scrutiny I would expect his final fall from grace will come suddenly.