It’s now a battle between populist democracy and extremist oligarchy

It would be an understatement to say the news of the past month has been filled with surprises. The first surprise, which showed in the debate, was just how decrepit and senile Joe Biden really is. Even since his State of the Union address a few months earlier, Biden has slowed down significantly, slurring his words, relying on verbal crutches like numbering his points and repeating certain phrases (e.g., “the idea that ...”), slipping into nonsensical babble, and continually losing his train of thought. When Biden wasn’t speaking, he was slack-jawed and seemed confused about where he was.

The second surprise was the assassination attempt on Trump, who escaped death by a fraction of an inch. Moreover, he was able to turn this horrific attack into an occasion for leadership, reassuring the crowd by showing strength and chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” What should have been the final defeat of Trump and the MAGA movement flipped into its most inspirational moment. They looked like winners while his opponents looked like sinister losers.

Democrats’ gaslighting will inevitably continue because it is all they have right now, and they still believe it will work.

Along these lines, the third great surprise was Biden’s announcement that he was dropping out of the presidential election after insisting he would stay in the race. He is feeble and unpopular, and he looks worse by the day. There was no plausible way to fashion him into a strong candidate capable of challenging his semi-mythical opponent.

So where does that leave us? And what should Americans be thinking? Biden’s replacement in the race appears for the moment to be his dim-witted, diversity-hire running mate, Kamala Harris. But more surprises are likely in store. Although Harris is enjoying favorable — bordering on hagiographic — coverage right now, the undemocratic Democratic Party elites may very well pivot to someone else at the national convention later this month. It’s quite possible that these shadowy figures could decide to anoint Josh Shapiro, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, or even Hillary Clinton as the great hope for November.

While it may feel good for conservatives to savor the Democratic pandemonium (that’s usually a Republican problem), we should resist the urge to fix it. As American Mind managing editor Seth Barron posted on X, “Republicans need to stop doing the Democrats’ worrying for them. Biden is their candidate and if they don’t like him, that’s their problem.”

Democrats have no one to blame but themselves. They have been in lockstep with Biden for four years and gaslit themselves and everyone else to believe that he was “sharp as a tack” and doing an amazing job.

The gaslighting will inevitably continue because it is all the Democrats have right now, and they still believe it will work. Despite the heroic optics, they still think Trump and his supporters are so unhinged, stupid, and offensive that Democrats will win the election by default. The strategy is to revise their messaging and trust in the power of their brand.

Consider the left’s evolution in the years since Trump’s election. As a result of constant propaganda against Trump and his supporters, nearly every leftist has been conditioned to believe that conservatives and members of the MAGA movement are utterly ignorant and uninformed bigots who routinely deny reality, embrace superstition, and lack all rational faculties.

As for Trump himself, they believe he is simultaneously a ridiculous buffoon and a dangerous liar keen on subverting American democracy. This never made any sense, but cognitive dissonance has never been a problem for leftists.

Because this is the case, there’s every reason to assume that the left really believes it can move on from the attempted assassination of the Republican front-runner as well as the Democratic primary and still assume a position of strength. Meanwhile, anyone not caught up in this insanity can easily see a deeply corrupt and dangerous political party seeking to keep its power any way it can.

The project of radicalizing the entire leftist movement is nearing completion. With the selection of a new Democratic presidential candidate, leftist leaders, activists, influencers, news media, and the public commit to the principle that they can’t be wrong. They dismiss the other side so thoroughly that they no longer create any logical basis for their own positions or acknowledge their own hypocrisy. They assume they are the side of light, truth, and justice while their opponents are on the side of darkness, falsehood, and duplicity.

Naturally, this hubris and complacency have caused many leftists to become the caricature they make of conservatives: ignorant, superstitious, intolerant, and extreme. Worse still, due to the rise of alternative media, more voices on the right are in tune with reality, better versed in today’s issues, and aware of the other side’s weak arguments. This is why conservatives hope in vain to win through the power of their ideas and the virtues of their political representatives.

But this won’t work on extremists who increasingly base their calculations on political power and relentless propaganda. Currently, those on the left — specifically, leftist-aligned corporate elites — hold most of the power and will continue to abuse it until they are politically and culturally disarmed. Conservatives need to commit long-term to the work of disarmament, being smarter, more strategic, shrewder, and altogether sane, to win the upcoming election and save American democracy.