On a plan B – The Economist:

‘Mr Trump, too, should be unelectable, owing to the 91 felonies with which he has been charged in different parts of America. Yet Joe Biden, the incumbent president, is so unpopular he may well lose to Mr Trump. There have been occasional calls for Mr Biden to step aside, like Johnson. But there is no sign that he is willing to do so and no guarantee that the Democrats would end up with a stronger candidate if he did. For that reason, although many Democratic operatives have grave misgivings about his candidacy, most are keeping quiet. As one puts it, if you’re all stuck on a boat of questionable seaworthiness, it is natural to wish for a finer vessel, but unproductive to poke holes in the hull or stoke a mutiny.’

(…)

‘Between 2016 and 2020 Hispanic Americans, once fairly loyal Democratic voters, moved 18 points towards the Republicans. Black men are also slowly peeling away from the Democrats. Only the influx of white college graduates has kept the Democratic Party competitive nationally. These demographic trends are sizeable enough to determine the outcome of the election if they persist—and they do appear to be. The latest polls indicate higher support for Mr Trump among African-American and Hispanic voters than he enjoyed in 2020 (see chart 1). “It seems like the 2024 polls right now are 2020 trends carried forward,” says Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster.'

(...)

‘There is almost no chance that Mr Biden will voluntarily abandon his re-election bid. He sees himself as a divinely appointed Trumpbuster and believes his electoral record reflects that. First he vanquished Mr Trump in 2020. Then in the midterm elections of 2022, when Republicans had expected to deliver a terrible rebuke to Democrats, the Democrats’ support held up surprisingly well.’

(…)

‘YouGov’s polling for The Economistsuggests Americans are unduly gloomy: 58% think the country has high unemployment (it does not); 44% think the country is in a recession (it is not); and 40% think inflation will be higher in six months (quite unlikely). The Democrats are hoping that voters will notice that the economy is doing better than they thought by election day. But Republicans keep talking about “Bidenomics” as a pejorative, suggesting that they doubt the topic will end up helping the president.’

(…)

‘Mr Biden’s swooning poll numbers leave the Democrats in a miserable predicament. The alternatives that might still be possible are not obviously preferable. When asked whether it would be better if Mr Biden withdrew, the party’s preferred public-relations strategy is to pretend that the idea is absurd. Mr Biden’s staffers tell heroic stories about the punishing days he routinely endures and insist that he is so alert, informed and mentally agile that the reporter asking the awkward questions “couldn’t survive a ten-minute policy briefing with the president”. What they really mean is that there is no Plan b.’

Read the article here.

The rather surprising popularity that Trump enjoys among African-Americans was already reported by NYT weeks ago, but the surprise is big enough to survive several months.

The question, not mentioned here, is: will the supreme court allow Trump to run? If he’s not going to run who will be the Republican candidate? Haley? And will the electorate remain rather tame? I hope so.

Another possibility is that judicial decisions against Trump will hurt him enough, so that Biden can win.

In any case, without a prosperous prosecution against Trump we might be sailing into some gruesome darkness. Once again, I hasten to add.