Suddenly, a Biden-Trump rematch doesn’t seem so inevitable

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote a piece recently that ran under the headline, “There’s a war raging. It’s against normal politics.”

It comes as no surprise that Dionne, a man of the left, sees Republicans as the ones waging the war. 

On the potential debt-ceiling crisis, he writes: “Normal also means not threatening to tank the American and global economies by using the debt ceiling to extract unpopular political concessions.”

On gerrymandering, he’s got this to say: “The courts, especially in Republican states … have been complicit in ratifying outrageous maps.”

And on book-banning: “The ideological fights engulfing public schools and public libraries involving, among other things, the removal of books from libraries and the gutting of curriculums aren’t normal, either.”

Almost every comment posted below his column also blamed Republicans for this so-called war “on normal politics.” 

One in particular caught my eye. “There is nothing ‘normal’ about Republicans, who want to destroy the country they hate for not being ‘White’ and ‘Christian’ enough for them and turn it over to their Russian master and his orange-faced puppet. Treason is not ‘normal’, and Republicans are traitors.”

Strong letter to follow.  

In these hyper-partisan times, it’s not realistic to expect even-handedness (or even a smattering of nuance) when it comes to political analysis, especially when an opinion columnist is involved. Still, it’s interesting that E.J. Dionne has nothing to say about the Democrats who, bullhorn in hand, seized control of the House of Representatives in Nashville, Tenn., because they weren’t happy with the way Republicans were dealing with gun control issues. Is shutting down the business of a democratically-elected governmental body considered normal?

Is it normal for Biden administration officials to say that the southern border is “secure” when millions of illegal immigrants cross into the United States each year?

How about the violent crime and looting that’s plaguing American cities run by Democratic mayors and district attorneys who downgrade all sorts of serious crimes to misdemeanors? Who thinks that’s normal?

But even though none of that caught E.J. Dionne’s attention, he did make one point about a certain recent Republican president that’s worthy of serious consideration. “Normal,” he writes, “means accepting the outcome of a legitimate election your side lost and offering no sanction to a violent mob attack on the U.S. Capitol to overturn the result.”

He’s right, of course. There’s nothing controversial about that observation — except, apparently, if you’re a Republican who likes Donald Trump.  

A recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that 69 percent of Republicans and those who lean their way don’t believe President Biden is a legitimate president, and 75 percent say the idea that Donald Trump won in 2020 is a reason to vote for him again in 2024. And at last night’s CNN Town Hall, Trump was again feeding his fans the fairy tale about the supposedly stolen election.  

“I think that, when you look at that result and when you look at what happened during that election, unless you’re a very stupid person, you see what happens,” Trump said, calling the election he lost “rigged.”

Memo to MAGA Republicans: Elections are about the future, and a candidate who is fixated on the past stands a good chance of losing.

Except, maybe not this time around.

Another new poll, this one from ABC News and the Washington Post, has Joe Biden’s job approval rating at a new low — 36 percent.

Sixty-three percent say he does not have the mental sharpness to serve effectively as president — and 62 percent say Biden is not in good enough physical health to be effective.

And here’s the really bad news for the president: In a head-to-head race, Trump beats him easily, according to the poll — 44 percent to 38 percent.

As Yogi Berra supposedly once observed, “Predictions are hard, especially when they’re about the future.” So, let’s just call this a hunch: No matter what Biden says now about running for a second term, in the coming months he may drop out.  

Republicans want a candidate who believes Trump really won in 2020, but Democrats want a candidate who can beat Donald Trump. If Biden doesn’t look like that guy, the people behind the curtain who have been calling the shots in the White House may convince him that it’s time to go.

For quite a while, it looked like Donald Trump represented Joe Biden’s best chance for winning a second term. No one energizes the Democratic base more than Donald Trump. Except the new ABC News/Washington Post poll casts doubt on the conventional wisdom.

And while Donald Trump is way out ahead of his rivals, both announced and those likely to get into the race, it’s still early. If he loses more court battles, gets hit with a few more indictments or a few more scandals emerge, anything is possible.

So, no matter what a lot of us thought, we may not be locked into a Trump v. Biden 2.0 after all. Maybe in a country of more than 330 million people, we can do better than two senior citizens hauling a lot of baggage. Maybe, Americans are ready for a change. 

As a wit once observed: Politicians are like diapers. They both need to be changed often. And for the same reason. 

Bernard Goldberg is an Emmy and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award-winning writer and journalist. He was a correspondent with HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” for 22 years and previously worked as a reporter for CBS News and as an analyst for Fox News. He is the author of five books and publishes exclusive weekly columns, audio commentaries and Q&As on his Substack page. Follow him on Twitter @BernardGoldberg.