Ready for Biden's Counterattack?

Donald Trump has a lot of things to celebrate this week, but a foregone conclusion in November isn't one of them.

Joe Biden is down in the polls and losing the unwinnable war against time's toll.

But he's nothing if not tenacious, and the president has a trick ready to turn Trump's latest triumph — over an assassin's bullet — into a political defeat.

In his Oval Office remarks Sunday, Biden tied the attempt on Trump's life to a litany of other acts of political violence, including the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

He was returning to a winning theme from 2020, when the summer of rage following the death of George Floyd gave Democrats an opening to identify Trump with chaos.

The Biden campaign's next move is obvious enough — blame Trump and the GOP themselves for the assassination attempt by linking it to their position on guns.

Just why 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks tried to murder Trump isn't clear.

But how he tried to do it is significant enough for Biden's purposes:

Crooks used a rifle, and whatever his ideological interests may have been, he's confirmed to have been a firearms enthusiast.

He tried out for his high school's shooting team, belonged to a gun club, and died wearing the T-shirt of a pro-gun YouTube channel, Demolition Ranch.

A vote for Trump, Democrats will say, is a vote for political instability and putting deadly weapons in the hands of unstable individuals like Crooks.

Republicans, meanwhile, have already sprung a trap on themselves.

To score cheap political points, or because they're simply victims of their own groupthink, Trump supporters have started echoing a Democratic theme.

They think they're turning the tables on progressives by holding them accountable for creating a climate of violence with their extreme anti-Trump rhetoric.

Trump even appears as Adolf Hitler on a recent New Republic cover.

Isn't that an incitement to murder the man?

When President Biden himself talks about putting Trump in a bull's-eye, isn't that language likely to lead to someone like Crooks actually putting him in the crosshairs?

Republicans never thought so before, whenever they used such "targeting" metaphors, and progressives were the ones accusing them of inspiring violence.

It shouldn't take an exceptional degree of self-awareness for supporters of Donald Trump to recognize how hyping the dangers of intemperate language might backfire.

Any comparison of Trump to Hitler is moronic, but it's not an instigation.

And if rude rhetoric were the deciding issue of the campaign, voters would be quick to send Trump into retirement — not only for the things he says but for the deranged utterances he elicits from his enemies' mouths.

Democrats are only too happy to wage a campaign on these terms.

Their strategy calls for getting voters to see Biden, once again, as a force for calm and unity and Trump as a source of endless controversy, anger and upheaval.

Trump, on the other hand, has to court moderates without repudiating the right, if he wants to match or surpass his 2016 victory.

He needs the Republican base, including gun owners and pro-lifers, to turn out in full strength — but the no-compromise policies conservatives hope for are what many swing voters fear most.

Trump was the president who built the Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe v. Wade.

But he's seen how referendums on abortion have turned out since then, and he's determined not to let his campaign become one.

Democrats are doing their utmost to turn it into just that.

Biden's no moderate when it comes to guns or abortion, or almost anything else, but moderation is a message he'll exploit to the fullest.

He wants to be the no-drama candidate — a steady, mature hand at the wheel, even if one that's a bit too mature.

Trump at his best is an inimitable mixture of humor, optimism, urgency and outrage.

He takes the stage to opera, disco and the Rolling Stones — drama is his element.

He must, however, be seen to master the whirlwind, as he did when he rose to his feet and raised his fist defiantly after the assassin missed his shot.

Biden seeks to turn his own mediocrity into a strength.

It worked last time.

Republicans shouldn't help him do it — either by becoming complacent about their chances in November or by adopting the Democrats' framework on rhetoric and violence.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
• 07/09/24: Biden Faces Richard Nixon's Choice
• 07/02/24: Should Biden Drop Out -- or Resign?
• 06/18/24: Separate Sexual Identity and State
• 06/18/24: Nigel Farage Makes the Trump Moment Permanent
• 06/04/24: State that's long eluded GOP turns toward Trump
• 05/21/24: Trump's Sun Belt Hopes and Rust Belt Needs
• 05/14/24: What Trump Sees in Doug Burgum
• 05/07/24: The Vietnam Era Never Ended for Biden's Party
• 05/06/24: Nationalists of the World, Unite?
• 04/25/24: Foreign Policy Splits
• 04/16/24: How pro-lifers stand to lose everything gained in overturning Roe
• 04/02/24: PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.
• 04/02/24: Who Wants to Be House Speaker?
• 03/26/24: Trump Hunts for a VP Close to Home
• 03/19/24: Princess Kate and Democracy's Discontents
• 03/12/24: Can Biden Buy the Voters?
• 03/05/24: Veepstakes Give Trump an Edge
• 02/20/24: Do Americans Trust Either Party?
• 02/13/24: Vladimir Putin -- A Passive Aggressor
• 01/23/24: Will 'Lawfare' Take Trump Off the Ballot?
• 01/16/24: Will Africa Save America?
• 01/09/24:'The Sopranos' at 25: A new world tragedy
• 01/02/24: Trump, Biden and a Fight for the Heart
• 12/12/23: What Happened to Ron DeSantis?
• 12/12/23: Biden Looks Doomed -- But Is He?
• 12/05/23: A Test for Trump and His Rivals
• 11/21/23: When Inequality Is Fatal for Men
• 11/14/23: Nevermind, The Battle's Over
• 11/07/23: War in the Dem Party -- and at the Opera
• 10/24/23: Israel's Lesson for 2024: A Lib Crackup
• 10/17/23: Libs' Dilemma: Immigration or Israel?
• 10/10/23: Why Bidenflation Defines Bidenomics
• 10/03/23: Will Gavin Newsom Copy Trump?
• 09/26/23: Biden's a Loser -- but Dems Can't Ditch Him
• 09/19/23: Do Sex Scandals Matter?
• 09/12/23: Cornel West Spells Doom for Biden
• 09/05/23: What Trump Does for Democracy
• 08/2/23: Ramaswamy: A Trump Versus Trump?
• 08/22/23: Take 'Rich Men North of Richmond' Seriously
• 08/16/23: How America Kills Its Own
• 08/08/23: The Biden Pardon That Can Spare America
• 08/01/23: Harding, a consevative for the ages
• 07/25/23: Demography Destiny, for Us and China
• 07/18/23: The Frontrunner Who Looks Like a Loser Is Biden
• 07/11/23: Britain's Bad Example for American Conservatives
• 07/05/23: Could We Still Win a Revolutionary War?
• 06/27/23: Civilizations Clash -- in Ukraine and at Home
• 06/20/23: China Comes for the Caribbean
• 06/13/23: Fertility, Family and Bio-Socialism
• 06/06/23: From American Dream to Orwell's Nightmare
• 05/23/23: Ukraine war is an existential struggle --- for the West
• 05/23/23: Learn the Right Midterm Lessons -- or Lose in 2024
• 05/16/23: Feinstein Today Is Biden Tomorrow
• 05/09/23: Trump, DeSantis and Political Courtship
• 05/02/23: RFK Jr.'s Threat to Biden
• 04/25/23: Biden's Lost Generation
• 04/25/23: Who's In Charge of Clarence Thomas?
• 04/11/23: Beyond AI, Our Cyborg Future
• 04/04/23: 2024: 3 Leaders, 1 Way to Win
• 03/28/23: Climate Science Makes a Bad Religion
• 03/21/23: All the Conspiracy That's Fit to Print