There are several ways to look at American politics right now. The conventional wisdom, embraced by progressives and right-wing extremists alike and and most of the mainstream media, is this:

Joe Biden is severely damaged by the way his withdrawal from Afghanistan was handled. His poll numbers are plummeting due to that and the Delta Varian, which is threatening his plans and promises for a swift economic recovery.  Beyond that, at least 12 million Americans have been affected by fires, floods, and drought. The list of crises for any American President is a mountain, and a quiet, religious 80-year-old has to deal with this. The Republican Party no longer even pretends to be a responsible partner in government, and Donald Trump’s advisers are whispering in the ears of the  Washington pundits that he is running again, promoted by Biden’s troubles and his own sociopathic ego.

It’s enough to make liberals and progressives weep, and many of them are, fed almost hourly by a media that is as corrupt and short-sighted as a Trump cabinet appointee.

We are all entitled to our own perspectives and opinions.

Here is mine, as usual, very much in the minority right now. I’ll make it short and sweet because conventional wisdom is rarely worth considering.

The Republicans are unloading all of their guns pinning all of their hopes on Biden running for re-election in 2024. Their assaults on him are as vicious as they are unrelenting.

In politics, that is sometimes myopic and short-sighted.

Biden has often said he plans to be a one-term President.

Next year, if he is in dire trouble, other Democrats will challenge him.  One of them just might be the one, like Biden was.

Unlike the Republican Party, the Democrats don’t follow the example of Mussolini. They will challenge and incumbent and do it all the time, often successfully.

If Biden is falling apart (I don’t really see that happening), then Trump or whoever will run against someone else, in which case it makes no difference what Biden’s polls or popularity are now.

I gave up writing about politics because I could see it was becoming sheer lunacy, and I didn’t wish to spend the rest of my life in the sinkhole it has become.

Modern corporate media needs drama and crisis to survive, and so there is a lot of it. It is unnerving and upsetting. And to a great extent, thoughtless and hysterical.

But you might want to consider things differently, just for a minute.

The major crises in American life are the economy, Afghanistan, the pandemic, climate change, and social conflicts like abortion and voting rights.

Under the clinically insane influence of Donald Trump, one party is preparing the election this way: they are attacking the voting rights of the poor, the African-American, the needy, and the vulnerable.  They are attacking the moral and civil rights of women.

If you read any history at all,  you might recall that the civil rights movement was the most powerful social movement in American history just a few years ago.  The next two up are Black Lives Matter and Me Too. Thanks to Trumpism, a social revolution is re-forming again.

It simply cannot be crushed by state legislatures and craven politicians.

Donald Trump is now facing more than half a dozen state and federal investigations into his business practices and possible sedition. He is just about as old as Joe Biden and a lot meaner and crazier. Will he really be running for re-election in two years? I wouldn’t bet on it, and I am a betting man.

Will he keep hinting that he will? Of course. The possibility has brought him tens of millions of dollars while he golfs daily and cements his hold on a shattered and desperate political party. Why wouldn’t he and his lackeys whisper this, and why on earth would every major media outlet buy it so easily?

The same party that Mr. Trump “leads” has launched an unprecedented assault on women’s personal rights, seeking to make abortion a forbidden crime. And they have done it in the cruelest and most dishonest of ways.

The same party does not believe in climate change and is fighting tooth and nail to keep the oil and gas industry protected, even though it is the primary cause of climate change carbon-based damage to the environment.

This same party didn’t believe the pandemic was real and has undercut every meaningful effort to curb it. This is the party of the screamers, the science deniers, the anti-vaxxers. Let’s see just how many people out there want to turn the government over to them once remember. Remember Charlottesville.

The same party’s two leading presidential candidates, apart from Mr. Trump, advocate letting thousands of adults and children fall sick, and in many cases, die.

Why? They want to please Donald Trump? I can’t wait for those ads quoting the bereaved mothers and fathers.

If Donald Trump has any plan for improving the economy, he failed to share it with us in 2020, and he isn’t sharing it with us now. For all the sturm and drang, his first term in office was a catastrophe all across the boards. The only things he really knows how to do is lie and anger people.

There is a serious reason he committed sedition against his own government and possibly treason as well.

Oh, and please don’t let me forget gun violence. The Republican Party, even before Trump, but certainly now, has made any rational gun control a possibility for years. 2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in decades.

In that year, gun violence killed nearly 20,000 Americans, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive, more than any other year in at least two decades. An additional 24,000 people died by suicide with a gun.

If I were running for President (God help all of us), this is the crew I would hope to run against. Trump and his favored sons and daughters.

I doubt the Republican Party has gained a single voter under Trump’s leadership, as the party embraces a White Nationalist, racist and anti-democratic agenda that has aligned much of the country.

They even lie about the Capitol attacks, brutal assaults all of us saw again and again. That Big Lie is not going to stand. You really can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

They are the party of billionaires in a time of great change and social revolution.

If this is a winning agenda for an American political party in 2024, I will eat some dirt from the pasture and call it dinner.

So let’s pause to consider the other political party.

The Republicans have always been the official party of war. In perhaps his best and only intelligent move in office, Trump decided to end the war.

Biden did it, he got us out of Afghanistan. In a country with more than 40,000 gun deaths in one year, does any thinking person really believe the country will boot Joe Biden out of office because terrorists killed 12 marines?

This is America; death and violence are something our country has chosen to live with. Every single day. We see so much death on TV every day, our society has been numbed to slaughter.

Rather than grow their party into the mainstream of life, the Republicans have abandoned blacks, women, immigrants, and every one of the people who lost their homes or farms or businesses or lives to fire, flood, weather, or drought.

I shake my head in wonder at the thought that Governor DeSantis and Abbott could ever win the presidency, how vulnerable to attack they both are from the families of the thousands of people they helped kill, or the millions of women they have assaulted and deeply offended.

They made their beds, they will lie in them.

The votes of at least half the country are now up for grabs.  And they are angry and aroused votes.

Although the Democrats have done a dreadful case of making people aware of it – they still don’t get social media or the Internet – all of these many million people are opportunities for them. That is why Trump lost in 2020, although he seems too damaged to accept it, or even know it.

The idea of Trumpism and the White Nationalists – that they can turn the clock back, control women, disenfranchise black America again, and continue to deny the horrific reality of climate change is even dumber in 2014 than it was in 2020. Trump and his nationalist followers are mostly good for hating. That is not a long-term vision for America or even a short-term one.

Almost every respectable economist believes the covid-19 pandemic will slow as more and more Americans get vaccinated, die off, or demand that their governors stop killing people to advance their political careers.

I believe that is happening.

As disturbing as the Delta variant is, it is not nearly as lethal as Covid-19 and is already beginning to wane.

The economy was shocked by this new virus, but the country will figure it out. Biden is very good at that.

His poll numbers will rise as his party awakens and passes more legislation that actually helps people. And they will. There is no other path for them; I don’t care what Joe Manchin says. He says something different every week, But he is a politician, not an ideologue or fanatic. Politicians work to figure things out.

That’s what they do.

Rather than soaring to power in the face of disasters and challenges, the Republican party emulates its leader – digging one hole after another.

Biden is not strong, but he is decent and honorable. People like him, and given a chance, will like him again. Because as embattled as he is, he is nice than the scary clowns who are after him.

But that is not what is most important.

The Democratic Party is being offered its greatest opportunity and moment since the Depression. Democracy is on the line for sure, but it has often been on the line and survive. It is an unwieldy and volatile social and political system.

They seem to lack heart and focus and have trouble focusing in the face of this assault. They need a leader who combines Beto O’Rourke’s understanding of new media and Franklin Roosevelt’s ruthless and determined vision.

Being nice is no longer enough in the long run.

If they can’t do better against the gang that couldn’t shoot straight but just keeps on shooting, then they don’t deserve to be in power, and our country doesn’t deserve to call itself a democracy.

I’ll round up the donkeys and sheep and borrow some Amich carriages, and Maria (hopefully) and I will head for Canada or Costa Rica.

But don’t bet on it. I won’t.