Remember when Joe Biden was president, and the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) hung on his every word?

Well, old Joe is still president… in name only. There is still a media gaggle that follows him around, but after the long beach vacations, it’s clear that the job doesn’t have nearly the cache that it used to. That’s what tends to happen when the man who is nominally occupying the Oval Office becomes not just a lame duck, but a dead duck.

That’s not to say that Biden doesn’t have the ability to still scrape together a headline or two. While visiting Pennsylvania on September 11th, he put on a Trump hat, and then told the audience to “just remember, no eating dogs or cats.”

Higher res footage of Biden putting on a Trump 2024 hat today via kelseysimmers94 (TikTok) pic.twitter.com/FeiVsdbdG1

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) September 12, 2024

The Biden in that clip is at least making an attempt to be personable and charming while reaching out to an audience that clearly supports another party. This version of Biden hasn’t been seen for years, since he’s spent his entire presidency calling anyone who supports Donald Trump a “threat” to democracy, to the republic, and to the future. It’s hard to feel sorry for the ignominious end to his public life when all he has done for years now is tell half the American public just how much they suck.

Despite being a dead man walking, Biden is still the president of the United States. Even though there is a general sentiment among everyone that he really shouldn’t be. After all, if people truly believed that Biden was totally cognitively capable, he wouldn’t have been drop-kicked off the ballot by the Democrat establishment in favor of an empty pantsuit.

Once Biden is out of office, you are going to see some INSANE stories about his final year as president, and no one who helped cover up his condition will face any consequences.

— Noam Blum (@neontaster) September 9, 2024

Which is why the latest gaffe from Biden is barely making a ripple, except around those who would have highlighted it anyway. The media have simply given up on the old man. What he says is no longer important. Does anyone remember the hysteria from Democrats when Trump used the term “black jobs” during the first debate?

Nearly everyone on the left gasped and clutched their pearls. How DARE Trump say such a thing? Michelle Obama even made a comment about it during her DNC speech.

Biden even snarked about it, right before he dropped out of the race. Which makes this side-by-side clip even more amusing.

Here’s Biden a few weeks ago blasting Trump for using the term “Black jobs.”

Here’s Biden today using the same exact phrase.

.@JoeBiden @WhiteHouse @PressSec any comment? pic.twitter.com/YmSq0DY03d

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 13, 2024

Where are all the hysterical pundits scolding Joe Biden for his language? Anyone? Bueller?

Call the racism police, Biden just said "black jobs."
Suddenly, everyone freaking out at Trump in this video looks really, really stupid.

Maybe this is why you shouldn't spend two straight months pretending to be offended by a meaningless verbal fumble. pic.twitter.com/a6q34WCaqY

— Bill D'Agostino (@Banned_Bill) September 13, 2024

The truth is that no one on the left actually cares any more what Joe Biden does, so long as what he does has no effect on Kamala Harris. The two of them are currently involved in an odd tango. He is nominally the president, with the power of the commander-in-chief behind him. And yet his brain has turned into banana pudding. We all know that he isn’t making the day-to-day decisions; he merely gets brought in as a figurehead for the big decisions. Who is actually making the decisions? The Cabinet? The White House staff? Jill? A combination of all the above? We don’t know. All we know is that it isn’t Joe himself. Where’s Kamala? Schrödinger’s vice president wants all the credit for anything good, and none of the blame for anything bad. She says she isn’t Joe Biden, and yet can’t tell a friendly interviewer what she would do that is different. She claims “we can’t go back” and yet insists that she is pushing “a new way forward” that isn’t happening right now. He can’t stay in office without her sitting right behind him, and she can’t run for office without being tied to him.

The very fact that Biden and Harris have been a package deal for the last three and a half years is the very reason that the Democrats are fully ignoring Joe Biden right now. They need Kamala Harris to be a blank slate (they got the “blank” right) instead of part and parcel of the current administration. She has to be able to say she can FIX ALL THE THINGS while they all sidestep the fact that she has an office in the West Wing RIGHT NOW. Joe Biden is little more than an afterthought in his own administration. So he can gaffe all he wants. Everyone knows he won’t be president come next January. With the admission that Hamas is not going make a deal for a ceasefire, there is almost nothing left for Joe Biden to do, except pardon Hunter before he leaves office. That, plus keeping Kamala Harris a mystery instead of invoking the 25th Amendment and letting her actually govern, is the only reason that Joe Biden is still sitting in the Oval Office right now. And considering that we live in dangerous times, having a functionally incompetent president is something we should all be scared about.

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Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click