The Biden Dilemma: What Can We Do About Three More Years?

America, we have a problem.

I call it the Biden Dilemma.

What, pray tell, is the Biden Dilemma?

I'll tell you soon. But first we have to take the long way around. I'm going to discuss competing systems of presidential elections: the American constitutional approach and the parliamentary approach. It matters.

Ever since I was old enough to understand civics and politics, I have been a big fan of the United States Constitution. I'm particularly enamored with the genius of our presidential elections.

The two questions that immediately come to mind are: What's the difference and why is ours a better system. The answer in a nutshell: The Electoral College. The Democrats often talk about getting rid of the Electoral College and just leaving one vote count instead of fifty. They forget about the law of unintended consequences.

The Electoral College is the glue that holds the two- party system together. Take away the Electoral College and new parties form overnight, depriving the leading candidate of a majority of the (former) electoral votes or the raw vote count. Where did those votes go? On the left they went to the Greens, the Socialists and the Ecopols. On the right they went to the Libertarians, the Evangelicals and the Bizpackers.

We don't have that. We have big tents. AOC and Joe Manchin share a party. So do Donald Trump and Liz Cheney. You get the idea. Therefore, almost all presidential elections are quickly decided by a majority of electoral votes. Along the way the primaries are intraparty fights for control of the message. But the general elections are a race to the middle, as "independents" and swing voters determine the outcome. This is a good thing.

Now consider the parliamentary process. Often, there is no party that has a majority of elected congressmen (or members of Parliament). The party with the greatest plurality attempts to form a government. In other words, the center asks the extremes to coalesce to get over the fifty percent plus one bar.

The extremes demand a price: issues that are near and dear to them. Get it? The minor parties are big-time lobbyists. And here's the coup de grâce: If at any time they don't feel loved enough, they can pack up their seats and leave. That breaks the majority and literally brings down the government.

And that brings us full circle. What is the Biden Dilemma? It's our inability to get rid of this massively failing president with another three years to go. Understand, if we were a parliamentary government with a coalition administration, at least one of the minor parties within the coalition would have pulled out already. We would have no ruling government with elections right in front of us. Bye, bye Biden.

A presidential system has no such safety valve. But, but, but you say: What about impeachment and the 25^th Amendment? Bogus, I say. Our country is on its 46^th president and we have never removed any of them via the impeachment process. Yes, Richard Nixon would have been the one had he not resigned. But that was before the Republicans knew the rules of the game.

What rules? The ones that say that no Democrat would ever vote to impeach another Democrat. A Democrat could have extramarital relations in the Oval Office, lie about it on national television and still not get a single Democrat to vote for impeachment. A Democrat could abandon a war zone, leave 13 dead soldiers on the way out, abandon some of our most technologically advanced weaponry to the enemy and know that not a single Democrat would vote to impeach. Bogus, I say.

And the 25th Amendment, you ask? Donald Trump is the Energizer Bunny. And he has the mental acuity tests to prove it. Joe Biden? Not so much. Yet the Democrats allegedly considered wiring an FBI guy to record Trump to make a 25th Amendment case for removal. Joe Biden has no such worry.

In an administration where every day is Weekend at Brandon's, no Democrat would dare act on the obvious. Sadly, the 25^th Amendment is just another weapon for Democrats to use to torture Republican presidents.

And therein lies the Biden Dilemma. We're stuck with him for another three years, for more COVID deaths, for more Russian incursions, for the scourge of inflation, for open borders, for the paucity of energy, for the encroachment of China, for the boys beating up on the girls. And there's nothing we can do about it.

Any thoughts?

Sid Dinerstein is a former chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party. Read More — Here.