I’m no beltway insider, but from my vantage point looking down Highway into the greatness of Nevada, I don’t see any way Democrats can ride Joe Biden into 2024.

The midterms are lost, almost everyone concedes that. Biden’s presidency so far has been one big bowl of ugly. You can bet the mortgage that the cool kids who do the math on these kinds of things have already calculated that Biden’s gotta go.

Just by the way he walks in that old-man baby-step gait, you know he’s frail. And did you see the extended clip last week of him and New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern? He rambled on and on and on about WWII minutiae like she was his granddaughter visiting him in a rest home. It was just awful.

He’s showing his age, he’s not getting things done insofar as the public can see, and inflation – his fault or nobody’s fault – is a reliable election killer. So what do you do with a sitting president with an awful approval rating and a vice president with even lower approval ratings?

You tap them out. You gotta.

NBC reporters Carol E. Lee, Peter Nicholas, Kristen Welker and Courtney Kube nibbled the edge this notion last week and reported that Biden is “rattled” by his sinking approval ratings and how he’s come off as looking “flat-footed” on the many crises that have hit during his tenure.

One of the kingmakers in the party, Rep Jams Clyburn, D-S.C., told NBC: “I don’t know what’s required here.” But Sen. Faiz Shakir, a senior adviser to Bernie Sanders minced no words: “We’re on a track — a losing track.”.

I’m not saying Biden will get a bigtime primary challenge. That’s not the way party politics works at this level. Instead, someone like former President Obama will sidle up to Biden in November and whisper: “Enough, old friend, time to go back to the barn.”

THE RISE OF GAVIN?

Some of my friends think I’m way off on this, but I still think California Gov. Gavin Newsom has a decent shot at the nomination. After the implosion of N.Y. Gov. Andrew Coumo, he’s the leading governor on the Democratic bench. He’s good on the stump, supporting a good California economy, and articulate enough to show his face in Iowa. He’ll deny he’s running … until he is.

CROSSED MY MIND: A SHORT JOURNEY

  • Pelosi DUI: U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy’s Pelosi’s husband, was arrested in a DUI accident on a road near their winery in NAPA. Nancy says she’ll have nothing to say on the matter because it is “private.” Hummm. If this were the spouse of the House Republican Leader. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, do you think the same standard would apply? I’m thinking not, but I’m a jaded SOB, this I freely admit.
  • Dr. Seuss Mug: Liberals are calling a new mug poking fun at Joe Biden in Dr. Seuss cadance, and like a lot of political whining it’s jacked up the purchase of the item. The mug has a mug of The Cat in the Hat and reads: Let’s go Brandon?! I do not like our mental haze. I do not like your leftists ways. I do not like your son on blow. I do not like you sleepy Joe.

I’m not sure what makes that racist but the left wing in America lost me long ago with that kind of fear-mongering.

ONE MORE THING

  • My iPhone just filmed a 20-minute documentary on life inside my pocket.
  • So domesticated dogs are most closely related to wolves? Really? My dog won’t walk on wet grass.
  • In my whole life I never read a warning against eating detergent or putting glue in my hair. Somehow, I just knew it.
  • “Phonics” is not spelled like it sounds.
  • Navigation equipment was stolen from a submarine base. The thief will be caught sonar or later.
  • I got circumcised when I was born. Could not walk for a year.

See you next week. In the meantime, avoid soreheads, laugh a little and always question authority.

(“Properly Subversive” is commentary written by Sherman R. Frederick for the Novato Advance, San Rafael News-Pointer, Mill Valley Herald, Ross Valley Reporter, Twin City Times and the Sausalito Marin Scope. Frederick is a long-time journalist and cofounder of Battle Born Media, a news organization dedicated to the preservation of community newspapers. You can reach him by email at shermfrederick@gmail.com.)