By chance, I turned on former President Trump’s speech to Turning Point America last night on Newsmax, as I was scrolling for something to watch during the rain delay of the Cardinals-Nats game. I didn’t stay on too long, but what I heard started my stomach churning all over again. And this morning, I looked at several very recent polls reported on Real Clear Politics which show a Trump-Biden race a toss-up, which show Trump well ahead of any other Republican contenders (like 20 to 40 points ahead), and which show Biden’s popularity still hovering around 40%. You just have to be worried.

The text of the speech (as well as a video) is on the C-Span website, and here is what Trump said to start off his speech: “You are the grassroots leaders who are going to dislarge (sic) the socialists and communists and they are indeed communists, and marxists, and globalists, and where the hell do these people come from, and send the radical left back into political oblivion where they belong.”

Then he went into all of the things that Biden has done wrong, and all of the ways that the United States is once again failing. Climate change is a myth and all the left wants is the Green New Deal, which will destroy us. The Russians would never have gone into Ukraine if Trump had remained president, and we would never have left Afghanistan the way we did, if at all. We would be on great terms with China and North Korea and Russia (he got along with their leaders very well). There would have been no inflation, we would not be importing any oil from places like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. When he left office, the reputation of the United States was at its strongest, and now no one respects us at all. He left the strongest border ever and would have completed the wall, and the border now is so porous, and other countries are emptying their jails and sending the prisoners to us and there will be more murders and rapes. The left wants to defund the police and leave us with no defenses. The left is trying hard to make sure that they are able to cheat in the next election, just like they cheated in the last election, which Trump clearly won. And boy are they behind Critical Race Theory to make us hate each other, and boy do they want to mix up all genders so we won’t know who we are or what to think. And he will clear out the universities from their communist leadership.

Every time he names Biden or any other Democrat, he puts a pejorative adjective in front of the name. He extols future great Republican leaders, such as Boebert, and Greene and Goetz. Nothing he says has more than a shade of truth, and most of it contains absolutely no truth. But people believe this, and there is no sign that they have stopped believing this.

It may be that no, or very few, Democrats have gone over to the dark side, and hopefully, there are independents that would vote Democratic who last election did not, but the fact is that the polls don’t show that (even if some of the mid-terms do). And if the independents are swayed by the possibility of a No-Label candidate, while some on the left are convinced to show their support for Cornell West on the Green Party, we may find ourselves living again with Trump as president and, this time, with the GOP controlling both houses of Congress.

As Biden’s popularity continues to stagnate at the 40% level, and as Kamala Harris’ popularity is even lower, the Democrats (and that includes Biden and Harris themselves) should be considering fresh faces in 2024. And time is drawing near.

It should not be seen as a rebuke to the incumbents, but as a way to ensure a Democratic victory. Biden has been doing a fine job, but he has not caught the imagination of the country’s voters, and without voter support, you are not going to win. And his being 82 at the time of his second inauguration is crucial, because the likelihood is that his vice president is going to spend some time as president, or at least as an acting president. And Americans seem clearly to think that Kamala Harris is not the person for this job. Whether she is or not is beyond the point.

Fresh faces would encourage voters not to stay home, they would encourage supporters of a No Label candidate to stop their efforts, they might even slow down Cornell West. The right choices could build on the Biden presidency, but look toward the future.

I see no sign that the Democrats are planning to do this. And all of us, not only in this country but elsewhere, are likely to suffer if they do not.

We who operate with a modicum of common sense and reason cannot imagine that anybody can believe anything that Trump is saying. But of course, that is just what those with common sense and reason said about Hitler and Mussolini before they solidified their power.

I know, still deja vu all over again.