The Democrats had plenty of time to edge Biden out. Despite all the talk, no one seriously tried to do it.

Now they’re stuck.

The DNC rigged the primaries for Biden. He’s the nominee. There are possible convention challenges, but they’re a longshot because the power behind Joe Biden isn’t Jill Biden (many seem to think that a D of Ed community college talent is the Machiavelli here), but a network of political careerists who are using him and who in traditional fashion control the DNC. They’d have to be dealt in or crushed and the whole show would further wreck the party’s standing. It’s an open question if the Dems suffer worse with Biden on the ballot or a divisive convention fight that splits the party. Any talk of a 25th Amendment would be the same problem x 10.

Can the Dems get Biden out?

It’s possible. But it would require a rapid concerted effort to inform Biden that he can’t run again and has to announce that he will drop out for health reasons (and maybe to be there for Hunter and his family.)

That means Obama, Hillary and every influential party figure staging an intervention, it means informing key DNC people that unless they switch sides, they will be blacklisted, and making it clear that there is no longer an option in which Biden is the candidate.

Can this happen? Yes. But it would require getting everyone on board. And that would be a challenge (but much less than it would have been last week).

And yet at the end of the day, Biden can (and very well might) tell them to all go to hell. Obama was able to persuade Biden not to run in 2016. He may be less persuadable now. That leaves few good options.

I suspect Biden can be pressured to drop out. The Left managed to convince Justice Breyer to leave the Supreme Court. Biden isn’t exactly the picture of resilience now. But he does get the final word.

And if he doesn’t want to go, making him go will be difficult, devastating, and perhaps next to impossible.

The other problem with this scenario is that it leaves Kamala as the candidate. Much as the Dems would love to bring in Gov. Newsom (and I know people keep having Michelle fantasies despite the fact that she combines all the least likable aspects of Hillary and Kamala and none of the positive ones and also doesn’t want to run), getting Kamala out would be even harder because she’s not senile and the electoral existence of the party depends on black women.

The Dems are stuck. And they did this to himself.

There’s a lot of panicked talk among top Dems. Will the talk lead to any meaningful action or just (in typical D.C. fashion) soothing calls, promises of more access, excuses, and projections?

Few conservatives believed me when I said that Biden would run again and would be the nominee. Because disasters tend to be entirely foreseeable, I still think the odds are that the party will not drop him.

(But if there was ever a decision point that would lead to dropping him, that debate was it.)