One of the wisest truisms in modern American politics comes from former Mississippi Republican Gov. Haley Barbour: “In politics, good gets better, and bad gets worse.”

President Joe Biden is getting worse.

It wasn’t until his diminishing mental capacity became so undeniable at the first presidential debate in Atlanta that leading Democratic Party elected officials and their legacy media partners found it in their interest both to admit it and begin publicly confronting it.

How did we arrive at a moment when it appears likely that Democrats will jettison their nominee and sitting president roughly 140 days before the presidential election? Four historical decision points now appear visible in hindsight, and those seeds planted back then are now being harvested.

First, Biden was never going to be president of the United States until he was plucked from oblivion heading into the South Carolina primary in 2020. When he was a sitting vice president, his own President Barack Obama urged him (through adviser David Plouffe) not to run for president in 2016, as Obama would support Hillary Clinton, presumably as payback for her begrudging support in 2008 and her service as secretary of state.

Remember: Biden had finished fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire before Democratic bigwigs fell in line behind kingmaker Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), who delivered South Carolina and the rest of the nomination to Biden in short order. No, Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wouldn’t be allowed to be the nominee that year.

Second, in an attempt to seal a gold medal in the woke Olympics, Biden made the irresponsible promise to nominate a “Black female” as vice president, violating the only ironclad rule of nominating a vice president: only select someone who can unquestionably be president of the U.S. After deciding that laughable finalists Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) and former Obama national security adviser and political neophyte Susan Rice were unqualified to be vice president, he landed on Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA).

Harris quickly flamed out in her own 2020 presidential bid, flubbing the debates, viciously (and falsely) attacking Biden in the process, losing support rapidly, and running such a poor campaign that she didn’t even make it to Iowa. As vice president, Harris has even worse approval ratings than Biden, and nearly every assignment she has been given has been an abject failure. She will never be a credible presidential nominee, or president, and no amount of media promotion, Hollywood boosting, or revisionist history can change that fact.

Third, after Biden’s disastrous first debate, it is now clear that if he cannot remain the presidential nominee, then he can also not remain president of the U.S. for the next six months, as China threatens Taiwan, war rages in Ukraine and in the Middle East, and the FBI director has testified that the current domestic threat matrix is the most serious since 9/11. If his mental capacity is so poor that he cannot be the nominee, how can he still be in charge of the nuclear codes and “run the world,” as he boasted to George Stephanopoulos of ABC News?

Fourth, all of this was avoidable in 2024 had the Democrats, who claim to be courageous and principled protectors of democracy, allowed an open competition for the Democratic presidential nomination last year. Instead, they changed the election calendar to benefit Biden, denied all proposed debates, punished anyone who threatened to challenge their anointed nominee, and denied their voters a legitimate chance to force Biden to answer questions so he could demonstrate that he was up to the hardest job in the world for another four years.

Now the Democrats are in an impossible position with four (and only four) horrific options: 1) run a lame horse (Biden) in the most important race in modern American history, 2) push him out but allow him to finish his term and anoint Harris as the nominee, 3) allow an open convention in Chicago and give their nominee (if it isn’t Biden or Harris) only eight weeks to raise $1 billion to compete, and 4) use the 25th Amendment to remove Biden from office and force the change they desire.

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If they move toward anointing Harris, she will have to answer for her atrocious record as vice president. But even more importantly, she will have to answer for her participation in the cover-up of Biden’s health, which has lasted his entire term and of which she has direct knowledge.

The Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for their current predicament.

Matt Mackowiak is the president of Potomac Strategy Group and a former press secretary to two U.S. senators.