At some point, the more sensible members of Biden’s party will come to recognize that they have tied themselves to a buffoon. Barack Obama famously warned his fellow Democrats that they should not “underestimate Joe’s ability to f*** things up,” and yet, for the last six months, that is precisely what they have done. The results have been deleterious. In the space of a fortnight, the president’s approval rating has dropped dramatically — so far, in fact, that he may even be underwater in his home state of Delaware — and an environment that was already looking promising for Republicans has begun to look downright appealing. Knowing what they now know, do the many swing-district Democrats who eked out victories in 2020 really want to throw in their lot with this guy?

If they do, they cannot say they were not warned. From the moment that he won the nomination, there have existed two cases for Joe Biden, one plausible and one absurd. The plausible case was that, as a relatively inoffensive mediocrity, Biden would be able to win an election against Donald Trump. The absurd case was that Biden was a smart, wise, decent, sober, incisive, even-tempered, and politically moderate man who would excel at being president of the United States. Until the last week, the fact that so many ostensibly intelligent people felt obliged to make the latter case could be explained away as a hangover from the derangement of the last five years. But that excuse no longer holds water. Abandon hope, all ye who follow now.