Trump is already acting like he’s won. It’s because he already has | David Penberthy

The Democrats have made two fatal mistakes in their mission to keep the evilly gifted insurrectionist Donald Trump out of the White House, writes David Penberthy.

It seems ridiculous that barely a generation ago we had a debate in this country about whether a 64-year-old man at the height of his political powers was still mentally and physically capable of leading the country.

Fast forward to 2024 and we have a situation where the leader of the free world looks like he’s escaped from an old folk’s home in a highly confused state.

After two successful terms in office and having just won a third term in a landslide, John Howard was facing mounting pressure to reveal whether he would continue as Liberal leader beyond his 64th birthday or pass the reins to his treasurer Peter Costello.

With a nod to The Beatles, Howard created a rod for his own back when he half-jokingly said on radio in the year 2000 that he would consider the retirement question “when I’m 64”.

Being too nice by half, Costello never had the mongrel to go after Howard properly, and made the fatal error of hoping his boss would shuffle off into the night.

It was a forlorn hope.

Howard figured that having beaten Paul Keating, seen off Kim Beazley in 1998 while also promising a GST, swatted away Simon Crean, and then trounced Beazley a second time in 2001 over national security, the best person to keep the show on the road for the Libs was Howard himself.

He was right, easily knocking off Mark Latham at the 2004 poll, only losing when he outstayed his welcome in 2007.

Prime Minister John Howard, left, was almost 20 years younger than Biden and Trump when he saw off the challenge from Mark Latham in 2004. Picture: John Feder

John Howard is now 84 and like most people that age he has slowed down a bit.

But since losing as PM he has still proved an effective weapon for the Liberals, rolling himself out at multiple state and federal campaigns to throw a few haymakers for his side of politics.

Joe Biden is three years younger than John Howard and already making much less sense than our former prime minister ever has.

The saying holds that age is a state of mind.

There’s another saying, the origins of which are unclear, which says that while 60 is the new 50, and 70 is the new 60, 80 is still 80.

The saying does not hold true of all 80-year-olds, some of whom have a sprightliness that belies their advanced years. Joe Biden is not one of those 80-year-olds.

It is pitiful to watch the poor American president as he tries to comprehend questions and communicate the simplest messages.

Even watching him walking is nerve-wracking. It’s like watching your kid in a school play. You don’t really enjoy it, you just hope nothing bad happens.

One of the worst examples came this week with his impromptu meanderings about the possibility of a ceasefire within the coming days in Gaza.

Not only did none of the key participants or observers of this conflict back his assertion, it was made even more unusual by the fact that the President was standing there holding an ice cream at the time.

He looked like he was going to lick it but then paused to give his dubious dissertation on the swift prospect of peace in the Middle East.

The way he was holding the cone it looked as if he had confused it with a microphone, and was probably lucky he didn’t tap it twice and say “two, two” to see if it was on.

I know there are a lot of people wearing red baseball hats in the US who get off on watching these scenes.

US President Joe Biden, flanked by host Seth Meyers, eats an ice cream cone at Van Leeuwen Ice Cream after taping an episode of "Late Night with Seth Meyers" in New York City on February 26. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

There’s a few of them here in Australia, and no doubt they’ll be firing up in the comments section, getting their thrills watching this poor old bugger declining before our very eyes and handing the presidency back to Donald Trump.

I can’t think of a much more frightening scenario than having a genuine insurrectionist, who incited an uprising in which people were actually killed, being given a rail’s run back to the White House.

If Trump was crazy the first time, imagine how he’ll behave the second time round, emboldened by his sense of confected persecution, still claiming to have won an election he so clearly lost.

Even now as he prepares for his second presidential bid, his total indifference to the proper order of things and his complete ignorance of history is on full display.

How remarkable that the party of Ronald Reagan, the man who implored Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down that wall, is odds-on to be led by a guy who is ambivalent about the illegal annexation of Ukraine, has failed to mention the apparent assassination of Alexei Navalny, and will even goad Russia into attacking NATO partners who haven’t paid their bills.

Trump is already acting like he’s won. It’s because he already has.

The Democrats have made two key mistakes.

First, they turned him into a martyr with all the frivolous state-based legal cases against him, all of which strengthens his claims to be the victim of a conspiracy.

Second, they are feeding Biden to the lions by letting him run again.

The first debate, if it indeed is a head-to-head contest between Trump and Biden, will be like watching a young Muhammad Ali stroll into your local and pick a fight with the drunkest guy in the room. Trump will literally kill him.

And given that poor Joe looks like a puff of air would knock him for six, being pitted against such an evilly gifted communicator will be a one-sided shellacking.

To use an Australianism to round this one out, someone in the Dems needs to have a quiet word with the old guy and give him the same advice Labor’s Gareth Evans did to Bill Hayden when Bob Hawke was waiting in the wings in 1983.

Pack it in, digger, the dogs are pissing on your swag.

Originally published as Trump is already acting like he’s won. It’s because he already has | David Penberthy