Nolte: Joe Biden’s Rope-a-Dope Is Working Brilliantly Against Trump

Let me tell you why I believe the polls… Because in 2016, the polls were accurate. No, not the state polls. The state polls were way off. The average of the national polls, however, was almost exactly correct.

President Trump lost the national popular vote in 2016 by 2.1 points — and just barely beat Hillary Clinton.

The average of the national polls in 2016 had Trump behind Hillary by 3.2 points.

So, as you can see, the average of the 2016 national polls was only off by 1.1 points. That’s what you call some damn fine polling, and right now, those very same damn fine polls have Trump losing to Joe Biden by 9.2 points.

And these polls were all taken before the president stupidly tweeted out video of an idiot yelling “White Power!”

Donald Trump is not only losing this election, if the election were held today, his loss would possibly be catastrophic, would be remembered as one of the most humiliating in history. He’s not only facing a landslide rejection of epic proportions, he’s losing to a 77-year-old imbecile and racist who’s hiding out in his basement.

How is this possible?

How is it even remotely possible Joe Biden is kicking Trump’s butt?

How is it possible that a full-blown idiot whose mental acuity deteriorates by the day, whose racist past would result in his statue being toppled, who has been in office for nearly 50 failed years, is now on the road to humiliating the president of the United States?

The answer is simple: Biden and his team have cracked Trump’s code. They got his number…

First off, Biden is not Hillary Clinton. The shrill, corrupt, and extreme Clinton was and is loathed by just about everyone. Biden is not loathed. He’s seen as kind of goofy, not terribly smart, prone to saying a lot of dumb things, but he’s not seen as shrill, crooked, or extreme.

And what this means is Biden is the most important thing you can be while running against an incumbent president: an “acceptable alternative.”

And when you are running against a president whose disapproval ratings hover between 50 and 55 percent (Rasmussen has Trump’s disapproval rating at 55 percent today), all you need be is an “acceptable alternative.”

And this is why Biden is hiding out in his basement, and this is why the establishment media are allowing Biden to hide out in his basement. The less Biden says, the fewer positions he takes, the more he is able to remain pure as the acceptable alternative, the better chance of removing Trump.

Biden is wisely sitting on his lead and running out the clock, and the media, which is willing to do anything to remove Trump from office (encourage riots, etc.), is happy to allow Biden to run out the clock.

Further, Biden is going out of his way to not stir up drama. You see, his campaign understands that the public is exhausted by Trump’s daily drama. Of course, not all of the drama is Trump’s fault. But too much of it is, and these unforced errors play directly into the message Biden’s selling, which is… A Return to Calm and Normalcy.

Meanwhile, Trump, primarily through his undisciplined Twitter account, is promising four more years of Not this shit again. And you all know what I mean, because you’ve all felt it.

As far as having Trump’s number, Biden and his team have figured out they don’t need to go toe-to-toe with Trump. In fact, they have figured out that’s how you lose to Trump — by getting in the mud with him. So they’re just laying on the ropes like Ali against Foreman while Trump punches himself out.

Yep, Team Biden has figured out the only person who can beat Trump is Trump, and right now Trump is beating himself.

And watching this is especially frustrating, because…

All Trump had to do was remain steady. That’s it. That’s all he had to do.

Let me give you the perfect example of what I mean…

Even as Iraq fell apart, even as the media did everything in its power to destroy him, even as the economy stalled, I watched George W. Bush win re-election in 2004 simply by remaining steady. Bush stayed on his talking points, refused to be baited by the media, projected calm in the eye of a hurricane, and rose above the fray. That’s why he won.

Although he had the media on his side in 2012, Barack Obama did the same as the Benghazi story blew up in his re-election face. He remained calm, cool, composed, and that’s what got him through.

Trump is doing just the opposite.

Although he managed the coronavirus and the economic crash rather well, what he has refused to do is the one thing Americans want most from a president during a crisis, and that’s to remain steady, calm, and composed. All Trump had to do was be cool over these past few months, but instead, he’s continued to behave as though unemployment is at three percent instead of 13, as though 120,000 Americans are not dead, as though millions of us were not locked down for no valid reason, as though we’re not entering month two of nationwide riots.

Back in April, I saw what was happening… Trump had been earning high marks from the public — and deservedly so — for his and his administration’s handling of the coronavirus. Up until then, the president displayed dynamic leadership, got things done, rose above partisanship, refused to be baited by the media, and remained presidential…

And then he allowed the media to get under his skin, and it all fell apart. Even as he did a good job managing the dual crises of the virus and the economy, he squandered the public’s goodwill (and his soaring approval numbers) by allowing the media to get under his skin.

Simply put, Trump lost his composure. His allowed his daily coronavirus briefings to devolve into tedious, exhausting, counter-productive marathon grudge matches with the media and Democrats, he used his Twitter account to accuse Joe Scarborough of murder, and once the 1619 Riots began, his tweeting only got worse — from shouting LAW & ORDER to complaining about polls and cable news segments to tweeting out that “white power” moron.

Right now, Trump is running the stupidest and most self-destructive re-election campaign in modern history. Instead of disqualifying Biden, he’s disqualifying himself when all he had to do was rise above the fray, all he had to do was what he has promised he could do anytime he wanted — be boringly presidential.

What’s more, instead of complaining about what someone said about him on cable news and threatening suit over polls, he needs to clearly define what a second Trump term will look like and contrast himself with Biden, who is right now getting away with posing as a moderate, even though he has moved to the far-left and made deals with the far-left that are deeply unpopular with the public — including gun-grabbing, the New Green Deal, higher taxes, and looking the other way as crazed Marxists topple statues, loot, and burn. Biden is not an acceptable alternative, but only Trump can make that case.

What’s especially frustrating about this is that Trump is being played by the media. If Trump had a lick of sense, if he would stop making everything about Trump, and he would rise above as his surrogates slugged it out with the fake news media (Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany is more than up to this task).

If Trump had a lick of sense, he would figure out that the best way to drive his enemies crazy, the easiest way to defeat them, would be by rising above the fray, by refusing to take their bait, and remaining boringly presidential. But instead, he’s putting himself on the fast-track of ensuring his legacy of a one-term president is that of a fluke or mistake; he’s practically guaranteeing that almost everything he’s accomplished will be reversed by President Biden, Speaker Pelosi, and a Democrat-led senate that on day one kills the filibuster.

Those of you who believe the debates will make the difference, that Slow Joe won’t be able to hide behind the media…

Well, that’s another huge mistake Trump’s making — managing expectations… From “one million are going to show up in Tulsa” to “Biden is barely functional.”

Instead of laying the groundwork for the debates by reminding the public that Biden is a skilled politician and very good debater (as he proved during the primary, including his one-on-one with Bernie), Trump has practically guaranteed that Biden walks out of the debate a winner if he manages to not fall to the ground and start sucking his thumb.

Trump’s re-election campaign is in very serious trouble right now, and he does not have until November or even October to turn it around. Mail-in and absentee voting starts in about ten weeks, which means he needs to turn it around yesterday.

 Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.