President Donald Trump‘s arrival on the political scene 10 years ago has served to radicalize Democrats into an extraordinary level of derangement.

We’ve had the Russian collusion hoax and two baseless impeachments. We’ve had coordinated efforts with the media and Big Tech to suppress reporting on former President Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s foreign influence-peddling operation. We’ve had the lawfare that followed Trump’s 2022 decision to run for reelection. Put simply, we’ve seen Democrats orchestrate one political fraud after another. 

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But the party may have finally jumped the shark when it chose to elevate — and then prop up — a man in cognitive decline as its figurehead. From the moment Biden launched his campaign in April 2019, it was clear his mental acuity was slipping. Conservatives noticed. So did many independents. In April 2020, then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson posed a series of questions to his viewers: “Ask yourself, is Joe Biden ready to lead this country? Could he find his car in a three-tiered parking garage? Could he navigate a salad bar? … Those are the mysteries Democrats now face.”

Few can forget Biden’s embarrassing moments on the 2020 campaign trail, including during a now-infamous rally when he appeared to coin a new term: “trunalimunumaprzure.” Nevertheless, despite Biden’s fifth-place finish in the 2020 New Hampshire primary, coming off a fourth-place result in the Iowa caucuses, the Democrats were able to pull off a Biden victory.

After New Hampshire, Biden’s campaign was on life support. But what followed was nothing short of miraculous. Alarmed by the prospect of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a self-identifying Democratic socialist, securing the nomination, the Democratic machine moved to engineer a Biden comeback in the South Carolina primary.

Just days before Biden’s resounding victory in the state, he received the coveted endorsement of Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), South Carolina’s most influential Democrat. After Biden’s landslide win in the Palmetto State, candidates Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) quickly exited the race. A wave of endorsements from establishment figures followed, including one from former President Barack Obama.

Then came what may be remembered as the most extraordinary 72 hours in modern U.S. political history. Buttigieg and Klobuchar flew to Dallas, Texas, to endorse Biden at a rally on the eve of Super Tuesday. Two days later, Biden’s spectacular performance catapulted him from dead man walking to front-runner.

A month later, Sanders lost his lead and trailed Biden by over 300 delegates. He — and everyone else — understood exactly how and why the Democratic Party snatched away what, only weeks earlier, seemed like a sure path to the nomination.

In early April, Sanders announced he was suspending his campaign. But anyone who closely listened to his speech could tell he had no intention of abandoning his progressive ambitions. While Sanders called Biden “a very decent man,” he did not endorse him. Instead, Sanders pledged to remain on the ballot in order to accumulate as many delegates as possible ahead of the convention. His goal, which he openly admitted, was to “exert significant influence over the party platform and other functions.”

Well aware of his leverage, Sanders forced the Biden campaign to adopt parts of his progressive agenda in return for his endorsement. According to the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel, “Within hours of the Sanders announcement, newspapers were reporting that the two camps were in negotiations over which Sanders policies Mr. Biden would need to adopt to get Bernie’s blessing.”

Strassel reported that a coalition of eight progressive groups, including the Justice Democrats, wrote to Biden following Bernie’s announcement that if he wants their support, he must agree to their demands:

Biden must endorse the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, a 50% reduction in prison populations, a wealth tax, cancellation of student debt, free undergraduate tuition in public institutions, abolishing the filibuster, packing the Supreme Court, federal gun licensing, and abortion subsidized by federal taxpayers.

Many of Biden’s positions had already moved to the left in a big way. By caving to these new demands, which included Sanders’s input into the selection of Cabinet members, there wasn’t much difference between a Biden and a Sanders candidacy. 

It was, in essence, a political shakedown. But because Biden didn’t clinch the nomination through his own momentum — rather, it was conferred upon him — he was in no position to resist. Thus, the candidate who campaigned as a centrist went on to preside over the most progressive administration in U.S. political history.

And all the while, his cognitive abilities continued to steadily deteriorate.

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Voters didn’t need a flurry of exposés to realize they were lied to. Much of the Democrats’ malfeasance is now a matter of public record. Party leaders didn’t just bend the rules — they bulldozed them, all in the name of power. 

So what now? Is redemption even possible for a party that sold out its principles and sacrificed national unity to cling to power? Can Democrats walk back a decade of damage — to trust, to institutions, to the very fabric of American life? Or will the bitter legacy of Biden’s corrupt presidency serve as the enduring symbol of a party that traded credibility for control, and lost both in the process?