Democrats packed into Temple University’s Liacouras Center in Philadelphia for the new Democratic ticket’s first rally. Earlier that morning, news broke that Vice President Kamala Harris had picked Minnesota’s Governor Tim Walz as her running mate. The choice simultaneously carried undertones of 2008, when the younger Barack Obama chose an older, white, generic politician in Senator Joe Biden, and 2016, when Hillary Clinton picked the low-name-ID Senator Tim Kaine to appear moderate. Notably absent from this rally, however, was the now-President Joe Biden, known for playing up his Pennsylvania roots.

More than two and a half weeks since Biden dropped out of the 2024 election, the public continues to have zero answers as to why and how Biden came to his decision. The only justification provided thus far came in the president’s Oval Office address the night of July 25: “saving our democracy.”

“I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America's future all merited a second term,” Biden claimed in his short address, “but nothing—nothing—can come in the way of saving our democracy.”

While Biden believes he deserves a second term, Harris and the Democrats clearly do not. If it wasn’t obvious enough when they openly orchestrated a coup against the sitting president, Biden continues to be sidelined from the Harris campaign. Despite unveiling the 2024 ticket in the Scranton-born Biden’s own backyard, Harris and the Democrats preferred Biden remain on Pennsylvania Ave. rather than make the short trip to the Keystone State.

This wasn’t how Biden envisioned things going when he cleared the way for Harris’s ascent by dropping out and quickly issuing an endorsement for his number two. At one of Harris’s first campaign events, from campaign headquarters in Delaware, Biden phoned in. “I’m going to be on the road,” Biden told the campaign team. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to be out there on the campaign with her, with Kamala. I’m going to be working like hell both as a sitting president, getting legislation passed, as well as in campaigning.”

But in the defining moment of the Harris campaign in Philadelphia, old Scranton Joe was nowhere to be seen. Why? Because Democrats are trying to pull the biggest sleight of hand on the American people in presidential election history by expecting the public to believe that the sitting vice president of the United States—a vice president tasked with securing the border and negotiating peace in Ukraine—has nothing at all to do with the current administration.

It’s a heavy lift, but,  as the polls tighten, it seems to be working for now.  The Trump campaign expected as much. After the Democratic donor class hand-picked Harris as the nominee, overriding the will of their primary voters, the Trump campaign sent out a memo from pollster Tony Fabrizio. Fabrizio predicted a “honeymoon” phase for the Harris campaign, spurred on by positive coverage in the media, in which the polls would tighten. “But the fundamentals of the race stay the same,” Fabrizio continued. “Before long, Harris’s ‘honeymoon’ will end and voters will refocus on her role as Biden’s partner and co-pilot.”

I’d say Harris represents another four years of Joe Biden, but maybe it’s the other way around. Scratching Scranton Joe from the ticket and then icing him out of the campaign is only further confirmation from Democrats that Biden has not actually been running the show for some time; maybe Biden’s first term represents four disastrous years of Harris at the helm. Now, despite out-of-control immigration, high inflation, and a campus intifada, she’s asking for four more.