Orangemanbad flips states Red.

This week, the president took a trip to Virginia to try to help salvage the gubernatorial prospects of fellow Washington lifer Terry McAuliffe. President Joe Biden used the appearance to liken the GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin to Jan. 6 rioters, to lie about Republicans supporting “book bans” and to attempt to goad former President Donald Trump into coming to Virginia. (Mission accomplished? Perhaps not.)

Biden wants to talk about one person these days, and that person isn’t Biden. Then again, what does he possibly have to brag about? Shutting down COVID? More Americans have died from the disease this year than last year, even with the emergence of vaccines. “I will not shut down the country,” Biden promised during his campaign. “I will shut down the virus.”

Now, of course coronavirus isn’t really the president’s fault. But since Biden had no compunction blaming Trump personally for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of citizens, no one can fault voters for using the same standard of culpability now.

Is Biden going to brag about overseeing what promises to be the weakest economic recovery since the last time he was put in charge of such things? Rather than looking for ways to create more opportunities for American workers, the president has been clamoring to put millions of them on the dole.

Is the president going to talk about the border? Is he once again going to explain how high inflation is actually a positive development for most consumers? Is he going to brag about his foreign policy? When was the last time an American president abandoned hundreds of US citizens to a terror regime?

After 13 service members were murdered by terrorists in Kabul, due in part to his administration’s stark incompetence, we proceeded to accidentally kill seven children in retaliation. The terrorists disappeared only slightly faster than the media coverage.

No, Biden is going to talk about Trump.

It’s worth mentioning, as well, that while Democrats were in a constant state of feigned dismay over the lack of decorum during the Trump years — Biden often promised to “restore decency” to the White House — they are just as guilty of corroding our public discourse.

On Youngkin, for example, Biden said, “Extremism can come in many forms. It can come in the rage of a mob driven to assault the Capitol. It can come in a smile and a fleece vest.” It isn’t surprising to hear unhinged pundits conflating the Jan. 6 rioters with Republicans who have never uttered a word of support for the attack on the Capitol, but coming from the president of the United States, a president whose campaign was grounded on the promise of mending a frayed nation and normalizing political behavior, it’s particularly ugly.