Has Trump driven the Democrats sane?

Rich Lowry writes:

The Joe Biden polling surge has raised the frightful specter of Democratic rationality.

What if Donald Trump hasn’t driven Democrats insane, sending them into a spiral of self-defeating radicalism, but instead made them shockingly pragmatic?

The hard core activists probably do not fit this diagnosis. But they are not a majority of all Democrats, who are showing indeed signs of sanity.

Biden’s early strength suggests it may be the latter, that the reaction to Trump is so intense that it has crossed some sort of event horizon from fevered fantasy of his leaving office early via resignation or impeachment to a cold-eyed, win-at-any-cost practicality.
If this is true, one of the exogenous factors that could appreciably increase Trump’s odds of reelection — a zany Democratic nomination contest leading to a nominee much too far left for the American electorate — may not materialize.

You can’t rule out the Democrats will go down this path, but early polls show surprisingly strong support for Biden.

Biden in primary polls is between 29% and 46%. A long way back is Sanders between 13% and 25% then Warren between 5% and 10%. On average we have Biden 37%, Sanders 17% and Warren 8%.

The latest Iowa poll is similiar with Biden 35%, Sanders 14%, Buttigieg 11% and Warren 10%.

The commonsense play for the Democrats has always been to nominate a nonsocialist with appeal to Obama-to-Trump voters in former Blue Wall states — if not necessarily Biden, then someone with a similar relatively moderate profile.
If hardly dispositive, Biden’s robust numbers at least suggest that this play is more likely than it seemed in the very early going, when candidates were stumbling over one another apologizing for sundry alleged offenses in the Woke Olympics.

The Woke Olympics – I like it.