At this point, Biden is running on little more than fumes and righteousness. In his televised antigun speech Thursday night, Biden proclaimed that he expected most people "to turn your outrage into making this issue [assault weapons] central to your vote." Biden's histrionic spiel was far more likely to turbo-charge gun owners than gun banners and could be another coffin nail for Democratic candidates in middle America. Biden perennially tells audiences that banning assault weapons is justified because the Second Amendment didn't permit Americans to own cannons—a falsehood that even The Washington Post has repeatedly derided.

Inflation is the top issue by a wide margin for Americans nowadays. Biden's inflation will soon have inflicted a 10 percent cut in the purchasing power of Americans' paychecks. But Biden is indignant at criticism of his policies. When Peter Doocy of Fox News asked about the impact in January, Biden called him "a stupid son of a bitch." In a March speech to Democratic members of Congress, Biden raged at being blamed for inflation: "I'm sick of this stuff!…We have to talk about it because the American people think the reason for inflation is the government spending more money. Simply. Not. True."