[Make sure to read Robert Spencer’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-California SSR) has just thrown cold water on the persistent idea that he will step in for the senescent corruptocrat Old Joe Biden and his cackling sidekick Kamala Harris and become the Marxist, uh, that is, Democrat party’s nominee in 2024. On Monday, the telegenic and ambitious slayer of California insisted that Old Joe has been a remarkably effective president, and Newsom’s words weren’t as ridiculous as they appeared at first glance: if the objective was to weaken and ultimately destroy the United States, then yeah, Biden has done a terrific job.

The Daily Caller reported Monday that Newsom sat down with CNN propagandist Dana Bash to declare his undying love for Old Joe and The Cackler. It’s unclear what game Newsom is playing at this point, but it may be that he is presenting himself as the insider, the loyalist, who will be a safe choice (as opposed to the renegade Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) for the political elites if they decide that they can’t keep up the Biden charade any longer, that Kamala is never going to cut it on the big stage, and that Michelle Obama just can’t be persuaded to become her husband’s new mouthpiece.

Bash asked Newsom if voters had any “reason to be concerned” about Old Joe’s advanced age; she didn’t say anything about Biden’s even more advanced incapacity, but Newsom did his best to address both Old Joe’s age and his ability. “Voters have every right to be concerned,” Newsom began generously, and then audaciously invoked the sainted father of the party’s current bad-boy outsider: “I remember Bobby Kennedy said it best, what the world needs are the qualities of youth, not a time of life, but a state of mind. A quality of imagination.”

Was Newsom saying with a straight face that the dementia-addled Biden’s “state of mind” reflected “the qualities of youth”? Why, yes. Newsom himself had the “quality of imagination” necessary to construct a fictional Biden for Dana Bash’s witless leftist audience. He continued with rising enthusiasm, “I couldn’t imagine three years ago that this president could accomplish so much in such a short period of time. I mean that.” Of course. If an open Southern border, international humiliation in the Afghanistan withdrawal, and ever-rising gas prices and overall inflation were the goal, then Old Joe has done a bang-up job indeed.

Newsom, whose socialist mismanagement has caused a record decline in the population of California, added, said that the Biden regime had given the world a “masterclass,” which certainly explains why he himself has been such a disastrous governor. “There’s simply no administration in my lifetime that’s been more effective,” Newsom added, and once again, that all depends on one’s definition of “effective.” If destroying America as a superpower and even as a nation-state in the service of globalism and socialism is what you’re after, then yes, no previous administration can touch the record of the Biden regime.

Newsom even thinks, or wants us to think, that Old Joe can sell America on four more years of his America-Last misrule. Bash asked him: “And you think he’s gonna be able to convince the American people that he has the vitality to handle a second term?” Newsom declared that it was all about just “bringing a team together” — presumably a team of accomplished Orwellian truth-twisters.

Bash also asked Newsom if Kamala Harris was the “best” person to run with Old Joe, and Newsom would have none of the Dump Kamala talk. “Of course she is!” he cried. “Biden-Harris administration. Masterclass in terms of performance….The answer is absolutely.”

Of course, it is. Newsom is the candidate for Democrats who want to drop Biden and Harris but maintain the façade that their regime has been an unmitigated cornucopia of delight for the American people. Now if they could just get Old Joe to be led by his handlers back to his taxpayer-funded walled Delaware beach house for the last time and manufacture for Harris some reason why she wants to spend more time with her family rather than be the left’s forever-storied first woman president, Newsom will be in. If that day ever comes, the demolisher of California will be ready.