While most conservatives were appalled at Joe Biden’s ugly and divisive speech last week, his handlers didn’t send him out there on a Nazi-style stage to warn of “MAGA threats” for no reason. And Peter Heck hits the nail on the head:

There’s one word to describe what President Biden offered in front of Independence Hall, flanked by Marines and an unsettling lighting scheme: bait.

That’s all it was. It was politics. It was gamesmanship. It was bait.

The realities on the ground are alarming for Americans: Crime rates are up, the economic strain for an insecure border is increasing precipitously, cost of living has skyrocketed, grocery costs are up, inflation has spiked, gas prices are stubbornly high, and the federal government can’t stop sending billions of dollars to fund a foreign country’s war. With midterm elections less than 70 days away, the party that controls all federal outposts of elected government is desperate to distract from those inconvenient truths.

Obviously, none of that is a good platform to run on. Hence the change of subject Biden is bringing about.

Even if the modern Democrat Party can’t give you any reasonable justification to vote for them, they can give you one compelling reason not to vote for Republicans: Donald J. Trump.

I’m shocked by the number of Republicans who continue indignantly scoffing at the prospect that Joe Biden could motivate 81 million citizens to vote for him in the last election. He didn’t. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that as many as 90% of Biden voters were driven to the polls in 2020 not to vote for him, but to vote against Trump. Whatever love and admiration Trump inspires among his loyal followers, he arouses even more resentment and hostility throughout the rest of the electorate, particularly with the all-important independent voters.

So what smarter move could the Democrat Party standard-bearer make than to declare the upcoming election is about Trump and Trumpism, not about inflation, border crises, gas prices, and staggering cost of living increases?

The public character of Donald Trump is the singular issue that Democrats want to run on. If they could put every 2022 Republican congressional candidate in a Trump suit, they would, because it’s an issue they will win with the American people — particularly moderates.

Heck goes on to say that Biden’s speech was “unsettling” and shouldn’t be appealing to anyone, especially given the “horribly inappropriate backdrop,” not to mention all the money Democrats have spent elevating the very Republicans Biden condemned in his speech. He concludes:

The only real question left is whether or not it works. For his part, Donald Trump will certainly take the bait. In some ways, he and the Democrats are motivated by the same objective: keep Donald Trump in the news cycle. The former president responded to Biden’s speech by teasing that he would issue pardons for all January 6th Capitol Hill rioters should be become president again. Partisan news media will begin dutifully carrying out their end of the corrupt bargain they have with Democrats by asking every 2022 Republican candidate if they agree.

And every second that Democrat candidates spend attacking — and Republican candidates spend defending — the latest Trump take, is a second not spent addressing the colossal train wreck Biden and his progressive allies have facilitated in both foreign and domestic policy the last two years.

Read the whole thing here.