On this 247th anniversary of our nation’s independence, America is a starkly divided place marked by a deep-seeded, underlying depression.

Vast numbers of our countrymen increasingly live in self-ratifying, self-righteous echo chambers on opposite political poles. Overlap and common ground are lacking. Ditto for mutual respect and good faith.

Economist Herbert Stein remarked, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”

It is through that lens that I assess the coming presidential race. As it now stacks up, this contest is both a symptom and cause of our national dispiritedness.

Whether you preferred Charles Bronson in the original film or Bruce Willis in the remake, “Death Wish” seems to be fitting narrative for the approach of both parties.

On one side, despite an apparent abundance of viable candidates of varying degrees of political talent and chops, Republicans seem determined to again rally, cult-like, behind a proven loser of diminishing appeal and escalating liabilities.

Donald Trump threaded the thinnest of needles in 2016 to beat a particularly unattractive Democratic nominee with her own boatload of baggage. Since then, it has been one electoral defeat after another. That includes the GOP’s off-year wipeout in 2018; Trump’s own reelection loss in 2020; and, the party’s stunning underperformance even amidst favorable political conditions this past November.

Were Trump to return to reality television, it would not be as host of The Apprentice but as the namesake of The Biggest Loser.

The story of Trump’s 2016 win rested with voters who professed to hate both him and Hillary Clinton. That subset of voters held their nose, rolled the dice and went with Trump by a decisive 70-30 margin.

Now fast forward to the current tense. Surveys of those claiming to intensely dislike both Trump and President Joe Biden show such voters defaulting to Biden by stunning numbers. One such poll had Biden up 55 to 19 percent among voters having little use for either presumptive candidate.

The last time Trump appeared on the ballot, he lost by seven million votes and an electoral college count virtually identical to that which had given him the presidency four years earlier. Since then, the country has lived through his election denialism; a riot aimed at stopping Congress from counting the electoral college votes and prison sentences for many who had done his bidding in storming the Capitol; a second impeachment; two separate criminal indictments (with more perhaps on the way); a $5 million judgment against him in a civil trial for rape and defamation; and a number of his former appointees now attesting to his fundamental unfitness.

And we are still only at the mid-point of 2023. Please explain to me how any of this, much less the totality of it, makes Trump an improved or more formidable candidate than he was last time out.

His backers worship him with an unshakeable intensity. But their numbers are shrinking, slowly, steadily.

For Republicans to hand their nomination to Trump for the third straight time is to countenance the huge likelihood of another loss, quite possibly a final, conclusive drubbing.

On the flip side, and acknowledging the morbidity of the point, for Democrats to again put forth Joe Biden, now 80 and but two weeks shy of his 82nd birthday come election day, is to flirt recklessly with mortality tables, as well as the risk of cognitive decline.

Note that Biden was as old upon taking office as Ronald Reagan was upon leaving it after an eight-year stint.

Some might suggest that 80 is the new 70 and other such blather. However, math remains math, and age remains what it is. Last I looked, life expectancy in the U.S. was not exactly on the incline.

A full 70 percent of Americans, plus or minus a couple of points depending on the poll, do not want Biden to seek another term. That number includes a decided majority of his own party.

Yet, the White House is something from which only a few willingly walk away. The last to do so was Lyndon Johnson and that had less to do with his will and more to do with the upheaval over Vietnam and his withering job approval.

The fact of this political epoch is that all players exist mainly in juxtaposition to Trump. Think of the slew of Republicans currently running for president. Virtually the only attention they garner is for how they compare to Trump and what they have to say about his latest outrage or misfortune.

Biden is a creature of the Trump spectacle, as well. Though past his sell-by date, he was nominated in 2020 as the Trump slayer who could reclaim blue collar, Rust Belt voters. He fulfilled that charge, arguably his lifetime contribution.

His case for reelection does not amount to a lot more than that. Despite plentiful concerns as to his age and capacity, Democratic powers-that-be along with more than a few voters see Biden as the insurance policy keeping Trump far away from the Oval Office. Who else do they have with that demonstrated prowess? Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, J.B. Pritzker, Gavin Newsom, Jared Polis? Anyone betting the house on any of them?

So long as Trump is in the picture, elections will be infinitely more consequential. It is no longer just a question of four years of left-of-center versus right-of-center governance. Or this versus that Supreme Court nominee. The more Trump shows of himself, the more he is accurately seen as an existential threat to our core democratic tenets and traditions. That has a way of elevating the stakes.

All that said, the Herbert Stein quote is more apt than ever. Those wagering that the next 16 months will be a straight line are likely to lose their money.

We are dealing with two candidates who are far from the epitome of health. Way beyond that, a large, dominant share of voters desperately want something different. Someone else.

With the breadth of that public demand, it would be seriously foolish to rely on an endless, unchanging, soul-sucking slog between two past-prime candidates few really want.

That which can’t last, won’t.

Eric Sondermann is a Colorado-based independent political commentator. He writes regularly for Colorado Politics and the Gazette newspapers. Reach him at?EWS@EricSondermann.com; follow him at @EricSondermann