With each passing day and each new indictment, it becomes ever more evident that Donald Trump’s calendar for the coming year will be a mishmash of courtroom time in the myriad cases, in which he is a defendant to go along with campaign rallies, debates and the rest of the political hoopla.

Voters will deliver their verdict. There is ample indication that the judgment of the broad, national electorate will be wholly at odds with the forgiving adoration of Republican primary participants. Judges and juries will make their own rulings and reach their own decisions.

Years from now, history will render its judgment on our 45th president. That seems certain to be the harshest of all.

While Trump’s base, still dominant in a shrinking party, sees no evil or is at least willing to turn away from it in service to their own grievances, other voters are less and less drawn to his spectacle. Trump’s formidable political floor is close to his ceiling. His potential to get to an electoral majority, or even close enough to again thread the electoral college needle, is limited and waning.

In fact, his track record since his election in 2016 has been that of a confirmed loser. Once purple states, including Colorado, are now a solid blue. The decisive, all-important states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, along with Georgia and Arizona, have moved in a Democratic direction.

Winners don’t need to plot to overturn elections and rally their troops to storm the nation’s Capitol.

Given Trump’s travails, legal and political, one would expect Joe Biden to be cruising and his party brimming with confidence.

Not so fast there. Three names dominate the conversation among Democrats. Each illustrates why the party reeks of vulnerability.

Of course, President Biden is the central figure. His handlers salivate at the thought of a Biden-Trump rematch, a prospect approximately no one in America wants.

But Biden is hardly some political colossus. His approval rating is stuck in the low 40% range – precarious territory for any incumbent. Seven out of 10 of his countrymen, including a majority of his own party, prefer that he not seek a second term.

A national campaign is an intense undertaking at any age. That is doubly true when layered on top of the imposing duties of the presidency. At a fragile 80 years old, just weeks shy of 82 by the time the election rolls around, any presidential stumble, either physical or verbal, will be magnified.

Then there is the drip-drip toll of the scandals of his son, Hunter Biden. Surely, there is no equivalency between Hunter Biden’s loathsome but rather ordinary political grift and the indictments against our former president, especially the latest set that go to the very core tenets of our democratic republic.

Still, Donald Trump cannot be allowed to set the bar for what constitutes acceptable conduct. Principled nuance is a withering quality in this age of toxic division and consummate team play. Even Democratic partisans should be able to distinguish between a president’s loyalty to a troubled family member and evidence that father Joe went well beyond that to support his son’s sleazy business dealings.

The second name causing angst and hand-wringing among Democrats is that of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Americans have taken stock of Harris since she came on the national scene and found her wanting. She regards her natural talent as greater than is actually the case. Her political instincts seem lacking. She appears unable to speak or relate to those outside her true-blue bubble. Her reputation is for shunning the daily homework that serious, seasoned politicians accept as part of the job.

Of course, the running mate of any president or presidential candidate for whom age and capacity are questions is going to receive outsized scrutiny. However, Harris’ status as the country’s first female and minority veep makes it a non-starter for Biden to even think of replacing her on the ticket.

While there would be plenty of sudden contenders should Biden for some reason exit the nominating process, the deck would be stacked in Harris’ favor given her party’s enthrallment to considerations of gender and skin tone.

When someone is chosen or elevated due to group identity, getting rid of them becomes that much harder, nigh impossible.

Which brings us to the final name in this drama, that of challenger Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., namesake to the family dynasty.

There is every temptation to label Kennedy a fringe candidate due to a number of his out-there, unconventional stands.

Whether fringy or not, Kennedy is polling at close to 20% in Democratic primary surveys. Add to that the better part of another 10% of Democrats who support Marianne Williamson, a candidate whose spot out on the far reaches of the perimeter is not in doubt.

The fact that a couple of pretenders with no hope of winning the nomination are garnering support from three in ten Democrats is itself clarifying.

It demonstrates that Biden’s popularity among his own ranks is tepid and shallow. Beyond that, coupled with Trump’s deeply underwater numbers, it speaks to what most of the country regards as a dismal choice, if it comes to that, between two past-prime warhorses whose utility and currency is long gone.

Were Kennedy a Trump-era Republican, Democrats would laugh him away with the “wacky” descriptor getting plenty of use. His assertions would be dismissed out of hand on everything from vaccines to the “ethnic targeting” of COVID-19, his linkage of WiFi to cancer and of mass shootings to the marketing of antidepressants.

His attempts to blame Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on American policy would be attacked non-stop as the contorted fiction which it is.

Put it together and it provides conclusive proof that populist fantasy is not the exclusive province of Republicans. Elements of the Democratic left offer a hospitable home as well for such convenient myths.

Even though it remains a sideline show in one party while the other side long ago handed the keys to the purveyors of such lunacy.

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