The American people are finally awakening to the farce that was packaged and sold to them these past few years as a return to normalcy.
Certainly, it has taken a great deal to arrive at this point, as most people justifiably tired and exhausted by COVID, and all the madness that came along with it, were desperate for a respite, and were hopeful that Joe Biden could provide it.
Indeed, in significant part, that is why Biden was elected president in the first place, effectively selling Americans on this desperately desired relief after the chaos of 2020.
No matter that it was Biden's own supporters on the political left, along with their allies in the media, largely responsible for sowing much of the very discord that they supposedly sought to quell.
Nevertheless, the strategy worked.
However, Americans are belatedly realizing that they were duped, and that the normalcy Biden promised to return to them has been anything but.
For instance, Biden's promised return to safety and stability has instead rendered a world aflame with new wars cropping up like mushrooms after the rain; criminals terrorizing U.S. cities with impunity; and America's borders invaded.
The promised economic revival too has been bust, as the most basics, like food and shelter, are now more unaffordable than ever for hard-working Americans.
Even Biden's promised return to decency has only seen greater degeneracy, complete with hard drugs inside the halls of the White House and displays of nudity on its front lawn.
And instead of the resurgent America promised, Biden has overseen a precipitous decline both at home and in the world beyond.
Now, as pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson recently pointed out in the pages, of all places, The New York Times, polls show Trump holding sizable advantages with American voters over Biden on many of these and other critical issues.
Further, as Anderson also notes, polls show Americans now looking longingly at the Trump presidency, which appears to them in retrospect like a dream in comparison, as they recall fondly the days when their borders were secure, their food and home prices affordable, and generally how much safer and better the world was.
But with his sinking approval ratings and Americans rejecting his new status quo, Biden and his campaign have pivoted to a strategy of painting Trump and his policies as extremist and a threat to democracy itself.
Though in doing so, Biden and his allies are simply once again reprising that time-worn political tactic of accusing your enemy of exactly what you are doing yourself.
In 2020, they infected the country with chaos and disorder, while campaigning on Biden as the antidote for it; now, in 2024, they are demolishing democracy, while claiming that Biden is the only one able to rebuild it.
After all, it is Biden and his would-be saviors of democracy that are actively advancing its subversion, by attempting, for example, to remove Trump from the ballot.
Likewise, they are suppressing democratic choice in their own primary elections — a fact to which Robert F. Kennedy Jr., among others, can firmly attest.
Indeed, Biden and his allies even recently outright canceled Democratic primaries in crucial states like Florida, instead of subjecting himself to the democracy that he claims so much to cherish.
Of course, like in 2020, the media will happily overlook all this, and focus instead on making Trump out to be a would-be dictator who will destroy America.
In fact, Biden and his campaign are even instructing the media now on doing just that, so that will report on it "correctly."
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping would be so proud.
But Americans may eventually come to see Biden's version of democracy in the same way they now do his brand of normalcy, as nothing more than a sham.
The question of course is whether Americans will allow themselves to be tricked again before that happens.
Certainly, Biden and his campaign are counting on it.
As the old saying goes: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
Biden fooled Americans once in 2020 and hopes to do so for a second time in 2024.
And if he does, this time, Americans will have only themselves to blame.
Lee Steinhauer is a strategic policy and political consultant known for his book "The Art of The New Cold War: America vs. China. What America Must Do to Win." Lee is a frequent guest on Fox, Fox Business, Newsmax, and a published policy and opinion writer for numerous media publications. Read Lee Steinhauer's Reports — More Here.