MILWAUKEE — Republicans can’t remember the last time they had it this good. A disciplined and newly introspective presidential candidate. Good polling. A positive news cycle driven by sympathetic headlines after a failed assassination attempt.

Said one former Trump White House official, “I’m still shocked the other shoe hasn’t dropped.”

They checked their phones and pinched themselves with each news alert, marveling at their good fortune every new day of the Republican National Convention. Former President Trump can’t lose, Republicans say publicly, while across the country, Democrats privately say to President Biden that he can’t win. Inevitability or dread, depending on political persuasion – those are the vibes 108 days before the election.

Thursday night, the balloons dropped, and Trump formally accepted a third consecutive presidential nomination in Wisconsin, while across the country, Biden hunkered down in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He has COVID-19.

And a coup. It started in earnest with George Clooney. The Academy Award-winning actor broke the seal when he questioned the mental acuity of the president in a New York Times op-ed, signaling to other Democrats that it was safe to question the top of the ticket.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Biden, according to Politico, that he is about to drag down the Democratic ticket. California Rep. Adam Schiff told the Los Angeles Times it was time for Biden to “pass the torch.” Former President Obama, per the Washington Post, concedes in private that Biden might not have what it takes to hold onto the White House.

But Biden won’t go. The elder statesman insists he is all there, a case made exponentially harder with every senior moment. The most recent embarrassment? When the president forgot the name of Lloyd Austin during an interview with BET, referring to his secretary of defense only as “the black man.”

The nightmare won’t stop for Democrats, and Republicans are afraid they will wake up from a dream. “They’re fractured. They’re not supporting each other. They’re a pit of vipers over there right now,” a senior Trump advisor told RealClearPolitics, pausing only to add the obvious: “which is fantastic.” Sensing an opportunity to keep that chaos going, the Trump campaign rejected the proposed dates for a vice-presidential debate.

No, said Brian Hughes, a senior Trump advisor, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance will not square off with Vice President Kamala Harris because “we don’t know who the Democrat........

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