In March 2020, all of the major Democratic primary candidates suddenly and inexplicably withdrew from the presidential race almost unanimously, conceding the nomination to Joe Biden.

But Biden lost the first three states — Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada — and only won his first state, South Carolina.

Suddenly, on the eve of the big Super Tuesday primaries, the candidacies of front-runners Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren were gone.

Fears that front-runner Sanders would win as a socialist, be nominated and then suffer an enviable landslide victory in the general election against incumbent Donald Trump mobilized the donor base and shadow politics.

And they did it by choosing Joe Biden, an older man considered a moderate from Scranton, which required forcing out all of his far-left rivals who had far outperformed Biden in the primaries thus far.

Biden, now the front-runner, still showed visible symptoms of severe cognitive decline that appeared to worsen throughout the 2020 campaign, and his dementia continued to progress during his three years in office.

Biden falsely promised a campaign of healing and a unifying presidency, but once in the White House, his extreme policies proved to be the most divisive and far-left in a century.

Rumors of a Faustian bargain emerged before March 2020: the Bidens would assume the role of convenient moderate window dressing, enjoying the ceremonial functions of the presidency while outsourcing the real work to Obama administration officials, consultants and advisers.

In fact, unlike many former presidents, Obama didn't leave Washington when he left the White House. Instead, he bought a mansion and continued to live nearby.

Democrats demonized anyone who criticized Biden's apparent mental decline, and their slander came to a head during his aborted 2024 reelection campaign, even as Biden no longer managed to even remotely appear mentally or physically engaged.

Polls have shown the growing likelihood of a landslide victory for Trump in November and major Democratic losses in Congress.

So suddenly, on Sunday, July 21st – just days before state ballots would feature the parties' official candidates and on the eve of the Democratic convention – party officials, big donors and Obama's puppet masters made their third move.

They reportedly threatened Biden with losing all future campaign funding and stoked fears that they would invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to end his presidency if he suddenly dropped out of the race and did not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement.

In an instant, the choice of some 15 million Biden primary voters was nullified, without the delegates being consulted, and without any other Democratic candidates even being taken into consideration.

Biden was dethroned and Harris crowned, without the public being consulted or informed of the reasons or circumstances behind this.

Democratic heavyweights have stopped short of denigrating conservative critics who worried about Biden's dementia, instead undermining the opposition's criticism of his decline.

But Biden is not stepping down from the presidency, instead promising to serve out the remaining six months of his term.

So Democratic insiders not only eliminated a front-runner who had spent the past six months winning the 2024 primary and nearly all of its delegates, but also insisted that Biden would keep the party and them in power if he agreed to drop out of the race.

In other words, in the final moments of his two-year reelection effort, the conspiracy cabal has unilaterally decided that Biden is likely to lose the White House and Congress to the Democrats.

So they changed tack, claiming that Biden's dementia was so severe that it was ruining his prospects for the November election, but curiously, his deterioration was not serious enough to endanger the American people, who he must continue to lead until January 20, 2025.

Moreover, the executives' choice to replace him, Harris, did not run in a primary. She did not win a single delegate. She also failed to win a single delegate in her first and only 2020 presidential campaign, then dropped out of the race before the first votes were cast in Iowa and New Hampshire.

We have seen three genuine left-wing coups so far.

In 2020, covert agents decided to ossify the Democratic primary. They then gave the nomination to the apparently cognitively challenged Biden, who was now tasked with serving as a helpful vessel for moderation in what was effectively an even more radical third term for Obama.

Next, those same operatives effectively took control of Biden's presidential agenda as his cognitive decline accelerated.

When that farce could no longer be sustained, they circumvented the normal, transparent democratic process for the third time.

So they dismissed Biden as a once-helpful but now-limp candidate, while arguing he was still good enough to keep the left in power, a position they maintained until Harris' expected victory in November.

And all of this was the shadowy work of those who hypocritically preached to America that “democracy dies in darkness.”

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow at the Center for American Greatness. He is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the author of World War II: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, published by Basic Books. He can be contacted at authorvdh@gmail.com.

The views and opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.