Americans will have to face a difficult question when they go to vote in four months’ time: will they be voting for Jill Biden or Kamala Harris—if they do not plan to vote for Donald Trump, of course. Because one thing certain about the Republican candidate-presumptive is that his wife Melania is not going to handhold him through the presidency if he makes it back to the White House once again. The same certainly cannot be said for the Democrat camp.

The First Lady of the US (FLOTUS) is being increasingly seen as the power behind a visibly frail Joe Biden. She was there to help him off the stage after his disastrous debate with Trump last week despite the very cooperative TV anchors. She was there to reassure him that he had “answered all the questions very well”. She was there at a campaign rally later on, energetically marshalling party supporters and talking up her husband—who stood to one side.

“So let’s talk about last night’s debate, because I know it’s on your minds,” she told the gathering. “As Joe said earlier today, he’s not a young man. And after last night’s debate, he said, you know, Jill, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel that great. And I said, look, Joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you’ve been president.” It was like she was reassuring a floundering student, not a man who has the nuclear football at his disposal.

No wonder Jill is now considered the main person behind Joe’s stubbornness about continuing with his re-election campaign despite all the warning signs of disaster. It is not fair to blame one person entirely but there is no doubt that she is the President’s main adviser and appears to be also his main endorser. Even former President Barack Obama appears to be wavering although he is clever enough to know that changing a horse mid-race is a terrible idea.

It is strange, though, that the very people who are supposedly smart and capable enough to hold the highest posts in the world’s most powerful country had been unable to tell a community college teacher long ago that her husband was not up to another four years in the hot seat. He had been showing signs of ageing even in 2020 but people had been pumped up to get Trump out of the White House so Biden got in by a fluke. Now those same voters are not so naïve.

The question that any moderately intelligent American voter will ask herself is, if Joe can flub a TV debate just because he had a cold—the official reason given for his hoarse voice and brain fog at the debate—what if he catches the flu at some crucial political juncture? At the best of times, he looks arthritic and stiff, he slurs words and tends to lapse into reminiscences like a dotty retiree. What will he be like at the end of another four years in the same job, at this rate?

The only thing going in Biden’s favour is Trump. If he is the best bet to beat Trump, the Democrats have to keep him on the ballot. They have step up their moves to whip up fears about Trump’s “lies”, “narcissism” and megalomania, not to mention lecherousness and corruption, to scare people into voting for Biden as the better of the two bad options. Campaign managers will have to do the heavy lifting because the more Biden opens his mouth now, the worse it is.

Jill has been the driving force behind (and often in front) of Joe and has been doing a lot of the actual talking during this campaign. She was also prominently present at Hunter Biden’s trial. She, in fact, has turned out to be an even more politically proactive FLOTUS than Hillary Clinton, and definitely more so than Michelle Obama, who some people fancifully thought for a while may be a dark horse candidate for the Democratic ticket if Biden stepped aside.

And if Joe manages to retain the White House, what then? Hope that Jill will be able to manage him, coach him in her best teacherly manner to deal with whatever he needs to as President and ensure there are fewer public appearances so that his vulnerabilities do not show? It stands to reason then that Americans may be voting for Jill when they vote for Joe. More so as it does not seem that too many people consider Vice President Kamala Harris a suitable alternative.

Of course, some conspiracy theorists aver that Harris is the real candidate and Joe will step down a few months—even weeks, perhaps—into a second term and let her take over. And then, the thinking goes, she will be controlled by the party apparatchiks. So then the other option that Americans need to consider is whether they are actually voting for Harris, not Jill, when they are ostensibly ticking Joe’s name on the ballot. Either way, the voters would be conned.

A vote for Trump will not be a vote for Melania though, as she has been barely visible during his campaign. She did not come for his landmark criminal trial in New York either and she did not attend his birthday party last week in Florida. She intends to be there for her son, Trump’s youngest child, 18-year-old Barron who will be starting college this year, possibly in New York. Yet she says she and Trump have a great understanding and give each other space.

Melania should be complimented, actually, for asserting her independence, given that Americans are curiously old fashioned when it comes to ideas about wives of Presidents. She did not want to be a Jacqueline Kennedy or a Hillary Clinton, a Ladybird Johnson or even a Michelle Obama. She did not smile for the cameras—in fact she barely smiled at all. She did not become a social fixture in Washington DC, or cheerfully become a fashion influencer.

She seems to be the exact opposite of Jill, staying far away from the hustle bustle of the hustings, and being determinedly non-political. But Melania’s distancing does not seem to be affecting Trump’s campaign in any significant way, as his popularity ratings among voters continues to rise. Does that mean the American electorate is maturing? That it is now willing to accept both a very political First Lady like Jill as well as a grimly apolitical one like Melania?

Pollsters and the mainstream media should ascertain if US voters are wondering whether FLOTUS will become POTUS-by-proxy if Joe manages to beat Trump. Vote for Joe and get Jill. Would that be better or worse than Harris taking over from Joe at some point, thereby becoming the first female POTUS without contesting for the post? The only certainty is that a vote for Trump will mean a vote for Trump, no one else. Not even the Republican Party!