As with 2016, the 2020 election year is giving us the unprecedented — in this case, our first non-player character candidate. If this reference escapes you, know that an NPC is technically a gaming character that’s controlled by the computer and responds according to programming (e.g., “C’mon, man!”). As a meme, it refers to a person with no mind or real thoughts of his own.

Enter Joe Biden.

That is, if you’ll even notice. Many conservatives wonder how China Joe could have any chance in the election at all. President Trump’s campaign rallies are enthusiasm-marked events involving often tens of thousands of cheering, engaged patriots who’d follow their man to the ends of the Earth.

Biden’s are subdued, tepid affairs in which a small group of (presumably) sentient bipeds sit in designated circles as if it’s some kind of bizarre UFO cult (this would explain the alien beliefs and alleged sex-switching capability).

But Biden does have a chance mainly because this isn’t about Biden. It’s about Trump. A man evoking strong feelings, there’s perhaps more than ever in American history a pro-incumbent and anti-incumbent vote. The love affair with Trump is reflected at his rallies. The antipathy for him is represented in the irrational, TDS “Orange Man Bad!” phenomenon and video-captured snowflake eruptions.

Those thus afflicted are voting against Trump and not for the NPC on the ballot’s other side. It wouldn’t matter who or what NPC was. He could be an irascible, wobbly and wizened codger (and he is). He could be catatonic (he’s getting there). It doesn’t matter that he never had a lick of principle even in the last millennium or that he now doesn’t remember what he was told to pretend his principles were last week. Not being Trump is enough.

My second to last sentence relates a truth. So much political reportage will include silly sentences such as “Joe Biden proposes…” or “Joe Biden will as president…,” as if he’s a lucid man with defined and consistent will and purpose. But NPC is at this point an empty vessel, a glitch-ridden conduit through which is projected radical handlers’ ideas and prevarications. This brings us to what will happen if NPC wins.

It’s very clear that Senator Kamala Harris will become president, which helps explain her oft-displayed giddiness. But this may not happen right away.

Switching NPC out too quickly perhaps would be bad PR, making people feel as if they’d been had (can’t let the suckers know they’re suckers). So it’s possible NPC will be kept in the White House for a while, maybe a year to a year and a half. His handlers may figure that they’ve gotten him this far — with limited, early-day appearances; much basement time; the media’s help; and probably medication — so they can make NPC appear a player for a while longer. And he does bring something to the table.

Just ask Kris Jacks, a member of the executive committee of the Colorado Democratic Party and dangerous radical (surprised?) who prescribes violent revolution to deal with a Trump victory. Caught on hidden video expressing his machinations and putting a happy face on not having Bolshevik Bernie in office, he said that NPC does have “a functioning signing hand” (if, presumably, little else) and that he’s “confident we can occupy his [NPC’s] house.”

Of course. NPC will likely sign whatever is put across his desk; a man who can’t remember what he said last week should be easily manipulated. Besides, his wife, Jill, will be there to ease that signing hand along.

Would she object? She may not believe in much herself — except becoming First Lady (that’s her alluring carrot). Moreover, there’s that Bidengate laptop to use as leverage against both Mr. and Mrs. NPC, and, for all we know, she may share complicity.

This brings us to this game’s finale. NPC’s cognitive decline ensures that he won’t be able to function passably for too much longer, even with help. It will then be time to remove him from office.

The 25th Amendment will be available for this purpose, of course, but that may not be necessary. Just convince NPC to resign, citing health difficulties. If he or the missus balks, well, there’s that laptop again. “That’s a nice reputation, to match your nice unshackled hands, ya’ got there. Be a shame if anything happened to ‘em.”

Then we’ll have Kamala, already sometimes being introduced as “the next president of the United States,” who was so unpopular with her own party that she exited its primaries before losing her home state. She’ll also sign all the radical left-wing legislation put across her desk, but, oh, not because she’s an NPC. She’s a player — and her game is power.

Her ascension would just prove to her that all the time spent sleeping her way to the middle (cultural affirmative action took her the rest of the way) with Downtown Willie Brown wasn’t wasted.

And, hey, just imagine the respect she’ll command on the world stage.