Dave Weigel, now with Semafor, wonders when Joe Biden will reemerge, noting “[Donald] Trump didn’t speak in public between January 20, 2021 and CPAC on February 28, 2021. Is there a room/group that would welcome Biden as warmly as CPAC did Trump? (Maybe a Peltier family reunion?)”
It would not be surprising if the answer is “never.” Biden’s already limited public schedule became even more limited after he was allegedly strong-armed out of the Democratic nomination. Axios noticed he did no “public events in 43 of the first 75 days since he dropped his re-election bid.” He held no farewell public press conference, and he conducted his final interview as president with Lawrence O’Donnell, who airs at 10 p.m. on MSNBC. His farewell address was a bitter warning that “oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy,” right after he gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to George Soros.
Joe Biden insanely contended that if he had stayed in the race, he would have beaten Trump, and we learned he was oblivious to the fact that his own campaign pollsters believed he had a five percent chance of beating Trump if he stayed in the race. By the summer of last year, some Democratic senators no longer believed Biden was fit for office.
He went out the door with a blizzard of unpopular and unjustifiable pardons and commutations.
Biden left office with just 33 percent of Americans feeling favorably about him, and 61 percent of Americans concluding his presidency was a failure.
A lot of Democrats justifiably blame Biden for the mess that they’re in; the Democratic Party’s animosity towards the Bidens is white-hot:
“If I was Lady McBiden, I’d put on my big girl pants, play the long game and think about my husband’s legacy,” Alexandra Pelosi, the former speaker’s daughter, told me Saturday. “There aren’t that many people left in America who have something nice to say about Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi is one of them.” The younger Pelosi made clear she was speaking only for herself.
The Bidens are bitter and angry that he was effectively shoved out of his (limited) opportunity for a second term. The rest of Biden’s party is bitter and angry that the Bidens denied how much Biden’s decision to run again in 2024 increased the likelihood of a Trump comeback. Organizations that are itching to hear Biden speak are few and far between.
Beyond all that, Biden is now 82 years old and as anyone who has dealt with elderly parents or grandparents, “they have their good days and their not so good days.” Over time, those good gets get rarer and those not so good days get more frequent.
Finally, there is no direct link between retirement and death, but it is not surprising that some people who have dedicated their life to a job for a long time find themselves lacking purpose and direction after retirement, and can experience depression. The average lifespan of an American male is 74.8 years.