At 80 years old, Joe Biden is three years older than the average life expectancy for an American man. Since the start of Biden's historically unpopular presidency, prices have risen a staggering 15%, and our enemies abroad have begun the process of de-dollarization deals — not just with each other, but also with the allies Biden has alienated. His reputation at home isn't much better than abroad: seven in ten Americans polled by NBC News, including a majority of Democrats, said that Biden should not run for reelection.
And yet Biden is realistically his party's only hope of winning the White House in 2024.
FROM VERY FIRST WORD, BIDEN STARTS FIBBING IN HIS REELECTION ANNOUNCEMENT
As the party is wont to do, the Democrats have failed to focus on cultivating their backbench, leading the fate of the American Left in the hands of this increasingly senile, bumbling, and spaced-out octogenarian who would be 86 on his last day in office should he manage to win a second term.
Theoretically, Democrats have some would-be rising stars in the ranks if only the party patriarchs knew how to scout for prime-time potential. Kentucky's Andy Beshear consistently ranks as the most popular Democratic governor in the country, and Jared Polis of Colorado, the first openly gay governor in the country, is one of the most interesting progressives as a matter of policy.
But the party hasn't spent the last two years of Biden's reign scouring the suburbs for new talent. Rather, the party's power apparatus — which obviously includes its stenographers in the media as well as its corporate backers — wasted its years in control of Congress propping up not viable politicians to win national elections, but rather celebrities.
Consider that if Biden were to step down (or worse, die while in office), the official successor is Kamala Harris. The vice president couldn't even last until the Iowa caucuses when she made her own run at the top job. What, in her gaffe- and leak-prone tenure, suggests that she should have a better shot than Biden at running for president?
The administration's marquee millennial is Pete Buttigieg, the only secretary of transportation to oversee so many fracases by air (see: Southwest) and by sea (see: the port backups of 2021) that his performance itself is viewed as positively scandalous by at least half the country. Buttigieg did fare better than Harris back in 2020, but there's no indication that he has ingratiated himself to a wider electorate, especially the black voters who comprise the core of the Democratic base.
Which candidates who did not run in 2020 could the party consider? If Democrats want to lose the Electoral College by 100 votes, they can run Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or any number of the shrill, commie-caressing Squad members. Perhaps Democrats could revive their beloved "Abortion Barbie" trope in the form of Gretchen Whitmer in her #badass leather jacket?
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The point is that Biden remains the only Democrat capable of galvanizing the correct collection of working-class Obama-Trump voters, "security moms," Romney-Clinton suburbanites, and drive the turnout from the rest of the base. Biden isn't popular, but he doesn't have to be when the party spends so little energy popularizing the politicians who could theoretically win a general election.
Biden's "plain but incompetent guy" routine may not work against a Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis, but the party is clearly betting the fact that Biden would likely once again beat Donald Trump, should Republicans be unwise enough to nominate him once more.