From the first days of the race for the presidency of the United States, one fact was clear – more than Donald Trump is capable of winning, Joe Biden may lose.
Biden did not have an energetic and appropriate response to Trump and did not manage to position himself as the more reasonable and qualified choice for the position of President of the United States. His fragility was so evident that at first it was impossible to contain. Biden, who looked and sounded elderly, struggled to answer questions in the time limit he was given and his expression looked confused when it was Trump’s turn to speak. Already at the beginning of the debate he failed in his words, a conduct that characterized the entire class. “To make sure that we make every single person entitled to what I am entitled to,” he replied in response to a question about the corona epidemic. “I was able to deal with Covid, excuse me, with um, deal with everything we had to deal with. Look, we finally beat Medicare.” This low point was rushed by commentators and political activists to try and turn it into a turning point and leverage for an unusual call to replace Biden.
“Joe Biden is a good man and a good president. He must withdraw from the race,” declared the senior commentator of “The New York Times”, Thomas Friedman. “In order to serve his country, President Biden must withdraw from the race,” stated the New York Times editorial. Franklin Poyer of “The Atlantic” was less polite and called for an active act on the part of the party itself. “Somebody needs to take the keys from Joe Biden,” he noted. “While the world watched Biden fade, the Democrats ignored it,” they wrote in the “Wall Street Journal”.
Doubts about Biden’s fitness to continue for a second term existed as early as 2020, although he was then seen as a strong “old politics” candidate, especially against Trump. In the choice he made to appoint Kamala Harris as his deputy, his supporters saw a kind of crowning of a successor for the 2024 campaign. Doubts grew more and more in the past year, when he was documented as disconnected, slow and fragile. At the conferences he participated in, mainly in Europe, the topic of his performance came up again and again in the conversations of leaders and team members, and was reported in the media. His advisers came back and rejected these claims. In February, a medical report indicated that Biden suffers from memory lapses, a condition that is “unhealthy”, according to his staff. Despite all this, he easily won his party’s primaries.
But in the debate it was impossible to ignore what many have been crying out for months. Even Harris admitted that it was not a remarkable performance, and Republican Joe Walsh, a prominent Trump opponent, also gave the victory to Trump. In wider Republican circles the debate was celebrated as if it decided the race.
The age problem in American politics is not limited to Biden and Trump, who will be the oldest contenders in the history of their parties, but is evident throughout all of national politics. Today’s House of Representatives is the oldest in American history, with the average age being 58 and the most represented age segment (about 34%) being 60-69. The data is cross-partisan. Some of the most well-known senators in recent years have found themselves caught on camera exhibiting significant cognitive decline, such as Mitch McConnell who has served as a senator for nearly 40 years and experienced several moments of disconnection at press conferences, which were quickly interrupted by his aides. Senator Dianne Feinstein, who served for over 30 years until her death last September, was also documented more than once in moments of incompetence, including her inability to vote herself in Senate committees.
Now, parts of the Democratic Party are openly calling for Biden to be replaced, but because he won the primaries, there is only one way to do that — Biden must initiate the retirement. If he does, the party convention to be held in Chicago in August will be responsible for appointing a new candidate in a process that has not yet been settled. The names that have come up in the last few days include, among others, the governor of California Gavin Newsom, the governor of Michigan Gretchen Whitmore, the senator from Ohio Sherrod Brown and there are even those who suggest the former first lady, Michelle Obama. All these candidates will have to agree to be part of the list of names and of course also take the risk of running for president in such an unusual and short campaign, that a loss in it could deal them a severe image blow. Deputy Harris is the natural candidate, but her support rates are among the lowest in the history of the position, about 39%.
Even though it is apparently a move that may save the Democratic Party, it carries a great danger, as it is indicative of problematic decision-making processes in the party. Such a move would oblige the Democrats to establish a quick procedure for choosing an alternative candidate, when this procedure in itself could cause a lot of friction in the party. At the same time, it will also create new pressure on Biden, not only to withdraw from the race, but also from the current term, since if he is not fit enough to run again, he is also not fit to serve now.
At the end of the day, only Biden can move Biden out of office, and at this point he reiterated, even a day after the debate, that he does not want to retire. “It is clear to me that I am not a young man, to state the obvious,” he said at a support rally. “I don’t walk as well as I used to, I don’t speak as well as I used to, and I don’t participate in debates as I used to. But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I know how to distinguish between right and wrong. I know how to do this job . I know how to conduct myself. I know what millions of Americans know: when you fall, you get back up.”
Biden concluded by saying that if he thinks we are not qualified, he will retire. But the problem is, it is not his opinion that determines, but the opinion of the public.
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