Joe Biden announced he will be running for president in 2024 in a pre-recorded three-minute video. Strange, right? He urged the Americans to let him “finish this job”. If he can.
Many voters, even among Democrats, doubt it. Eight polls, in 2022 and 2023, indicate that a majority of them (57%) would rather someone else. Only 38% want Biden to be their candidate in 2024.
Yet apart from the chaotic pullout from Afghanistan, the Biden administration has proven competent. His main achievement was to steer the country through the pandemic to a strong economic recovery. The US unemployment rate is at its lowest since 1969.
The problem is his age
At 80, Biden is the oldest US president in history and would be 86 when his second term ends. If God gives him life.
Its inevitable old-age deficiencies and hesitations will be constantly caricatured by its critics and lukewarmly defended by its embarrassed supporters.
There is no indication so far that Biden will face serious challengers for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Personally, I would see California Governor Gavin Newsom, 55, as the ideal Democratic nominee. But he has repeatedly denied aspiring to the White House. According to sources in his entourage, he is aiming for the presidential election of 2028. Secretive, go!
It’s Biden, otherwise it’s Trump
Trump lost the 2020 election by seven million votes, and only won the presidency by a slim margin in the Electoral College. A change of 44,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin would have meant a 269-269 tie, giving the Republican majority in the House of Representatives the task of confirming their election.
Even though Trump’s approval rating is below 30% among all voters, his approval rating among Republicans is nearly 80%.
The under-gifted, under-educated white Republican base sees Trump as the beloved leader, stripped of office by stolen elections, who must be put back on his throne.
What about Trump’s crimes?
What will be the effect of the two or three criminal indictments to come against Trump, for sedition, theft of secret documents and election interference? More serious things than buying the silence of a porn actress.
Trump is trying to take advantage of this. He threatens the country with chaos and unrest if he is charged with these charges. It would, in my opinion, only increase the number of voters who will vote Democrat.
This campaign will be one of the most tumultuous in the country’s history. The malevolent, megalomaniac narcissist in the long red tie may well be back in power.
If Trump is re-elected or if he succeeds in causing serious civil unrest, it is not certain that American democracy will survive.
Biden therefore remains, despite everything, the best hope — perhaps the only hope — of preventing a second term for Trump.