“The Democratic Party is dramatically worried,” analyzes United States specialist Nicole Bacharan

Guest on franceinfo on Friday, Nicole Bacharan believes that the questions raised by Joe Biden’s age risk obscuring his record for the presidential election of November 2024.

“The Democratic Party is dramatically worried”, analyzes Nicole Bacharan political scientist and historian, specialist in the United States, guest, Friday February 9, on franceinfo. A special prosecutor described the 81-year-old US president on Thursday as “an elderly man with a bad memory”which Joe Biden defended.

franceinfo: Why is Joe Biden once again the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, despite these controversies linked to his age? Is it permanent?

Nicole Bacharan: Yes it’s folded, since Joe Biden is the only real Democratic candidate. You have two candidates, completely marginal, that very few people know, who sometimes reach 0.1% or 0.2%, but there are no other candidates at the moment in the camp Democrat. This comes from two main reasons. The first is that usually, it is always an advantage to have the outgoing president who represents himself because he is not exposed to real primaries, where candidates from the same party demolish each other. Furthermore, the president who represents himself campaigns at the same time as he governs: budgetary choices, legislative speeches, etc. He is already highlighted in the presidential office. So traditionally, there is a considerable advantage. The second reason is that Joe Biden deeply believes that he is the best, the only one to beat Donald Trump.

You say it’s an advantage “traditionally”, what about this election? Is the Democratic Party embarrassed by Joe Biden?

The Democratic Party is dramatically worried. Joe Biden is considered a great president, having truly governed in very difficult circumstances, internationally but also domestically with the economy, the end of the pandemic, the absolutely radical Republican opposition… The Democrats think he has a good track record. But they are very, very worried about his age, the physical and, sometimes a little, mental fragility of Joe Biden. It’s obvious, so yes, his camp is very worried.

Why couldn’t the Democratic Party and Joe Biden himself put together, as they say, another candidate in anticipation of this election?

It’s true that we ask a lot of questions around Kamala Harris, who, on paper, had absolutely everything right: her age, her beauty, her intelligence, her charisma, a mixed race woman, etc. But she didn’t “print” during her three and a half years as vice president. We must not forget that the position of vice-president is extremely thankless. They have no official functions, they only have one role: to be there if the president becomes very ill or dies. It’s very difficult to emerge without appearing to step on your boss’s toes. So, Kamala Harris, she was entrusted with extremely complicated files on which she was never able to say “Ah, you see, I helped pass a major law or I had real success, like on the “immigration from countries of the South, the protection of the right to vote in the United States”. But we see, on the other hand, that now she is really pushed to campaign in a much more visible way.

Opposite, it is Donald Trump who returns. The Democratic camp hadn’t anticipated this?

It was something that seemed, for a time, very unlikely. It’s true that when Donald Trump left on January 20, 2021, after the Capitol riots, we didn’t hear from him again. Of course, he announced his desire for revenge. But it was hard to believe that he would maintain this desire in such a vivid way. For four years, he supported a number of Trumpist candidates in the 2022 legislative elections, and it went very badly. So, once again, the Democrats said to themselves: “well, it’s over”… and actually no! He has vigor and a desire for revenge, with a base of faithful who nothing discourages.