The #1 victim of ageism: Joseph R. Biden

The S&P 500 is purring at unprecedented levels, most people in the country are employed at pre-pandemic rates and hourly wage earnings are increasing in coalition with dissipating inflation. That being said, 57% of Americans disapprove of how President Biden is handling his job. It seems counterintuitive for Biden, who promised to restore partisan America into an era of less chaos and higher efficiency, is doing exactly that without reaping the public opinion benefits. The factors that Mr. Biden can control have been managed to a tee, and while inflation is still prevalent, interest rates are still tentatively rising and there are still messy aspects of the economy like the housing market, the President has clearly gotten some work done after being dealt a gnarly hand of cards. This includes being bequeathed the COVID-19 pandemic, the Jan. 6 insurrection and socio-political divides becoming inflamed following tragic events like the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. All of this, plus the partisanship and civil unrest that is stalling America’s involvement in two major wars, Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas, it is understandable why some underrate Biden’s time in office. Still, everything policy-related so far are the results of decisions that Biden has made. Unfortunately, one thing that Biden cannot pass a bill to fix is the unrelenting reality of his increasing age.

Biden’s age is something he cannot change, but will still be held against him. Over half of voters (62%) see Biden’s mental and physical faculties as a “major concern,” with another 27% seeing it as a “moderate” or “minor” one. Compare that to another poll that asks the same question about former President Donald Trump, and likely Biden’s 2024 general election opponent, and only 34% have major concerns with 35% having none at all. Biden is only 4 years older than Trump, but public opinion would lead you to believe that Trump is a millennial compared to a senile Biden. 

The double-standard that Biden has been facing about his age is especially confounding when you take into account how unhinged Trump still sounds. Trump has been on a rampage of sorts with his public commentary. From comparing the abundance of criminal charges he is facing to the historical discrimination of black Americans to claiming he would let Russia attack NATO countries that do not fulfill their financial obligations, you would think he is sabotaging his chances at running the country again. He also still regurgitates unfounded claims of fraud in the 2020 Presidential election. But Trump’s chaotic nature has long been normalized and his dissemination of misinformation is ultimately preaching to a choir that has already decided to give him their 2024 vote. To support the reality of Trump’s impenetrable base, the portion of voters who believe that Biden’s 2020 victory was illegitimate has only increased since 2021.

The fact that Trump is out in public so much is certainly playing a factor in the public reception to his age. Between the constant media coverage and Twitter updates on his dozens of indictments, as well as the frequency of his sit-down interviews increasing, Biden is seeming like more and more like an old hermit.

Biden has avoided the public eye to the extent that his absence speaks louder than his presence. Nate Silver’s blog pointed me toward an interesting factoid presented by The New York Times’ Ezra Klein, who remarked on how at this point in all their presidencies, Barack Obama had given 400 interviews, Trump provided more than 300 and Biden has shown out less than 100 times. When Biden does enter the spotlight, it is usually against his own will or to simply reaffirm that he is indeed a functionally capable human. Take Biden’s press conference following what many saw as a damning evaluation of the President’s abilities in Special Counsel to the Attorney General Robert Hur’s report on the President’s storage of confidential information. Biden stumbled through his act of self-defense by mixing up the names of the Presidents of Mexico and Egypt. Although Hur found no evidence of Biden committing any of the wrongdoings that his detractors accused him of, Hur provided the President with a backhanded absolution. Hur claimed that while Biden was irresponsible, it was essentially permissible because he is a fragile and forgetful old man who is generally oblivious.

Another consideration is that while Trump may be losing potential independent and establishment Republicans with his erratic behavior and clear mishaps, he will still maintain his base. Although most demographics polled about their chances of voting for Trump if he is convicted drop tremendously when confronted with that potential condition, a combined 62% of self-identified Republicans would still be “somewhat willing” or “very willing” to vote for him. The worries about Biden’s age becomes clearly an issue of his own party faithful defecting. To these Democrats, the chance of Biden becoming incapacitated is too great to take the risk of giving him another 4 years in the White House. A glaring ramification of reelecting Biden would be that Vice President Kamala Harris would succeed him in any extreme circumstances; a responsibility that 43% of all voters do not trust Harris with. Only less than half of self-identified Democrats have “a lot” of faith in her ability to replace Biden.

Biden’s shield against public engagement is not restricted to his cabinet and advisors, it includes his wife as well. First Lady Jill Biden apparently grew angry with her husband and his aides for not protecting the President from himself in a 2022 press conference that lasted nearly 2 hours. 

The seemingly easy solution of putting President Biden out into the world more in the lead-up to November becomes less feasible when it becomes an event in itself for him to even slightly tolerate exchanges with the press. Actions speak louder than words in resolving a crisis of trust like this has become between the public and Biden, but the President’s jumbled words have become so amplified that actions to resolve the past may now be fruitless.

One thing you may notice is that I am not suggesting that Biden steps aside and allows there to be internal party debate in choosing his successor. There are several reasons for this, but I will only touch on a few:

1. Biden has the national name recognition that his potential replacements (i.e. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA)) do not and cannot attain in just around 5 months (the Democratic Convention is in early August).

2. Biden’s fundraising is attached to his brand, not necessarily the Democratic one as shown by Dean Phillips (D-MN) embarrassing challenge, and his on-hand cash eclipses Trump by almost double in the most recent measurements; this was acknowledged by Noah Bertlatsky in response to the aforementioned Klein’s recommendation that Biden drops out.

3. Why would Biden cede to the same presidential-nomination in-fighting that is plaguing Republicans with Trump’s overwhelming voter appeal that is competing with donors who just cannot quit Nikki Haley (R-SC) as a GOP dark-horse?

   1. Haley raised more money than Trump in January 2024.

4. In a time where Democrat operatives are already worried about losing the votes of Independents and potential party dissidents, what is the cost-benefit analysis of letting bureaucrats choose a candidate for their party voters to follow? Especially after already allowing voters to participate in their primaries, this would seem like a slap-in-the-face to the desires of their biggest supporters who did not have to necessarily go to the polls to secure Biden the nomination, but did so out of loyalty.

Age has not been much of an issue in past elections, as voters often prioritize their politics over their feelings once they get to the polls. Once Biden-skeptics are confronted with the reality of either giving a vote to their political villain in Trump or throwing it away to a third-party radical like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., they might just swallow the hard candy and bubble in Joseph R. Biden in November.