Democrats Are Stuck with Biden

By Michael Brendan Dougherty

Friday, February 03, 2023

 

Joe Biden is still the Democrats’ best bet in 2024 — I stand by that. His poll numbers have steadied as gas prices have fallen, and broken supply chains have healed. He doesn’t inspire the intensity of fear and loathing among Republicans that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did. Yes, his party went on a spending spree at the end of the Covid emergency, but he’s pivoting toward the middle as he prepares to run again, highlighting the parts of his administration that are genuinely popular — the infrastructure bill, and more energetic competition with China. The great scandal of his administration is his son, Hunter Biden. And so far, the president has avoided direct implication in Hunter’s bad dealings. In some ways, Biden has turned it into an advantage. In a country that consumes 80 percent of the global supply of opioids, loving a troubled addict child is sadly relatable.

 

But let’s be clear. Joe Biden is their best choice, but that’s not really a good thing. An approval rating in the low 40s is not a great place for an incumbent president to start. A December survey found that a majority of Democrats don’t want Joe Biden to run for president again. Sixty-one percent of Democrats who said that he shouldn’t run again cited his age.

 

Yeah, that. Joe Biden will be 82 a few weeks after the next election. He’ll be 86 at the end of the next term. You might have noticed it this week when he bragged, “More than half the women in my administration are women.” An 80-year-old crowbar might have been the handiest tool for removing a real-estate mogul from the Oval Office in 2020. But you also might have noticed that a recession is on the way, the United States is in proxy war with Russia over Ukraine, China is dropping new naval ships into the Pacific every few months, and we’re nearly $19 billion behind on weapons deliveries to Taiwan. Do you really want an 85-year-old behind the wheel during this time?

 

Well, maybe you do if you look at the other options: Kamala Harris. Pete Buttigieg. Elizabeth Warren. Or, you know, AOC?

 

None of these people can beat Donald Trump — who, by the way, is no longer dining with Kanye West and is instead proceeding to collect endorsements and do rallies and has his strongest campaign team ever. And they aren’t going to beat Ron DeSantis, either.

 

It’s a truism that Congress has a popularity rating close to fungal infections but a reelection rate that outdoes the Soviet-era Duma. That problem is actually becoming even more acute lately. “Poor leadership” now outranks concerns about inflation and the economy in the latest Gallup poll.

 

For a long time, we’ve realized that Congress is as likable as the plague. And presidents should expect below-water approval ratings until foreign terrorists start blowing up American landmarks and killing thousands of us again. But even the parts of the government that had been insulated from this general disgust are coming in for a bashing. After the Dobbs ruling, the Supreme Court is more unpopular than ever, or at least since they started asking us 35 years ago. Last year, the military — which had always held Americans’ trust — started cratering: “The share of Americans who say they have a great deal of confidence in the military to act in the public’s best interests has fallen 14 points, from 39% in November 2020 to 25% in the current survey.”

 

Maybe Joe Biden floats in this environment because he’s so old, he’s a living link to a time when Americans weren’t inured to presidents — and everyone else — lying to them. Back to a time when we all knew what the definition of “is” was. When you could be sure that the majority of women in the Democratic administration were women, having only momentarily doubted Janet Reno.

 

But it’s a problem for America — the world’s leading democracy — that our entire government and, increasingly, our way of life leaves us this cold.