By now, anyone with an interest and access to the Internet has seen President Joe Biden’s abysmal performance in the first debate of the 2024 presidential campaign season against former President Donald Trump. Contrary to Biden’s assurances behind closed doors that he was as sharp and clear as ever, the president appeared frail for much of the 90-minute debate, struggling to express even his most basic points, again raising questions about his age and Mental health concerns. Much of the news coverage that followed dealt with the possibility of a Democratic replacement for Biden in November.
But no matter what ultimately happens between now and the election, or even between now and the Democratic National Convention in August, Biden had every opportunity to avoid that outcome, and he refused to do so. This points to a trend among lawmakers that he chooses to remain in power for a while.
In March 2020, while seeking the Democratic nomination, Biden campaigned in Michigan alongside Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). They all recently dropped out of the primary and endorsed Biden, and at a campaign rally in Detroit, he had a message for them and voters.
“Look, I see myself as a bridge more than anything else,” he said. “You see a whole generation of leaders standing behind me. They are the future of this country.” A few weeks later, he said, “I see myself as a transition candidate to the other guys on the bench who are ready to step up.”
In each instance, Biden seemed to indicate he only intended to serve one term. There has been talk for some time that this is his plan: Politico It was reported in December 2019 that Biden privately “said he would almost certainly not run for re-election, while refusing to make a commitment that he and his advisers fear could make him a lame duck and undermine his political capital.” ( Later in the day, Biden denied making any such decision.) Carl Bernstein even said in 2015 that Biden was considering running for a 2016 term due to age concerns.
But if Biden had planned to win in 2020, oust Trump from the White House and make way for the next generation of leaders, that’s not going to happen. Biden announced his re-election bid on April 25, 2023; on the same day, five thirty-eight Biden’s approval rating is down nearly 11 points, and he hasn’t had a net approval rating since August 2021.
Why not step aside to make way for the bench that Biden vauntedly calls “the future of this country”? Democrats don’t even seem to be taking the time to consider other candidates. The most obvious contender, actually waiting in the wings, would be Vice President Kamala Harris – who, reasonElizabeth Nolan Brown details how this would be a different kind of disaster, both as a candidate and as a potential president. Before he announced his re-election bid, traffic lightDavid Weigel talks about “the great paradox of 2024: Most Democrats say they want a Biden alternative, but no alternative they’re comfortable with wants to run.”
Ultimately, the president’s insistence on running for re-election despite available evidence that he was unfit feels more like a naked grasp on power than a good-faith assessment of his own abilities. Biden is not alone on this metric.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who died in 2023 at the age of 90, was the oldest sitting senator in the United States. For years, even as she served as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, she was dogged by allegations that she was cognitively declining and should resign.
In 2022, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) will be re-elected to begin his eighth term in the Senate, at which time he will be 95 years old. After that, he also submitted the running file again when that period ends. (That doesn’t necessarily mean Grassley actually plans to serve beyond his 100th birthday: Federal election rules require registering as a candidate in order to do certain things, such as raise money.) Grassley himself is in his nineties Serves on five committees, including the Senate Budget Committee, of which he is the ranking member.
Is Chuck Grassley the only Republican candidate who can serve as Iowa’s U.S. Senate? The Cook Political Report puts Republican support in the state 6 percentage points higher than the nation as a whole in 2022; Grassley beat his Democratic opponent by twice as much. Of course, Republicans have no shortage of candidates who can win this race.
Likewise, when Democrats retook the House in 2018, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sought to regain the House speakership after serving as speaker from 2007 to 2011. Pelosi succeeded in defeating the rebellion within the Democratic Party, in part because she pledged to serve no more than two terms. She even seemed to echo Biden when he said, “I see myself as a bridge to the next generation of leaders.” Four years later, when Republicans retook the House, Pelosi, 82, finally gave up her gavel.
That’s not to say Grassley or Pelosi are mentally unfit to serve. But most people don’t stay in a job that long: Retirees are eligible to start collecting Social Security benefits as early as age 62 or as late as age 70. And lawmakers in their 90s give the impression they are more concerned with retaining power than governing effectively.
In the coming years, Congress will consider whether to draft regulations on social media, multitrillion-dollar tech companies and artificial intelligence, among other developments that have yet to gain traction. Like Biden, these true elder statesmen should consider whether those born before the invention of Kitty Litter are truly qualified to draft the rules for an increasingly digital world.
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