Tuesday, February 13, 2024
Year : 2, Issue : 7
by Ben Davis
With the primaries all but over, the stage is set for the general election, and one thing is clear: Joe Biden is losing. Despite the fact that Donald Trump is under indictment on 91 felony counts, is incredibly unpopular and attempted a coup at the end of his last term, he is currently in the pole position to win a second term. The stakes of this election are extraordinarily high. Still, the top-of-mind issue for voters is something Democrats can’t change and can barely hope to mitigate: Joe Biden’s age and acuity.
Polling has shown that Biden’s age and the resulting perception of confusion and incompetence are the top issues preventing voters from pulling the lever for him. The vast majority of voters believe he is too old and lacks the mental acuity to be president and should not run again. Clips of him forgetting words and seeming confused regularly play on cable news and go viral online. This was before a special counsel’s report alleged that in interviews, the president forgot when he was vice-president and even when his son Beau died of cancer. Matters were not helped by his defensive emergency press conference, which did little to assuage anyone watching of his ability to be president. This is clearly an issue for voters that will continue to grow.
Biden’s inability to control things has been compounded by his actual policy failures, in particular on Israel and Palestine, which have enraged young voters, Black voters, and Arab and Muslim voters, especially in the crucial swing state of Michigan. His orientation here further underscores his fundamental problem in the eyes of voters: a sense of national weakness and helplessness in the face of crisis. The US has done nothing to stop or slow the mass killing of Palestinians, instead providing full military support for Israel, which Biden says has gone “over the top” in its response, appearing impotent to voters. Israeli officials gleefully mock the administration’s ability to rein in what the International Court of Justice has called a plausible genocide. If the president of the US can’t even slow a plausible genocide carried out by a close ally, it’s hard for voters to see what he can do.
This is made altogether more serious by the alternative. While Biden’s age has dominated the news, Trump’s campaign has avoided scrutiny for its plans for after they win: a brutal authoritarian crackdown. Trump has, just in the last few months, claimed that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of this country”, comparing himself to Hitler on stage, proposed activating the military for massive sweeps rounding up millions of immigrants into camps and plans to gut the federal civil service to make the organs of the state loyal only to him. Unlike his first term, during which he often operated without a plan, Trump enters this election with a serious plan to move American democracy at a minimum toward the managed, illiberal democracy of rightwing authoritarian-leaning states like Russia, Hungary or Israel. Fundamental rights for hundreds of millions are at stake and we are instead distracted by the mistakes of a hubristic administration. Democrats need a backup plan.
Biden needs to quell the fears and doubts about his age and acuity, a tall order, or the party should be preparing a way out to win the election. They already should be. On Biden’s end, he needs to reassert control in the foreign policy sphere and crack down on Israel today. He can force a ceasefire if he shows decisiveness. On the DNC’s side, they need to prepare a plan to move towards alternatives. Vice-president Kamala Harris is the obvious answer, but she also polls poorly in a general election scenario. Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor, is another alternative, a winner in the Rust Belt who is popular with voters and has an authentic record of accomplishments in a divided political climate. The risks of changing candidates in an election year are extremely high, but so is the status quo. Democrats need to analyze the risks and rewards of both options very seriously. They owe it to Americans to win this election and Americans don’t owe it to them to do it for them.
