During a political tour de force, US President Biden shows significant lack of concentration. Senate Republican leader McConnell “freezes.” Trump is not the youngest either. US voters view this extremely critically.
A few years ago, when Donald Trump was still in the White House and Joe Biden was his challenger, the Democrat called himself a “transition candidate.” It was about getting rid of the Republican and then handing over political leadership to a new generation. The transition will drag on – possibly until 2029 if Biden is elected for a second term. Biden would then be 86 years old, a lonely record in the White House. Did he hold out for a second mandate? Will his deputy Kamala Harris have to take over at some point? What does this mean for U.S. security? For the Democratic Party? The economy? Society?
Based on these questions, the US media continues to discuss the state of health of their 80-year-old head of state. Bidens blooper, slips of the tongue and mix-ups are nothing new in the political career of the former senator and vice president. But footage from 2019, when he was fighting for the Democratic nomination, shows differences from current signs of weakness. In some moments he is more like an old man than the energetic head of state of a superpower. Briefly asked: As the oldest US president, is Biden ever just that: too old?
For the voters, the matter is as clear as day. At the end of August, an overwhelming majority of nearly three-quarters said in a survey The Wall Street Journal said that Biden should therefore not run again as announced. Among Democrats it was two-thirds. Biden himself takes a different view. At the same time, 47 percent of Americans said that Trump was too old for the presidency. The survey was comprehensive and showed that Biden is seen as more likeable and honest than his likely opponent. In retrospect, his performance as president is rated better than Biden’s current administration.
Now there was renewed cause for questions about Biden: The President had traveled to the G20 summit in India and to Vietnam; a five-day tour de force during which, according to the US media, sleep was almost impossible. At the end of the trip, in Hanoi, the Democrat’s press conference culminated in around half an hour full of Lack of concentration, doddering and his comment “I don’t know how you feel, but I’m going to bed” in an abrupt stop. The press chief cut off the president using the loudspeaker. Music played, Biden collected his notes and left.
Republicans and critics of the president see this as further evidence that Biden needs to leave office and someone else needs to take care of the country’s problems. Democrats are largely avoiding the issue publicly because it would raise more uncomfortable questions: Could someone else win against Trump, who will most likely run for the Republicans? Biden has already beaten him once, as the incumbent he has an unwritten claim to the candidacy and, according to current poll results, would be on a par with Trump in a 2024 election duel.
The country has old heads
If Biden were to abstain, the Democrats would be hectic at best and chaos at worst: hastily arranged TV debates and election campaigns put together in no time at all, and fundraising madness. The Democrats would have to herald a turning point. It comes one way or another and goes beyond its party. The only question is when. Others who are well past their physical prime are also taking leading positions in US politics.
In some ways, the United States is a gerontocracy, a system of rule by the ancients. The average age in Congress has been rising for a long time and is currently one of the highest in its history. In the Senate it is 64 years old, in the House of Representatives it is almost 58 years old. If Trump were elected for the Republicans, he would be 82 years old at the end of his term and would replace Biden as the oldest president ever to serve. Trump often speaks in fragments of sentences, he has always done so, most recently with US presenter Tucker Carlson. It is difficult to determine which of these is due to age or confusion.
Nancy Pelosi, the stone-faced former leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, recently announced that she would run again in 2024. Pelosi is 83 years old, left her leadership post last year and regularly clashes with her successor. The speaker of the Republican faction in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, has been a member of the Senate for the state of Kentucky since 1985. He is 81 years old and his term ends in January 2027. Most recently, McConnell had two long pauses in which he publicly “frozen”. With all due respect to age: the second time it looked like thisas if the operating system didn’t understand what was being asked of it, stopped and finally restarted.
A political chick compared to McConnell is Nikki Haley, temporarily US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump – and possible Republican presidential candidate if Trump’s court cases end the ex-president’s ambitions. Haley is currently the only Republican who would clearly win against Biden in a presidential duel, shows a survey. There are many indications that this also has to do with her age. The Senate is “the most privileged retirement home in the country,” the 51-year-old scoffed, and said to McConnell: “You have to recognize when you have to leave.” Obviously this is not the case for some people. A majority of Americans say in surveys that they want upper limits on age and the number of seats.
Like Trump, Nikki Haley is running for the Republican nomination.
(Photo: AP)
Regardless of good or bad work, someone who is already in office has more influence, is better known than his challengers, and therefore often receives more financial support and can therefore promote himself more. This cycle leads to parliamentary stability, but can also cause frustration. This “swamp” in Washington, which Trump and his supporters curse, and which Biden is also a part of, will not be drained like this. A year ago, “Business Insider” titled a series of articles “Red, White and Gray” based on the colors of the US flag: In it, the authors shed light on the aging phenomenon in US politics from a variety of perspectives.
“How am I supposed to move forward if they die away?”
Some US media are drawing comparisons to the Soviet Union of the 1970s and 1980s, which was in the grip of an aging communist guard before Mikhail Gorbachev became head of state. “The gerontocracy in the Soviet Union is alive and well,” wrote the “New York Times” about the Communist Party Congress in Moscow in 1976: “The clique of older ruling gentlemen remains in control,” it said about the then party leader Leonid Brezhnev and others who had an average age of over 70 years.
When Gorbachev’s predecessor Konstantin Chernenko died in 1985, then US President Ronald Reagan was informed in the middle of the night. “How am I supposed to get on with the Russians if they keep dying away from me?” he asks his wife Nancy. Chernenko was 74 years old and the third Supreme Soviet to die in three years. Reagan was the oldest serving US president until Biden himself. At the end of his two terms in office, the Republican was 77 years old.
Biden’s problem, and therefore that of the Democrats, is that the discussions and concerns about his age obscure his political work. Biden has more good years than bad years. The infrastructure package, historically large investments in the US economy and, after losses in real wages in recent years, gains again, understandable lines in foreign policy: the president can set his sights on a lot.
But around 60 percent do not agree with Biden’s economic and anti-inflation policies. Just over 40 percent of US voters are overall satisfied with him as head of state. That’s about the same proportion as Trump at the same time, but significantly less than Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The two Democrats were re-elected. Trump lost. So Biden is walking a tightrope that no one in the USA has ever walked before. A third candidate like Cornel West and possibly a fourth, to his left and right, could bring down the Democrat by stealing crucial votes from him.
What makes the Democrats positive is that they achieved an excellent result in last year’s congressional elections. The main trigger for this was the culture war over abortion. Many did not want to be told whether they could have an abortion or not and therefore voted for the Democrats. However, from the perspective of US voters, a US president should not only defend freedoms, but also be physically and mentally stamina, resilient, decisive, alert, must create positive economic conditions and overcome foreign policy crises in the interests of the US. In short: he has to be a strong leader strong leader.
It’s still a year until the presidential elections. If Biden is already showing weakness, as he did in Hanoi, this could turn into a monumental problem in the election campaign, which has not yet begun for the Democrats. Around half of Democratic voters would prefer a candidate other than Biden anyway. A majority of the electorate wishes a president in his 50s and doesn’t want another duel between Biden and Trump. Nevertheless, it is currently the most likely scenario for 2024.