An aging president with dropping poll numbers driven by high inflation tipping into a recession. Whispers in his own party of whether or not the oldest president ever should be replaced rather than run for a second term. Sound familiar? I'm talking about what happened to Ronald Reagan back in 1982.
Yes the poor situation that President Joe Biden currently finds himself in has a precedent, but that doesn't make his troubles any easier. Will Biden get lucky like Reagan did, and have the economy bounce back right before an election year? We'll see. One thing seems to be clear, despite the findings of the January 6th committee, which is exposing even more of Donald Trump's despicable behavior as president, and also despite the fact that the Supreme Court is about to make the unpopular decision to overturn Roe Vs Wade, there appears to be no way that the Democrats won't get clobbered in the midterms in November.
Part of this is normal; the party that owns the White House almost always loses seats in the House and the Senate during the midterms, with angry voters showing up more than supportive ones. But the danger of this election is that if there is a red wave of Republican victories across the land, that would put in power people in swing states who have publicly endorsed Trump's utterly baseless assertions that the 2020 election was stolen from him. And as we saw after that election, there are many different ways that vote counts can be challenged (and maybe even thrown out entirely). Which means that if Trump does run in 2024 (and he sure looks like he will), he may have allies in congress and in swing states willing to help him steal a close election. All of which means that his assault on American democracy probably isn't over.
With the stakes this high, and Biden approval ratings tanking, it is reasonable to ask if maybe he should step down. And his age is a factor; in 2024 he will be 82 years old, which would push him close to 90 by the end of a second term. Now, other world leaders have competently run a country at an even greater age, but the US President is a unique leader in that he controls the world's largest military, and has an influence on the world's largest economy. (The US President is called the leader of the free world for a reason!) So the job is very stressful and relentless. Plus, if 2024 is a Biden-Trump rematch, it would mark the first time ever that both presidential candidates are over 80 years old, not the best way to be looking forward. And, a younger candidate could appeal to younger voters, who tend to swing left politically but vote infrequently. For the record, Biden has repeatedly stated that he plans to run for reecletion, but with a Republican congress inevitably investigating everything about him that it can (get ready to hear a lot about Hunter Biden's laptop in 2023), and possible continued sagging poll numbers, having him stand as a transitional president who had to bring some level of decency back to the White House after the chaos and corruption of Trump, seems appealing.
So let's say Biden does decline to run. Who will replace him? The logical person is Vice President Kamala Harris, but she has had her own issues with low approval ratings and bad press. And, while I'm an admirer of her, I do wonder how she would do in a race against Trump. The 2016 election sadly revealed that much of the country seems reluctant to put a woman in the role of Commander in Chief, and that could easily happen again to Harris. This is, of course, why Biden got the Democratic nomination back in 2020; a lot of Democrats saw an old white man as more electable against Trump than a nonwhite woman like Harris. And they were right. So who else does that leave? If it has to be a while male under 80, that leaves out Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. I like Pete Buttigieg, but again, an openly gay candidate may prove to be too groundbreaking. Perhaps Gavin Newsom, the Governor of California, who's about to cruise to reelection? He's likable, but maybe California is seen as too left by the rest of the country? Another likable candidate is Beto O'Rourke, although he's probably about to lose a governor's race in Texas, which won't be a good look. And I'm sure there are many other potential Democratic candidates out there that aren't household names yet who could be good candidates.
Of course, all this kind of guesswork is like predicting the weather, because two years is a very long time in politics. As I stated at the beginning of this post, things looked bad for Reagan back in 1982, and sure enough his party lost 27 seats in the House in that election, but two years later, in his reecletion campaign, he won 49 states. While there's no way that Biden could have that kind of victory, things could turn around for him.
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