Reality
Here’s my reality: President Joe Biden is old. He’ll be even older when he takes office on January 20th, 2025, eighty-two. And from my perch here at sixty-seven, that’s definitely old. Is the Presidency a “younger man’s job”? Sure it is. We saw the energy and vitality President Obama brought to the office. Historically we look at Teddy Roosevelt and John Kennedy as men whose youth changed their times, energized the Nation, and set us on a new course.
In 2020, I was a Pete Buttigieg fan, before I voted for Biden. In 2028 (I’ll be seventy-two), I look forward to deciding among Pete, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Kamala Harris and perhaps others not yet on the scene. The future of the Democratic Party is bright. But it’s not time to “call the future”; it’s not time to move on from Joseph R Biden.
Rise to the Challenge
Before the 45th President, I was a “true believer” in the ability of the Presidency to “make the person”. My example was George W Bush, a “light-weight” candidate, who entered the Presidency under the thumb of his Vice President, Dick Cheney. But Bush rose to the moment of 9-11, and ultimately reclaimed his Presidency from Cheney and Rumsfeld. There were plenty of mistakes, and plenty of decisions I disagreed with, but Bush became “Presidential”. The office made the man, he rose to the challenge.
It was my hope that somehow Donald Trump would find that grace in office as well. But he proved to be the exception. At each interval of crisis, Trump chose the wrong path. After Charlottesville, it was “…good people on both sides”. On the border, he sanctioned ripping children out of the arms of parents. And worst of all, during the pandemic, he chose political expediency over leadership. It was clear that this deeply flawed man was not changed by the responsibilities of our highest office.
Call the Future
And if the twice impeached, four-time indicted, charged with 93 separate crimes, ex-President was not running for office again, then I too might call “the future” now. But just as American history has called on men to “rise to office”, it has also called Joe Biden to stand for the common man. Biden is the literal polar opposite of Trump. He is modest where Trump is brash, he is calm where Trump is bombastic, he is seasoned where Trump has failed the tests. Sure Biden is old, and so is Trump. But, as Biden himself would say, don’t compare him to the “Almighty”, compare him to his opponent.
History called Biden out of retirement, like an old warhorse pulled out of the pasture. It was, and is, his job to counter-balance Trump in a way no other politician can. “Average Joe” versus “Golden Escalator Trump” is the story of our era. And since Trump refuses to go away, Biden is the last, best chance to defeat him, again.
Republican Choice
Need proof? Even Republicans are figuring it out. DeSantis, the “golden boy” can’t touch Trump. He can’t “out-Trump” him, and he can’t “out-youth” him, and he can’t “out-fundraise” him. And don’t even start on Vivek Ramaswamy, as Chris Christie says, a candidate that sounds like “Chat GPT”. He made some press, but barely scores double digits in Republican polling.
Republicans are deciding to make the 2024 election another existential threat to American democracy. They are choosing their “charismatic” (hard to imagine) autocrat, who threatens our Constitutional freedoms on multiple levels, as their candidate. And America has determined the counter to Trump: Biden. So it’s two old men in 2024. For John Wayne fans, it’s “Rooster Cogburn or The Cowboys or The Shootist”. It’s Biden’s final act of a political career that started sixty years ago.
Existential Threat
To me, 2024 isn’t about conservative or progressive. It’s not about the economic issues; whether rich people should get a tax break to “trickle down” their wealth to us masses, or the US should ignore climate change. This election is about a man who believes the Presidency should be unchecked by the rest of the government. It is about the essential definition of democracy: should “the people” decide what the laws are, or should a select few make the decisions for all. 2024, like 2020, may determine not just which political party controls the White House, but the literal fate of the Constitutional experiment of American democracy.
To be truthful, Biden is too moderate for me. There are other Democrats (not Bernie) who more closely represent my political views. But time has chosen Biden, old as he is, to stand for American values at a time when they are most threatened, more than at any other time in our history. And that’s really all that matters.
I stand with Biden, again.
