Biden vs Trump in 2024 doesn’t bode well for the world
American voters may be faced with having to pick the less unappealing of the two candidates
With President Joe Biden having formally announced that he plans to run for re-election, it is quite probable that the United States will see a rerun of the 2020 election in 2024—Biden versus Donald Trump. All numbers indicate that the people of America are not very enthused by this prospect.
According to an NBC News poll released two days before Biden went public with his decision, 70% of Americans thought he should not run again. The latest PBS NewsHour poll has found that 64% do not want to see Trump back. At 80 years, Biden is already the oldest US president ever. If re-elected, he will be 82 when he begins his second term. And Trump is only four years younger.
In the 27 months that he has been president, on a number of occasions, Biden has shown signs of advancing age—a shuffling gait, tripping on stairs, faltering memory and speech, sudden flashes of temper and erratic cognitive ability. He has also made several off-the-cuff remarks—like calling for a regime change in Moscow and saying that he will send in the US military to defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression—that have had the White House scrambling to explain that he did not actually mean what he said.
A poll conducted in February by the Harvard Centre for American Political Studies suggests that as many as 57% of US voters have doubts about Biden’s mental fitness. According to a Washington Post study of eight national polls in 2022 and 2023, even among Democrats, only 38% wanted Biden to be the party’s presidential nominee in 2024. This is extraordinary.
Yet it is almost certain that Biden will get the Democratic Party’s nomination. The only time in American history that an elected president—Franklin Pierce—lost his party’s nomination was in 1856.
Biden’s presidency has not been a great success so far—high inflation, a hapless exit from Afghanistan, a big rise in illegal immigration, bitter culture wars over social justice and gender. His latest approval rating is a low 41%. So Biden’s party is trying to make the 2024 election more about Trump than about Biden’s performance. Its strategists believe that their best bet to retain the White House is to play on the alarm that many feel by the notion of Trump returning. This, they hope, will get a large number of independent voters who are not committed Democrats or Republicans to turn up on election day and vote for Biden. Biden framed his 2024 bid as “a battle for the soul of America" against the “extremism" of Trump supporters. It should surprise no one if his campaign focuses on fear-mongering about a bogeyman more than messages of hope.
Of course, all of this hinges on Trump being nominated by the Republican Party as its candidate. But that is exactly what the Democratic Party wants. Having Biden go up against a much younger man like 44-year-old Florida governor Ron DeSantis would be riskier, because it will starkly highlight Biden’s age-related issues.
After leaving the White House, Trump, with his frequent rants that seem to mix toxic egotism with a victimhood complex, was losing his popularity outside his core base. Then, a few weeks ago, the Manhattan district attorney, a progressive Democrat, indicted him for cooking his business books to pay adult-film star Stormy Daniels to stay silent about an alleged one-night-stand he had with her 17 years ago. Till that day, DeSantis was leading Trump as the favourite presidential candidate among Republican voters. The tide turned suddenly. Prima facie, the case seems to be on legally shaky ground. Even Trump-sceptic Republicans saw it as a former president being hounded unjustly. Current opinion polls have Trump well ahead of DeSantis. Just what the Democrats were likely hoping for.
And they could be right. The Republicans were widely expected to comfortably win the November 2022 mid-term elections to the US Senate and House of Representatives. This did not happen. Trump had pushed through his acolytes as candidates in many constituencies and there are clear signs that the Democratic Party cleverly spent money to shore up these politicians over other Republican aspirants. Most of these Trumpists lost, showing that many traditional Republican voters—and a big chunk of independents—were rejecting “the Donald". As expected, the man himself appears to have taken no lessons from this.
Narcissists typically see their failures as instances of being cheated by enemies and just add them to their list of grievances.
It is now clear that Trump is a deeply polarizing entity not only for the US, but also for the Republican Party. He hurls wild accusations at DeSantis everyday. The party seems unable to speak in one voice on issues and policies that matter to the common US voter, making the job easier for Democrats. They need to only stoke dread over Trump 2.0 instead of getting into any serious debate on Biden’s record as president.
Self-obsessed leaders have been known to wreck their own ship and doom everyone on board rather than admit an error, say, in dismissing an iceberg risk. If Trump is not nominated by his party, he may even decide to contest as an independent. That would make Biden’s victory certain. A lot could change in the 18 months till the 2024 election. But as of now, it does not bode too well for America. It would be a choice between two ageing men, neither of whom inspires the kind of confidence the leadership of a country of its stature should. Unfortunately, this also affects the rest of the world.
Sandipan Deb is a former editor of ‘Financial Express’, and founder-editor of ‘Open’ and ‘Swarajya’ magazines
