This country is probably a year away from knowing for certain who will be the presidential nominees for the two major political parties in 2024.
It is, however, shaping up to be an undesirable rematch of Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Something is broken with the political system in this country if the best we can do is produce two aging men — one in seeming decline, the other a loose cannon — for the most powerful job in the world.
When Biden was elected in 2020, it was hoped that he would be a one-term, transitional president, freeing the country from the divisiveness, the volatility and the tawdriness of a Trump presidency, all the while laying the foundation for younger Democratic leaders to come after Biden.
No such luck. Biden, now 80, has decided he can hang on for another term, announcing his reelection plans this week. He certainly has had some accomplishments — continuing the progress America made against the COVID-19 pandemic during the Trump years and doing an even better job of it, getting a major infrastructure bill through Congress, pushing through significant legislation to deal with climate change. A lot of this success, though, has been bought with borrowed money, the ramifications of which we may not know for years, if not decades. Biden has demagogued about Social Security and Medicare, two entitlement programs that are increasingly endangered due to decades of government inaction to address their actuarial shortfalls. And he has defended abortion rights, in the face of a Supreme Court decision that has reduced their scope, as not just a necessary evil but a fundamental expression of freedom, glossing over the conflict between a woman’s right to control her body with the right of the unborn child to life.
As for Trump, he should have forfeited his right to ever set foot in the White House again after instigating an insurrection to try to stop Biden’s elevation to the presidency. Twice impeached, once indicted and now entangled in a civil trial on a 30-year-old rape claim, Trump is seriously damaged goods. He also continues to be a threat to democracy, still stirring up the lie among his most loyal supporters — against mountains of evidence — that the election was stolen from him in 2020.
Unlike Biden, who likely will be given an easy pass to the Democratic nomination, Trump will face several credible and qualified challengers within the GOP. The problem is, not one of them presently seems capable of erasing the sizable lead that public opinion polls indicate the former president maintains.
Of course, a lot could happen to change that dynamic. The first debates are more than three months away. More indictments and trials are possible for Trump. At some point, the GOP may tire of the perpetual turmoil surrounding him and arrive at a candidate who has more integrity, less baggage and isn’t approaching 80 years old.
If not, the 2024 election could be less about Biden’s age and performance and more about whether Trump should even smell a second term. The last time that question was put to a referendum, it didn’t turn out too well for the Republicans. “Anyone but Trump” was enough of a battle cry among the crucial independent bloc of voters in 2020 to make him one of only 10 sitting presidents ever to be denied a second term.
The onus is on the GOP to provide a better alternative.
