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Will Joe Biden be feeling the Bern in 2024?
According to a memo leaked to the Washington Post, private-jet-flying socialist Bernie Sanders has not “ruled out” the possibility of throwing his red beret into the ring for a third time.
The memo, written by Sanders’s advisor and 2020 campaign manager Faiz Shakir, read: “In the event of an open 2024 Democratic presidential primary, Senator Sanders has not ruled out another run for president, so we advise that you answer any questions about 2024 with that in mind.”
The timing of this memo is interesting. Just days before the leak, the Hill reported that President Joe Biden had told former president Barack Obama that he is “planning to run for reelection in 2024.”
One of the sources familiar with the Obama-Biden conversation told the Hill that Biden “wants to run and he’s clearly letting everyone know.”
He may well be letting everyone know; the thing is, not everyone believes him.
Can you blame also-rans like Bernie for hedging their bets? Joe Biden is shaking hands with imaginary friends at the podium and being wrangled by the Easter Bunny. It is hard to wonder if he is going to make it through a speech without dozing off. Naturally, Democrats are concerned about his ability to handle another presidential campaign.
Besides, even if Joe’s handlers decide to make him run again, who’s to say Bernie couldn’t beat him for the nomination? Sure, Biden is the incumbent. But he also has cratering approval ratings and record-high inflation. Not to mention that on top of Joe Biden’s mushrooming scandals and policy disasters, he wasn’t a strong candidate in the first place.
Biden’s appeal boiled down to two things: he wasn’t Donald Trump and he wasn’t a socialist.
The more time goes by, the more Americans are missing Trump’s policies. Simply not being President Mean Tweets doesn’t seem as sufficient as it did in 2020. Plus, Joe Biden’s “moderate” political persona disappeared faster than CNN+. He was never the middle-of-the-road grandfather the legacy media made him out to be. He was a radical in centrist’s clothing. At least if you vote for the progressive socialist on the ballot, you know what you’re getting.
Of course, there is one issue that plagues both the President and the Vermont senator: they are both old.
Really old.
In 2024, Bernie will be eighty-three years old and Joe Biden will be eighty-one. “No joke.”
Depending on who Republicans choose as their nominee, age might not be a winning argument for the GOP in 2024. After all, if the primary voters pick Donald Trump (he is by far the favorite), the former president will be seventy-seven years old — not exactly a spring chicken. However, if Disney-slaying supervillain Ron DeSantis wins the nomination, you can expect Republicans to “pounce” and “seize” on the age issue. A forty-six-year-old running against an octogenarian wouldn’t even be fair: more like Jerry Seinfeld taking on Izzy Mandelbaum.
Perhaps the Democrats should lean into the senility of their front-runners instead of trying to shy away from it. Maybe Bernie and Joe can run together and have the oldest ticket in history? A hundred and sixty-four years of crankiness on one ticket! Democrats couldn’t ask for more life experience than that.
Bring on Statler-Waldorf 2024.
