Could the Democrats replace President Joe Biden as their 2024 nominee?

Don’t count on it. Despite the myriad concerns over a Biden candidacy, the Democrats are running out of time and running out of options for a replacement – in large part because the Democrats, through stubborn adherence to their incumbent, precluded options.

Joe Biden: Concerns Mounting as Election Approaches

The Democratic Party, from the top brass down to the voters, is becoming increasingly concerned with President Biden’s viability as a candidate.

Inspiring the bulk of the concern is Biden’s age and mental acuity. The problem was evident the moment Biden took office, so you’d think the Democrats would have had some lead time to prepare for the problem now being addressed: Biden is too old to serve a second term.

Instead of facing the obvious truth years ago, Democrats rallied behind their incumbent, even as his speech began to slur and his sentences started to trail, as he crossed over from his seventies into his eighties.

The result is the oldest president ever, a guy who looks and sounds every day of his 81 years, yet is proposing to remain in office for five more years – through his 86^th birthday.

Even the most partisan, bullheaded Democrats are beginning to recognize that Biden probably won’t be a functional human being five years from now.

If Biden were just some regular, private citizen, he’d be the grandfather in the rocking chair, under a blanket, whose sometimes-coherent-sometimes-not-mutterings wouldn’t earn much consideration from the rest of the family.

Instead, somehow, Biden is running the most powerful nation in the history of humankind. Well, on paper, Biden is running the nation. But it’s hard to believe he’s actually calling too many shots in his present state.

Which, of course, raises questions about whether he should be president or not.

Still, despite how unfit Biden is for a second term, the Democrats have shut out other options; the Democrats re-worked the primary schedule, prioritizing South Carolina (where Biden salvaged his 2020 campaign), to ensure Biden’s continued relevance. Similarly, when challengers declared their candidacy to unseat Biden, the Democratic Party proceeded without acknowledging any of the alternative candidates, or allowing for a debate, or any sort of contest whatsoever.

Of course, Biden himself could have opted out of a reelection campaign. The 81-year-old could have looked in the mirror and appreciated that he doesn’t have another half-decade of public service in the tank.

But Biden, who first ran for president nearly forty years ago, has spent his entire life working towards the presidency, and wasn’t willing to walk away with a term in the bank. Someone – Jill Biden or Barack Obama or someone with some influence over Biden’s thinking – should have sat Biden down and said ‘Joe, you can’t run again.’ Maybe someone did. I don’t know. If that conversation happened, the message didn’t get through. Stubbornly, Biden is running for president.

Stuck with Joe Biden?

Now that Joe Biden is going to be the nominee and the rest of the party has gotten in line obediently, there are no other options.

No one else has performed the fundraising or built up the campaign infrastructure to challenge Trump in a general election. The Democrats are all in on Biden at this point – which should be terrifying given that he’s already trailing Trump in the polls.

And remember: in 2020, when Biden beat Trump in the general election, COVID prevented a traditional campaign. Meaning, Biden was able to run a presidential campaign from his Delaware basement, occasionally jumping on a Zoom call, making a few phone calls.

The seventy-something-year-old was able to avoid the traditional campaign, where candidates run themselves ragged for 16-hours a day and bounce around from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina and back again and give press interviews in between and shake hands and kiss babies – the type of campaign that would have emphasized Biden’s frailty and age. But the pandemic is over, and Biden won’t have the luxury of half-campaigning in 2024.

About the Author: Harrison Kass

Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.

Image Credit: Gage Skidmore.