One of the strangest aspects of the 2020 presidential election was the way in which Joe Biden won both his party’s nomination and the White House. You see, for large stretches of time, no one saw or heard from Biden throughout the campaign. It was as though the man didn’t exist. Meanwhile, there Donald Trump was cutting a swathe across the country with his travels and various campaign events. 

This elicited derisive nicknames from Trump, such as “Basement Biden.” Yet, Biden didn’t seem to care. He kept hunkered down in his basement for weeks at a time, claiming that he was setting the example that he thought Trump should have been setting in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Similarly, as the country is subjected to another Biden-Trump presidential election, former President Trump is holding many more campaign rallies and conducting raucous interviews with an overwhelmingly hostile press than is President Biden. 

Unlike 2020, though, Joe Biden does not have the excuse of a pandemic to keep his absence from becoming a real controversy. 

If anything, Biden’s protracted absences from the campaign trail and carefully choreographed media appearance (what few there are) serve as a continual reminder of an increasingly annoyed electorate of just how out-of-touch President Biden is. 

Joe Biden Bombs in Public

A recent public appearance by the forty-sixth president did little to assuage the general public’s fears that Biden is simply too old to serve as president for another four years (he will be almost 90, if he were to be reelected and make it through his second term).

While making a rare campaign appearance, Biden had a Ron Burgundy moment, where he read everything off the teleprompter—and I mean everything.

In this case, he was sleepily talking about how his Catholic high school in Delaware had been founded by a Catholic order originally from Wisconsin. As he meandered and slurred his way through the recounting, Biden brought up his theology professor. Just when he started speaking about the man, he started to say his name. “Riley,” Biden began and then, clearly reading the quiet part out loud from the teleprompter he was relying upon to get him through the arduous public appearance, Biden slipped and said, “Last Name” rather than the man’s actual surname. 

That moment has since gone viral and is rightly being used as a cudgel by Biden’s political rivals as proof-positive that the man is having some issues for sure.

By the way, this comes a couple of weeks after the White House Press Office told reporters that the forty-sixth president would no longer walk alone across the White House lawn when boarding the presidential helicopter, Marine One. Instead, he’d be covered by a phalanx of young—mostly male—White House interns carrying bunches of work and briefcases.

Left unsaid was the reason for this break with White House tradition (past presidents have wanted to appear resolute and convey the image of being independent and in deep thought by walking quietly across the lawn). This sudden change came about because the White House Press Office understood that the image of Biden walking alone, shuffling, slightly hunched over, and looking lost, conveyed the wrong message to the public. 

Meanwhile, former President Trump is tormented by vicious partisans masquerading as prosecutors and judges in multiple court cases. At each court hearing, Trump appears strong and cogent. After every day in court, Trump walks to the parking garage of the courthouse and gives an extemporaneous discourse on the events that he’s been made to endure and issues a robust, off-the-cuff self-defense. 

Biden, meanwhile, can’t even read a simple teleprompter statement or walk to his helicopter without needing political chicanery to keep a friendly White House press corps distracted. 

Hidin’ with Joe Biden

No wonder he’s hiding. 

But, if the 2024 election is indeed a free-and-fair one, then the probability that the forty-sixth president will win reelection by operating like a recluse is low. There is no pandemic to hide behind. Although, there might be a foreign policy crisis which seems to be brewing everywhere. 

As Jimmy Carter proved, though, abandoning the campaign trail during an election cycle to be seen managing a foreign policy crisis will likely backfire as Americans will be reminded of the crisis having started under the current president’s watch, and they will seek a new president. 

Biden is hiding—or, rather being hidden by his advisers and his wife—because he is likely mentally unfit to lead. Since the Democrats don’t have a viable replacement for him in 2024, they will keep him in stasis beneath the White House until Trump loses. 

Unless these partisans know something that the rest of us don’t, though, their strategy of ducking-and-covering Biden from the American people will, in fact, lead to his defeat rather than assure victory. 

About the Author

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is due October 22 from Encounter Books. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.