So, yes, news flash: Joe Biden is old. Older than something like 96 percent of his fellow Americans. Eighty now, and — gasp — 86 were he to win reelection and serve his full second term.
Guess what? Biden was old when he ran and won in 2020, kinda saving democracy. Hell, even before he was old, he acted old, like that time as VP when, giving a speech, he asked a local dignitary to stand up and take a bow, not noticing somehow that said dignitary was in a wheelchair. I remember how, in his forties, Biden was what has come to be called a gaffe machine, someone prone to an oldster’s malapropisms.
Now that he’s announced his reelection campaign, we’re awash in stories about that which he can’t control: His time here on earth. The headlines write themselves, as happened just yesterday when he fell on stage at the Air Force Academy graduation; nary a story failed to mention his age in its lead. Ditto on his recent Asia trip, when he referred to Cambodia as Colombia and confused the Ukrainian city of Kherson with the Iraqi city of Fallujah — before correcting himself. Blips like these, seen to feed a bigger narrative, get blown up — and public opinion shifts as to the president’s fitness for office, regardless of actual job performance.
“President Biden’s capacity to overperform after an onslaught of negative press and Democratic hand-wringing is second to none.” — Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin
A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that more than two-thirds of Americans believe Biden is too old to serve another term — while a mere 42 percent think the same of Donald Trump, who is just a few years younger than Biden, but who is seen, mystifyingly, as more mentally sharp and physically vigorous despite being diagnosed as obese. The Wall Street Journal editorialized that “The public understands what Mr. Biden apparently won’t admit: that electing an octogenarian in obvious decline for another four years could be an historic mistake.” Obvious decline? The editorial went on to provide not a scintilla of evidence. But they’re tapping into a feeling.
I must admit: I, too, find myself anxious that Biden won’t get to the end of virtually every sentence. Yes, he can appear doddering — but also calm, which is not a bad trait following the chaos that preceded him. But doesn’t all this angst about Biden’s age say more about us — and our anti-meritocratic leanings when it comes to matters of elderliness — than it does about him? Because all the old guy keeps doing is … winning, which we’ll get to.
You know who else is Joe Biden’s age? Mick Jagger, who turns 80 next month. That’s right. We’re not wringing our hands that Mick’s too old to shimmy those creaky hips every night to Gimme Shelter, are we? Is there a better role model for the fact that even 80-year-olds — depending on a whole host of individual factors — have something to contribute? What Biden ought to do is host the rocker at the White House, maybe do a silly little duet of Satisfaction — and proclaim that, from now on, he’s going to “campaign like Jagger.”
Dear progressive friends, listen please
Maybe that will give some comfort to those progressives who are getting skittish about Biden’s fitness for office. That’s right, the last tolerated prejudice now appears to be ageism. AARP, after all, noting that 35 percent of the nation is now 50 or older, holds that age discrimination is “the last acceptable bias.”
I get the right-wing harping on Biden’s age, as when Nikki Haley ghoulishly predicted the president’s demise; they’re trying to define their opponent. But why are progressives taking the bait? The Nation — that bastion of Leftist thought for the last 158 years — recently convened a panel of bold-face name progressives, many of whom urged the president to refrain from running again. Robert Reich, secretary of labor under Bill Clinton, finds Biden’s age “deeply worrying.” Barbara Lawton, former lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, reports that her “stomach clenches at the prospect of a venerable president becoming incapable of strong leadership for all the dangers of aging past 80, at the inevitable wince-worthy moments that may accrue to the point of putting our nation at risk.” When someone begins a sentence with “I am not trying to be ageist” — some of my best friends are old! — you know what’s coming.
“Forget that [Biden] is a dozen years younger than his main media critic 92-year old Fox chief Rupert Murdoch. Still, the deafening cacophony of colliding choruses of media critics create such noise that it is hard for the public to hear the triumphs of the Biden presidency.” — Jeffrey Sonnenfeld
Dear progressive friends: Are we a meritocratic society, or not? If yes, then you’ve got to concede that Joe Biden has, quite improbably, pulled off one of the most substantively successful first terms in modern history. He’s at least earned the right of your consideration to, as he puts it, finish the job. Senator Diane Feinstein, on the other hand, is too old to serve — and there is no inconsistency between lining up behind Biden, who is getting the job done, and insisting that Feinstein step down, because her age-related health issues have made it such that she can’t perform the duties of her office.
Yes, it sucks that a gerontocracy dominates our politics. I’m all about new blood and fresh thinking. But Biden is proving that something else matters, too: The not-dead-yet art of politics itself. Progressives and a whole host of Philly pols — including presumptive next Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker — ought to be taking notes. Because, despite his stiff gait and that garbled speech (remember, Biden has stuttered nearly his whole life), Joe Biden is a political savant.
Just look at the can o’ whoop-ass he just opened up on Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy during the debt ceiling negotiations. All of those draconian Freedom Caucus demands? Repealing the Inflation Reduction Act and student debt relief? Capping nonmilitary spending for a decade? McCarthy got none of it.
The negotiations, wrote David Leonhardt of the New York Times, were “a reminder that [Biden] is the most successful bipartisan negotiator to occupy the White House in decades.” Remember, the federal government spent $3 trillion during Covid to save the nation from another Great Depression. Biden’s willingness to entertain some spending cuts now that we’re out of the woods is warranted. But even so, he cleverly embedded a type of trap door provision in the bill that will enable him to lessen the impact of its cuts by using emergency powers to shift money from one program to another.
“President Biden’s capacity to overperform after an onslaught of negative press and Democratic hand-wringing is second to none,” writes Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin. “To sum up: Biden brushed back the litany of outrageous demands, kept his spending agenda and tax increases intact and got his two-year debt limit increase. And in making a deal with McCarthy, Biden helps stoke dissension on the GOP side as the extreme MAGA wing denounces the agreement.”
A helluva lot of wins
Not everything is about age, is it? After all, younger, less experienced, more ideological elected officials, like our own Senator John Fetterman, were advocating a far more impractical course of action: Invoking the 14th Amendment, which would have led to endless legal challenges, economic calamity during such uncertainty, and a shaky bet that this Supreme Court would come down on the side of the Constitution’s plain text.
As Yale’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld writes:
“The wisdom of octogenarian leaders have rebuilt nations at fragile moments. Only the 82-year-old Benjamin Franklin could lead the needed national consensus at the U.S. Constitutional Convention, and only 87-year-old Konrad Adenauer could rebuild national spirit and global trust for defeated post-war Germany. France relied upon Charles de Gaulle to unify the nation as he reached 80. After leading Union Pacific and Brown Brothers Harriman, Averell Harriman served as one of the greatest diplomats, advising presidents until he was 94… Forget that [Biden] is a dozen years younger than his main media critic 92-year old Fox chief Rupert Murdoch. Still, the deafening cacophony of colliding choruses of media critics create such noise that it is hard for the public to hear the triumphs of the Biden presidency.
And when you look at those triumphs, particularly in light of a divided Congress, they’re staggering. Biden has reminded us of the power of political skill: The creating of coalitions, the making of strange bedfellows, the dealmaking, the genuine relating. Yes, Biden’s communication skills have proven to be lacking. He doesn’t get voters, particularly young ones, excited like Obama did. That is not, as Fox News would have you believe, a function of his age. Joe Biden, God bless him, has always been a babbling gaffe machine. That’s why, way back in the 1980s, one colleague in the Senate complained that, “You ask Joe Biden what time it is and he’ll tell you how to make a watch.”
Feel free to wish Biden were a better spokesman who could get us excited about a vision. But also consider: Better than expressing a vision is actually enacting one.
But what he is is what he advertised himself to be in the 2020 campaign: A decent man, yes, but also maybe one of the last practitioners of this particular art of practical politics. Let’s look at what has quite surprisingly turned out to be one of the most successful first terms in recent presidential history, even if the polls don’t yet reflect it. In addition to an efficient rollout of vaccines and school openings early in his term, and historic job growth throughout — including the lowest Black unemployment ever — there has been:
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- The $1.9 trillion American Recovery Act
- The $550 billion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, an under-appreciated historically big bet on rebuilding highways, bridges, broadband, and rail
- The aforementioned Inflation Reduction Act, which represents the largest investment in combating climate change in history, the lowering of prescription drug prices, and deficit reduction
- The ending (sloppily) of a 20-year war in Afghanistan and the rebuilding of the NATO alliance in the face of Russia’s crimes against humanity in Ukraine
- The killing of the mastermind of 9/11
- The first significant bipartisan gun safety legislation in 30 years
- A bipartisan law enhancing health care and disability benefits for millions of veterans exposed to toxic burn pits, with an assist from outraged comedian Jon Stewart
- The $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act, which invests billions in American semiconductor manufacturing (at a time when China controls the sector) and makes sweeping investments in scientific research, R & D, and regional technology hubs. (Alas, it remains to be seen just how much of its funding will come through under the debt ceiling deal.)
That’s a helluva lot of wins for the first term of a doddering president and a 50-50 Senate. So how’d Biden do it? Politics. Note that all but two of Biden’s accomplishments, the ARP and IRA — not coincidentally the two biggest-ticket items — had significant Republican support. Why does that matter? Because if we don’t get to some middle ground consensus, American history will turn into a zero-sum game of one party, newly ascendant, reversing all that its opposition accomplished — until their fortunes flip again. It’s a recipe for utter stasis, which is pretty much where we’ve been of late.
Do I wish Biden were younger and inspired more confidence when he speaks? Sure. But what he really represents is a return to values-based governance, the old-school notion that word is bond, that deals get hashed out by no one at the table expecting to get all that they wanted, and that mutual respect is actually the cornerstone of our common project. Obama was a greater orator, but it’s Biden who has said to hell with incrementalism and made historic investments.
Feel free to wish Biden were a better spokesman who could get us excited about a vision. But also consider: Better than expressing a vision is actually enacting one.
