Yo, Democrats — can we just be honest?
Any Democrat who's paid even a modicum of attention to Joe Biden over the last three years who's not concerned about the nearly 81-year-old president's steadily declining state is in a serious state of denial. Trust me — I get it.
I mean, I know you have to pretend your president is in tip-top shape, but in that place in your mind you don't like to go, you know the guy's on a slippery slide to complete incoherence, right? Of course, you do; you just don't want to say it out loud.
Welp, one Democrat who's surprisingly not afraid to say it out loud is CNN political commentator Van Jones, who on Thursday said Democrats are concerned about Biden with respect to the 2024 general election, but they talk "behind their hand" because they don't want to lose out on invitations to parties.
With all due respect to Van Jones, invitations to parties are — or should be — the least of concerns for Democrats concerned about Biden's declining mental and physical condition.
CNN anchor Jim Sciutto broached the "Biden problem" question with Jones:
President Biden's age came up and this morning [when] Nikki Haley said, 'There is no way Joe Biden is going to finish out the next term, we can't have an 81-year-old president, we have to have a new generational leader.'
As you know, polls show, it's not just a Republican position but that Americans do have concerns about his age and frankly they would like choices other than not just Trump and Biden.
If there is no credible effort now for the possibility of an alternative Democratic candidate, should there be in your view?
Sciutto's (and Haley's) point was valid, based simply on average life expectancy. Various sources report the average life expectancy for a white male in the U.S. is roughly age 77. Toss in the reality of life in Joe Biden World, and things get rather "tricky," as Jones suggested.
Well, that's a tricky one. I think people are concerned about Joe Biden. They really are. I mean, Democrats, they talk behind their hand. Nobody wants to go on TV and say it because we all like to be able to go to barbecues and house parties. But people are concerned.
And I do think that anybody but Trump going up against someone like Biden given some of his challenges recently probably might have a good shot and could make that age an issue. The problem is when you put Biden up against Trump, Trump has so many other issues, he's not that much younger, that it becomes a little bit of a wash and then people just kind of go back to their respective corners.
Notice how Jones pointed to the "so many other issues" of Donald Trump, while totally ignoring the "so many other issues" of Joe Biden?
Yet, from the Biden Border Crisis to the Biden Energy Crisis to Bidenomics, ample reasons exist that have zero to do with Joe Biden's advanced age and declining condition for Democrats to kick him to the curb and be rid of him once and for all. (Let's hope they don't, though.)
Yet, according to a New York Times/Siena College Poll that was released earlier in August, just 50 percent of Democrat primary voters said the party should nominate a different person for the 2024 presidential election. The only surprise here is that the number was only 50 percent.
The Democrat Difference
Unlike the Republican Party, the Democrat Party has generally done a good job of denying undesirable presidential candidates the nomination. We can look back to 2016 and 2020 for the most recent examples. In both election cycles, self-declared socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) threatened to win the Democrat nomination.
In 2016, the Democrat Party employed so-called superdelegates — superdelegates are seated automatically — to stave off Socialist Bernie. In 2020, establishment Democrats began coalescing around Biden in a successful attempt to bolster his campaign and stall Sanders’ momentum, as voters in 14 states prepared to cast ballots on Super Tuesday, the most consequential day of the presidential nominating contest.
That said, the Joe Biden of 2023 is a markedly different guy than the Joe Biden of 2020. One can only imagine what the Joe Biden of January 20, 2025 — Inauguration Day — will be like.
Still, and perhaps I sound almost as bad as elder-abuser "Dr." Jill Biden, I'd like nothing more than for ol' Joe to be the Democrat standard-bearer on the 2024 Democrat Party's presidential ticket.
You can watch the segment, here.
The Bottom Line
Meanwhile, it would behoove the Republican Party to get its crap together. The 2024 presidential election will be the most consequential election in recent history.
The very thought of four more years of a Democrat administration should send shivers down the spine of every constitutional conservative across the fruited plain.