Age Isn't President Biden's Only Big Problem
Does he have a campaign agenda?
Following the release of special counsel Robert Hur’s report about President Joe Biden’s misplaced documents, much of the recent discourse surrounding Biden’s electability challenges has been focused on his age. This makes sense, because 86% of Americans believe he’s too old to serve a second term. There’s another big problem with Biden’s campaign, though, and it’s gotten much less attention — the absence of a campaign platform.
Despite announcing he would run for reelection last April, the Biden campaign Web site still doesn’t have a campaign platform, policy agenda, or whatever you want to call it. The only promise on his Web site is that he will “finish the job.” But what “job” is he going to finish? Which “tasks” will be prioritized?
I’ve pointed this out a number of times on X — for example, here, here, and here — and People’s Policy Project founder Matt Bruenig has noticed the absence of one as well.
Even Senate Democrats are pointing this out, noting that just opposing Trump won’t be enough to win:
“Biden, he’s got to deal with the age issue. He’s got to show some energy, and he’s got to show what the future is, not just beat up on Trump,” he said.
“Trump is going to be Trump, and people are going to come to their own reactions. They don’t need the Biden campaign to be telling them how bad Trump is. Trump will take care of that himself,” he predicted.
“There’s got to be a real manifestation of energy and future orientation from the Biden campaign,” he said.
If you’re wondering what a campaign platform looks like, both Dean Phillips — a Minnesota congressman challenging Biden for the nomination — and Donald Trump have them on their Web sites.
What’s particularly concerning about the absence of a campaign platform this time around for Biden is that he didn’t really have one in 2020 either. While the president made some major promises — a public option for health insurance and forgiving student debt — the overwhelming focus of his 2020 campaign was the novel coronavirus. Now, once again, it looks like Biden won’t be focusing his campaign on transformational policy ideas and, instead, will be trading the coronavirus for Trump’s authoritarianism and character flaws. Will it work? Well, Hillary Clinton basically executed this strategy in 2016 — I would argue 2024 looks more like 2016 than the exceptional pandemic politics of 2020 — and it didn’t work.
The reality is that Americans have big problems right now and need big ideas to fix them.
Housing is currently a catastrophe for many Americans. Paying the rent has never been more burdensome, especially for the middle class. And, of course, high interest rates mean that home ownership is out of reach for those who would prefer to leave their landlords behind.
Health care is also a major pain point. The share of Americanas who are skipping medical treatments due to cost is rising again. And millions of children from poor families now have no health insurance at all as they lose Medicaid for paperwork reasons.
Does Biden have any ideas for addressing these problems? It’s hard to tell, because in addition to the absence of a campaign platform on his Web site, the president avoids taking questions from journalists and citizens in formal settings. Rather than talk to tens of millions of Americanas about inflation, health care, housing, and Gaza during the Super Bowl, we got a John Stossel-type “give me a break” rant from the president’s official X account about snack shrinkflation and a TikTok video about chocolate chip cookies.