Joe Biden is old and extremely unpopular, and most in his own party don’t want him to run for reelection. Still, if you ask the White House, he’s definitely running for president in 2024, and if you ask him, he’s the Democrats’ best chance of holding onto the White House.
Biden was reportedly going to announce his intentions last month, but things got a little complicated by the classified documents scandal and mishandling of the Chinese spy balloon situation. While many have speculated that the delay is a sign of Biden’s wavering, sources say that’s not the case, that Biden will be running again in 2024, and that it’s all about when not if.
Biden certainly fancies himself a historically consequential president, even though much of his political agenda is a recycling of Obama-era policies and much of his economic success is a mirage. For example, he claims to have created “more jobs in two years than any presidential term, than any time, in two years,” even though the United States did not recover all the jobs lost during the pandemic until July 2022 and employment numbers are only marginally above pre-pandemic levels and still lag behind population growth.
Related: FACT CHECK: Biden’s Claims About Jobs and Inflation
Still, there are many believers in Joe Biden, aside from his wife and Ron Klain, the manchild who used to be his chief of staff, who see nothing but greatness. One such person is an Associated Press reporter who argues that Joe Biden has done so great as president that he may decide against running in 2024 in order to protect his impeccable legacy.
“During last month’s State of the Union address, he lured unruly Republicans into agreeing with him that federal entitlements should be protected,” Associated Press political reporter Will Weissert claims — though that’s not what happened at all. “He’s intensified travel outside Washington, trumpeting job-creation in Wisconsin and steep federal health care spending to Florida seniors while touting a trillion-dollar public works package that he says can do everything from revitalize Baltimore’s port to easing train tunnel congestion under the Hudson River.”
Well, if Biden says it, it must be true, like his teaching job, his claim that inflation is going down… you know how it goes. Oh, but my favorite observation is when Weissert wrote that Biden “used spy-thriller tactics to sweep into war-scarred Ukraine.”
Gee, I wonder why he didn’t mention the air raid siren?
Related: Was the Air Raid Siren During Biden’s Visit to Kyiv Staged? Here Are Some Clues.
So, in short, the key elements of Biden’s legacy, according to Weissert, are that Republicans who have never tried to end Social Security and Medicare are still not trying to end Social Security and Medicare, that he’s spending trillions of dollars we don’t have (yet somehow reduces the deficit), and because he went to a war zone — something all of his recent predecessors have done. “But with the famously fickle 80-year-old Biden stopping short of officially declaring his 2024 candidacy, he’s leaving just enough room to back out of a race and focus instead on using such moves to cement his legacy.”
Exactly what legacy is that?
Biden may not run for reelection, but it’s not because he’s done such a great job so far. Most in his own party don’t even want him to run again; that’s hardly a ringing endorsement of the job he’s done.
