“Are you ready for 2024?”
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“Yes!” yells the crowd.
It seemed unlikely until recently, but in the ranks of the Democratic Party, which meets in Congress in Philadelphia, Joe Biden’s candidacy for a second term is now evident.
The US President, who will speak at the end of the afternoon in an upscale hotel in this northeastern United States city, is expected at the special conference.
“You must all be His apostles for the next two years,” Minnesota Democratic Party leader Ken Martin told a podium.
Titanic investments in the country’s infrastructure, a defense of the working class and unionized jobs… “No president has done so much” for the country, the politician says bluntly.
To members of the Democratic Party who have traveled from across the country to prepare for the next presidential election, he urges, “We have to go out and take this to the American people.”
80 years old, so what?
Swept away any doubts about the age of Joe Biden, who vowed in 2020 to make his presidency a kind of “bridge” that would pave the way for future generations. “I get told about it from time to time, but really less than you’d think,” says Ken Martin, as if to downplay the burning question.
If re-elected, Joe Biden would be 86 at the end of his second term.
Pennsylvania local elected official Malcolm Kenyatta, almost 50 years younger than the president, told AFP: “I wouldn’t allow myself to discriminate against his age as long as he’s defending a program that works.”
Now the Democrats agree on the president, whose candidacy is imminent.
Members of the most progressive wing of the party, who were not stingy with criticism of the president’s social and climate program at the beginning of his term in office, also joined.
“Don’t introduce yourself, Joe”
In Philadelphia, the cradle of American democracy, the most frontal opposition to Joe Biden’s candidacy is therefore coming from outside: in the freezing cold, a truck with a fairly explicit message – “Don’t introduce yourself, Joe” – circles around the establishment convention.
“He’s a really weak candidate for 2024,” said Sam Rosenthal, the activist behind the campaign. “Not progressive enough” is under scrutiny for the management of his personal archive: For this young man hit by AFP, a new Joe Biden run for the White House would undoubtedly not be “not viable” against a Republican.
But the calls from his faction, which is not affiliated with the president’s party, hit a wall of blue – the color of the Democrats.
Joe Biden, who faced around fifteen candidates in the party’s last primaries in 2020, will appear to be running single-handedly this time.
And is preparing to face the nominee picked by Republicans, who are currently fighting for approval, in November 2024.
“I think we’re seeing the Republican Party dying,” said Jaime Harrison, the leader of the Democratic Party, confidently. “So take your vitamins and get ready.”