“Happy birthday, Mr. President.” This phrase became a symbol of an era when Hollywood sex symbol Marilyn Monroe sang the song and adapted it for John Kennedy’s birthday. It was May 19, 1962. The electric atmosphere at this gala at Madison Square Garden was offset by rumors of a secret relationship between the actress and JFK, the young and handsome president who was assassinated half a century ago, on November 22, 1963 was reinforced. Ten days after the party with Marilyn, Kennedy turned 45. He was the second youngest president in US history after Theodore Roosevelt.
“Happy birthday, Mr. President.” There is no euphoria in the atmosphere that precedes this birthday: tomorrow Joe Biden will cross the threshold of 81 years. He will be 82 in a year if we vote to re-elect him or replace him with someone else. To say he doesn’t wear his age well is a cliché these days. It is also a dominant theme for the next election campaign.
At his last summit with Xi Jinping, the topic of the birthday even came up for a brief anecdote. In his conversation with the Chinese leader at the Asia-Pacific conference in San Francisco, Biden was kind enough to point out to his guest that this Monday marks at least two important birthdays: his birthday coincides with that of Xi’s wife (who is celebrating for the second time is married). , her name is Peng Liyuan and she is a famous singer). The communist leader, almost surprised by a moment of familiarity that does not fit into the rigid ceremonies to which he is accustomed, seemed amused and flattered by the attention. He thanked Biden and noted that given the workload, he even risked forgetting his best wishes to his wife.
Perhaps Biden hoped to “exorcise” the age issue in this way. David Axelrod, the election strategist for Barack Obama’s two victories, brutally reminded him of this and urged him to withdraw his candidacy. Biden responded poorly, with a half-insult toward Axelrod, who has no animosity toward him. As one astute American political commentator, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, noted, Biden appears to be animated by a desire for revenge against the “Obama clan” after that president forced him in the ill-fated decision to resign in favor of Hillary Clinton 2016 election campaign. In this sense, Biden has something in common with Donald Trump, who is also thirsty for revenge.
In this climate, America appears to be heading toward some sort of inevitable catastrophe. If things don’t change, will we (I agree) have a choice between “an idiot and a criminal” in a year’s time? I’ll put the sentence in quotation marks and explain myself. I do not believe that Biden is truly incapacitated, even if he is not as smart and lucid as the “leader of the free world” must be, in a historical era in which America is faced with two conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East is faced. As for Trump, I consider him a danger to American democracy, but as far as his legal status is concerned, at the moment he is a defendant awaiting trial on whose guilt I cannot comment. But this sentence in quotation marks describes the mood in the two Americas quite realistically. Half the nation believes the other tribe’s candidate is suffering from severe senility. The other half thinks Trump is a criminal. The two warring tribes agree on one thing: there is a large bipartisan majority that is deeply dissatisfied with both candidacies. Disturbing spectacle for the oldest liberal democracy.
“Happy birthday, Mr. President.” What about the other almost octogenarian? At 77, the former Republican president is not exactly a young man. However, the question of age is rarely addressed, in his case even by the Democrats. He seems to be aging better, even if his fullness has become more noticeable and he also loses track every now and then. However, he exudes energy and aggression at rallies, while some now imagine a semi-secret campaign for Biden based on pre-recorded videos, as if we were still in a pandemic. We’ll see in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries at the end of January whether Trump’s popularity with his base – the most militant part of the Republican Party – will withstand the attack from what appears to be the right’s rising star: Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina, former UN -Ambassador for Trump himself. Haley is not only a woman, but also represents a generation gap: she is 51 years old. For the rest of the world, it does not represent a break in foreign policy: Haley is right-wing, but does not belong to the isolationist current of Trump and Ron DeSantis; As for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, he would remain loyal to the alliances.
On the other hand, the real problem is not Biden’s age. Those who obsessively talk about it in the Democratic field do so to divert attention from a more substantive issue highlighted in every poll. A majority of voters reject Biden because they are dissatisfied, have a negative opinion about the state of the nation and therefore approach the issue of aging even more critically and rigorously. Without this widespread unrest, the president’s 81st birthday would not be seen as something of a disaster.
It is difficult for the Democratic Party to address the deep roots of discontent. For example, if we open our eyes to the rightward shift in consensus among two key ethnic minorities, blacks and Latinos, we must confront the radical wing of the party that has pushed through unpopular decisions like defunding the police in many cities. or the inability to curb illegal immigration.
Another area where the debate in the democratic sphere is stuck: the economy. Here Trump is stronger than Biden, so much so that some Democratic voters consider the Republican to be more reliable or effective in the economic area. Many Democratic gurus answer in the most irritating way: They think voters “don’t understand” that the economy is doing very well, given that GDP is growing and inflation is falling. Responding to citizens’ discomfort by juxtaposing statistics is the infallible way technocrats manage to make themselves even more hated than before. And they show that they have no connection to reality. The example of inflation is clear. Prices have skyrocketed and Americans feel impoverished every time they go shopping. To tell him that inflation is slowing is to talk about something else: the decreased inflation rate just tells me that prices today are not rising as much as they were a year ago. But they remain high and the damage to my purchasing power is real.
The left wing of the Democratic Party is responding by revisiting the issue of social inequalities – which have also been reduced thanks to pandemic aid and wage increases – and therefore applying the usual remedy: more taxes, more welfare. But taxes in left-wing America (New York, California) are now at European levels, as are social welfare. New York City’s budget is facing a serious crisis related to illegal immigration. In order to provide for undocumented foreigners, Mayor Eric Adams (Democrat, Black) is forced to cut funding for the city’s kindergartens: He takes money from the poor to give to the poorest, while the upper middle class sends their children there private institutions. On the other hand, further taxing the upper middle class will cause more of them to flee to Florida and Texas, where the tax burden is lower.
Biden’s weak points include foreign policy, which should have been his greatest area of expertise. The right has simple slogans about the state of the world: There have been no new wars in the four years of Trump’s presidency; Since Biden has been in the White House, Russia has invaded Ukraine and Palestine is in flames. The left must respond with hypothetical scenarios and argue that a Trump II would have handled both Ukraine and the fire in the Middle East much worse than Biden. It is not certain that voters will find this second narrative more convincing. In any case, as attention has shifted to the Middle East, it is the Democratic Party that is torn between the pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian components (with significant fringe groups of Hamas supporters).
Happy birthday, Mr. President.