It is fashionable these days to declare Joe Biden incapable of sparing the world the catastrophe of a new Donald Trump presidency. It's a mistake.
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Biden's victory is not certain, but it is far from impossible. In fact, it remains quite likely.
Geriatrics for five cents
Several of the pseudo-experts who immediately predict a victory for Donald Trump do not fail to pose as doctors and vigorously declare Biden senile.
Although his age is indeed a problem, Joe Biden is in excellent health compared to his opponent, who is a few years younger and a few dozen pounds heavier than him. As for his occasional speech problems (he stuttered in his youth), they are disproportionate to his opponent's incessant stream of grotesquely incoherent remarks.
Is Biden capable of doing his job? Whether we agree with what he did in his first term or not, it is clear that he accomplished a lot and that his record is impressive considering that he inherited an unprecedented crisis and a dysfunctional Congress .
The campaign will count
People will answer me that the polls are very bad for Biden and that he won't get out of there. First, since the invention of polls, the correlation between voting intentions in January and the presidential election in November has been almost zero.
In January 2016, Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump; in January 2012, Mitt Romney defeated Barack Obama; in January 2008, John McCain beat Barack Obama; In 2004, John Kerry beat George W. Bush; In 1980, Jimmy Carter defeated Ronald Reagan. And many more.
Biden demonstrated during a passionate speech in Pennsylvania last Friday that he would work vigorously to defend his record, denounce his opponent's failings and highlight the threat he poses to democracy and the rule of law. Biden will not spare Trump, to whom he has given an epithet that will unhinge him: “loser.”
The games are not made
Biden may not move core Trump cult followers, but the core electorate generally responds to actual economic conditions.
With growth putting the United States among the world's leaders, a job market that is better than in the Trump years and inflation falling faster than in most advanced industrial countries, Americans' economic pessimism could be easing to Biden's advantage . . especially if Trump continues to say he wants a recession in 2024 for his own political gain.
The year 2024 will also be the year of Trump's trials, and the incompetence his lawyers have shown so far suggests that there will be strong support outside of the cultists who swallow his victim speech like whey.
Even if the Democrats do not show much enthusiasm, this was also the case in 2018, 2020 and 2022, and each time they exceeded expectations in the elections.
298 days before the vote, as Mark Twain would have said, the announcements of Joe Biden's political death are clearly exaggerated.