The NATO summit that kicked off yesterday in Washington may well be the last chance for Joe Biden. But NATO’s ambitious goals are likely to be overshadowed by developments in the White House. Elected in 2020 as an antidote to the hostility and falsehoods espoused by real estate tycoon Donald Trump, Biden is now facing a challenging political and personal situation. Despite indications of vulnerability on several occasions, the 81-year-old president is expected to demonstrate resilience in both his governance and his campaign, which is likely to be particularly demanding.
For more than a year, voters have made it abundantly clear in polls and interviews that they have serious doubts about his physical and mental fitness. Yet Biden and his staff continue to dismiss voters’ concerns and insist that he is the only Democrat who can defeat former President Donald Trump. In the past three days, Biden has written a letter to Democratic congressmen and senators, held several rallies, and delivered a defiant speech at the opening of the summit reaffirming his loyalty to the North Atlantic Treaty, in an effort to make up for a dismal performance in the first televised debate with his opponent, which ultimately turned out to be a disaster. On Wednesday, actor George Clooney joined a growing chorus of political analysts, donors and news media calling on Biden to step aside. In a New York Times op-ed on Wednesday, Clooney expressed admiration for Biden as a man and a politician, but wrote that he “cannot win the race against time”.
In response to criticism, the President is now using a typical favourite of the embattled politician, namely that the polls are wrong. In fact, Biden may not be so far off the mark. In his last race, he was indeed thought to have lost but ultimately defeated Donald Trump; in the midterms, a Democratic House debacle was predicted when in fact the Republicans won a very narrow majority. However, if the polls prove wrong, there will still be considerable doubt about his fitness for office. The latest Times/Siena poll found that 74% of voters think the president is too old to serve the country.
For decades, the US seemed incapable of securing its own future, yet economists and political scientists say the experienced octogenarian has invested heavily in infrastructure, cutting-edge technology and green energy. True, inflation spiked as the global economy recovered from the effects of the pandemic, but as the International Monetary Fund put it, US growth has been “remarkable vis-à-vis its peers” and has outpaced the world’s, while inflation is declining without causing a recession.
Nonetheless, Biden was ridiculed and widely abused for his debate performance against Trump. His every verbal or physical stumble was so closely analysed that Donald Trump’s numerous misleading statements, full of lies and vileness, were overlooked. The ‘tycoon’ himself, who is not exactly a young man either, would be one of the oldest American presidents to be sworn in if he wins, which may explain why he decided to remain silent last week. He may have felt that attacking his opponent over his age could backfire on him. He has therefore chosen to focus on issues that stir the passions of his voters, such as immigration and domestic inflation, while ignoring all or most of the foreign policy issues that were to be the focus of the NATO summit and that could eventually land on his desk, demanding action, not bombastic declarations.
In a letter to congressional Democrats on Monday, Biden wrote that focusing on his own abilities was distracting Democrats from the task of defeating Trump. This, too, is a reality. The Republican White House nominee is, in fact, a candidate who was repeatedly found guilty of breaking the law in order to win the 2016 election.
Four years later, after failing in his multiple attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, after attacking Congress to ensure he remains in power, Trump is back, vowing to weaponise the federal bureaucracy and even the Justice Department to target his political enemies. He has made it clear that he will surround himself with people who support his plans, and will seek to scrap the green economy and repatriate most immigrants, while threatening to impose tariffs that could prove counterproductive to the US economy itself. In recent days he has distanced himself from a subversive government plan to abolish many federal departments and concentrate power in his hands. This plan was drawn up by many of his former aides and supporters.
For now, and if the situation remains as it is today, the central question facing voters at the ballot box this November is whether a faltering president can prevail against an unpredictable and ominous ex-president. The US is facing a major leadership crisis. The 2024 presidential race is therefore not between two men, nor between two parties, in fact it’s bound to be a battle over the identity of a nation.
