President Joe Biden formally announced his re-election bid last week. The nation reacted with a collective yawn.
Biden’s four years have been marked by a cynicism unusual even in the hard-scrabble world of politics. He campaigned as a moderate Democrat, but he has governed as an acolyte of socialist Bernie Sanders. He ran four years ago as a healer who would unify a divided nation. Yet he has delivered entire speeches dedicated to demonizing his political opponents.
Not since Jimmy Carter in 1980 has an incumbent president had such a dismal record on which to campaign.
Inflation reached a 40-year high on Biden’s watch, imposing a punishing tax on the poor and middle class. It remains well in excess of recent norms.
The White House economics team spent months dismissing the possibility of persistent rising prices despite being warned that massive spending bills could overheat the economy. Too many Americans sit on the sideline rather than enter the job market.
Gasoline and energy prices remain historically high as the president has apparently yet to grasp the connection between an administration that declares war on energy producers and the reluctance of oil and gas companies to invest in domestic production. Nevadans are paying more than $4 a gallon.
In the meantime, Biden has unleashed a “regulatory tsunami” that will only stoke inflation and erode American living standards in the long run, former Sens. Phil Gramm and Pat Toomey argue in The Wall Street Journal this week. “The iron net of regulation has descended across the American economy,” leading to slower growth and pushing the nation closer to recession, they write.
Biden’s utter foreign policy failure in Afghanistan left a deep blemish, particularly when the events that unfolded caught the president by complete surprise and he reacted by blaming his predecessor. China has been radically emboldened, and Russia marched into Ukraine. At one point the president was reduced to begging Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to pump more oil after he undermined this nation’s energy independence.
Against this backdrop of non-achievement is Biden’s advancing age. The president would be 86 years old by the end of a second term, and his faculties are clearly diminishing. Polls show that only 25 percent of Americans want Biden to run again.
Almost 50 percent of Democrats would prefer he step aside.
Republicans should be rejoicing at Biden’s re-election announcement, but recent history proves that they’re more than capable of squandering good cards.
If they continue to look backward to 2020 and fail to communicate a message of hope and economic prosperity, they’ll risk yet another dud come November 2024.
— Las Vegas Review-Journal