We Need to Talk about Joe: Dems Show Growing Concern over Aged, Inept Biden

Joe Biden was heralded in 2020 as a reasonable moderate Democrat, a shrewd D.C. veteran, and a return to “normalcy” after the “madness” of the Trump presidency. Three years later, with a presidential election looming and the potential return of Donald Trump on the horizon, Democrats and their media mouthpieces are suffering from buyers’ remorse and, perhaps even more shockingly, no longer trying to hide it.

Leading up to, during, and ever after the 2020 election, mainstream media have been laying down a steady stream of covering fire for the octogenarian president, from ignoring his constant gaffes to putting so much spin on his incompetence that it’s developed its own path of orbit around the sun.

But now the dreaded former president Donald J. Trump is crushing Biden in polls, House Republicans have dared to name an actual conservative as speaker, and evidence is piling higher in the case against the Biden crime family, leaving liberals and leftists alike wondering if maybe picking a colossal presidential failure, possible criminal, and political dinosaur prone to foot-in-mouth syndrome and all the symptoms of dementia to represent them in their bid for the White House is such a good idea. Comedians, talk show hosts, rappers, political operatives, and even Democratic officeholders are now seemingly turning on the man they had once hailed as their hero.

Legendary sketch-comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) has practically kept itself afloat since 2016 (amid increasingly-low-quality writing and increasingly-more-obnoxious progressive virtue-signaling) by mocking Trump, but the show’s writers have, as of late, apparently determined that Biden is a much easier target. In the show’s latest cold open, Biden is presented as a squinting buffoon incapable of even reading the teleprompter (the show’s caricature refers to Chinese president Xi Jinping as “Roman numeral eleven”) who constantly pivots to talking about the pandas in the D.C. National Zoo when asked difficult questions. A few weeks before, SNL showed Biden teetering on a ladder while trying to decorate for Halloween, creepily repeating himself in whispers, and excusing his long pauses while speaking by saying, “I’m not out of breath.”

Comedian and host of HBO’s “Real Time” Bill Maher took a less subtle approach to the ever-more-embarrassing Biden issue. On his show Friday night, the liberal comic said he believes Biden is “going to lose” in 2024. He explained, “Because the people think he’s too old. And perception is reality.” His guest, former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Donna Brazile, said she doesn’t think so, labeling such arguments “ageist.” Maher responded, “I have been the one making that case year after year here against ageism. I always said it’s a case-by-case basis, but for that argument to have teeth at all, you also have to be the person who can go, ‘Yeah, but this is the case.’”

A few weeks ago, Maher hosted Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) as a guest after the congressman announced he’s challenging Biden in the Democratic presidential primary.

Phillips is one of the most left-wing Democrats in the House and has consistently voted in favor of Biden’s policies, so his differences with the president aren’t necessarily political. Simply put, the 54-year-old Phillips has argued that the now-81-year-old Biden is too old to run again, saying, “It’s time for the torch to be passed to a new generation of American leaders.” He told CNN, “I think in 2020, [President Biden] was probably the only Democrat who could have beaten Donald Trump. I think in 2024, he may be among the only ones that will lose to him. And that’s why I’m doing this.” Phillips’s top campaign advisor, the anti-Trump Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, said that Democrats are trying hard to hide their fear over polling numbers showing Biden losing in 2024 but aren’t willing to publicly go against the geriatric incumbent.

Another Democratic congressman blasting the Biden regime is retiring West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who recently criticized Biden’s policies for being “so far to the Left, the extreme Left…” He added that Biden is “not the person we thought was gonna bring the country together.” Former President Barack Obama’s campaign architect David Axelrod has also questioned the wisdom of Biden running again. Referring to a New York Times/Siena College Research Institute poll showing Trump beating Biden in six key battleground states in a hypothetical 2024 showdown, Axelrod asked, “If [Biden] continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?” In an interview, Axelrod predicted that Biden has a “50-50 shot” at winning the presidency next year, “but no better than that, maybe a little worse.”

The NYT/Siena College poll also revealed that a majority (70%) of voters think Biden is “too old to be an effective president.” A Reuters/Ipsos poll from earlier this year found that 73% of voters across the country think the president is too old, while an ABC News/Washington Post poll put the number 74%. A CNN/University of New Hampshire survey found that 56% of Democrats — not just voters in general, but specifically Democrats — in New Hampshire, where the first presidential primary will be held next year, say Biden’s age is their top concern.

Statistics guru Nate Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight, said that running Biden in 2024 would be “a huge risk” for Dems. “If Biden can’t keep up with the schedule of a typical sitting president running for re-election, or is prone to making errors when he does,” Silver predicted, “voters and the media are going to notice that and Biden will wear his 80+ years like an albatross around his neck.”

According to Politico, donors at the DNC’s fundraiser retreat in September pressed Biden reelection campaign aides on what to think of the president’s advanced age. One donor said he raised concerns over Biden’s age to DNC officials who “just refused to even acknowledge it was a problem.” But Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain said, “I think everyone knows it’s an issue, and we have to address it.”

Of course, Biden’s policies are also an issue. The president’s long-shot rival Phillips has criticized Biden’s economic policies, upon which at least half of his reelection campaign seems to rest so far. Phillips quipped, “Bidenomics is not working. It is actually the opposite. It represents inflation, high prices.” Rapper Cardi B, who endorsed Biden in 2020, has slammed the president for facilitating the illegal immigration crisis and funneling money to foreign nations while doing little to help struggling Americans. The rapper noted that rampant illegal immigration in her native New York City will cost the metropolis an estimated $11 billion over the next two years, necessitating budget cuts to the New York City Police Department, the Sanitation Department, and the Education Department. In her profanity-riddled rant, Cardi B asked, “How is it that a $100 million budget cut in New York City for f***ing schools, library, police safety, and sanitation — yet Joe Biden talking about, like, ‘Yeah, we can fund two wars. We can fund two wars.’”

In a stand-up comedy special released in September, comedian Shane Gillis joked about Trump’s prowess in debate and commented that Biden was actually the only challenger impervious to Trump’s rhetorical pugilism, due to his complete and total cluelessness. “Trump’s whole thing is he tries to get in the other guy’s head,” Gillis quipped. “Can’t get in Joe’s head. Joe’s not even in there — good luck, dude.”

In 2020, an aggressive anyone-but-Trump mindset meant that many Democrats were willing to overlook Biden’s spaciness, age, poor cabinet picks, and political volatility, but it’s been nearly four years and Americans of every stripe have found themselves poorer, angrier, more divided, and significantly less safe. Democrats in 2020 might be excused for backing a low-energy geriatric with a penchant for mumbling gibberish and sniffing children if they admit that they were stupid and historically illiterate enough to actually believe that Trump was the literal reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, but if they go for Biden a second time around, they just might be dumber than he is, and they can’t point to their age as an excuse.