Is a vote for Joe Biden really a vote for Kamala Harris?: Once again, someone on the right has made the argument that voting for Joe Biden in 2024 in fact represents a vote for Kamala Harris. Is that really true?
Vote Joe Biden Means Vote for Kamala Harris?
Ever since President Joe Biden announced that he is running for re-election in 2024, while at the same time confirming that Vice President Kamala Harris will remain on the ticket, a talking point has emerged on the right: That it’s really Kamala Harris who is on the presidential ballot, because there’s no way that Biden will remain in office through the end of a second term.
Former Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is running for president, said exactly that early on in her campaign that “a vote for President Biden is actually a vote for President Harris.” Various other conservatives have claimed, on any occasion when Biden makes a vocal flub or falls down on stage, that this means Biden is on his way out.
It’s a bit of a morbid and mean-spirited argument, essentially vocalizing that they believe the president of the United States will be dead at some point in the near future. Or, rather, the conspiracy theory that Biden will strategically resign at some point and elevate Kamala Harris to the presidency- something that was previously floated during the 2020 campaign. And of course, it’s all part of the idea — pushed much more by right-wing pundits than by any Democrat — that Harris at the top of a presidential ticket is a self-evident disaster.
Conservative New York Post columnist Miranda Devine was the latest to tackle this idea.
“It’s been another tough week for our president as he plows forward with his re-election bid,” Devine writes. “It began with root canal surgery and went downhill from there,” she added, as though root canal surgery is widely viewed as a harbinger of death.
Citing Haley’s statement, Devine argued that voters will really be judging Kamala Harris.
“This week Harris is attempting again to reboot her image with fresh appearances across the country to mourn the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision,” she writes. “But her inane cackling at a Juneteenth event is yet another reminder that she remains politically unviable, no matter how many puff pieces are written, or how much money pro-abortion groups spend to prop her up — and they reportedly are promising tens of millions of dollars.”
She went on to argue that Republicans have a “golden opportunity” to impeach Biden, but that there’s no chance Kamala Harris will be dropped from the ticket.
“What you see is what you get, a radical puppet, installed for her intersectionality,” Devine writes. “Harris is the first woman, the first African American, and the first Asian American ever to serve as vice president.”
Aside from his age, Biden does not appear to be in bad health, nor is there any indication that he is facing imminent death. And of course, if Biden ends up taking on Donald Trump, Trump is himself 77 years old, and was the previous oldest president prior to Biden’s election. I am yet to hear much consternation that a vote for Trump will really represent a vote for whoever he chooses as his 2024 running mate. (Ironically, it could be Nikki Haley, a former Trump Administration official who has been muted in her criticism of the former president.)
It’s also worth noting that many recent ex-presidents — Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush — all lived into their 90s, and that the 98-year-old Carter is still alive despite entering hospice care months ago.
Bob Dole, who was the Republican nominee for president in 1996 at age 73, drew questions about his age, but he went on to live 25 more years. So it should absolutely not be taken as a fait accompli that Joe Biden wouldn’t make it to the end of a second term.
Expertise and Experience:
Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
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