Joe Biden – Will He Debate? Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is enjoying a moment in his unlikely bid to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2024. He has a solid 20 percent support among likely Democratic Party voters.
This is a huge number, considering that Joe Biden is the incumbent president who, according to the media and Democratic Party elites, is operating on the same level as FDR and LBJ once did, in terms of successful legislation. There is another candidate challenging both Biden and RFK, Jr., and that is crystal-healing, self-help guru, Marianne Williamson (with around eight percent support).
The point is not that these two upstart candidates can win.
The Democratic Party’s nomination process is arrayed in such a way that no undesirable candidate can ever win the party’s coveted nomination. The real issue here is that so many Democrats clearly seek to eschew the democracy part of the Democratic Party and simply coronate Biden for a second term.
Joe Biden Hates Democracy
Not even Hillary Clinton, who in many ways was more competent than Joe Biden as a candidate, could get away with simply telling the other Democratic challengers in 2016 to buzz off.
The debates hurt Hillary Clinton and set her up for a huge failure in 2016, when socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), proved to be more popular among the Democratic Party’s rank-in-file than the former secretary of state had believed.
To ensure that she was, in fact, the nominee, Hillary deployed unethical means to effectively rig the DNC primary vote against Bernie Sanders in 2016. The unethical actions were uncovered by Wikileaks and, ultimately, claims of impropriety dogged Hillary Clinton up until Election Day in 2016.
Joe Biden wants to avoid that headache entirely by ignoring the candidates running against him for the Democratic Party’s nomination. What’s insane here is that most Democrats appear comfortable going along with this.
For the Democratic Party, they can brook no challenge because Biden, who is clearly mentally unwell, cannot risk debating the Democrats and reaffirming the solidifying interpretation in the minds of most Americans that Biden is incompetent.
So, Biden plans to simply ignore the challengers from his Left and fixate on former Republican President Donald J. Trump. His team believes this is a solid plan. It is not, though. It’s a bad play because it is an affront to democracy. More importantly, though, it’s a bad play because Biden needs to practice debating.
Joe Biden has not debated in four years. Often, Biden snaps at anyone who so much as questions in public. In a debate against someone like Donald Trump, that won’t work. This behavior is even less likely to be appealing against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, if DeSantis can beat Trump for the GOP nomination.
Basement Joe Biden Returns?
Joe Biden is not going to be able to win in 2024 the way he did in 2020. COVID-19 isn’t a thing anymore. Hiding in his basement and avoiding direct contact both with voters and opponents will only make him look weak and likely aggravate fence-sitting independents, who want to hear the president defend his policies and talk about our future.
RFK, Jr., recently lamented the forty-sixth president’s unwillingness to debate him in the Democratic Party’s primary in an interview with podcaster, Megyn Kelly. According to RFK, Jr., if Trump is the GOP nominee, Biden will need to be prepared for the kind of fierce attacks that Trump will subject him to.
Biden cannot just enter the debate arena after having avoided debate since 2020 and expect to come out looking good. He won’t, no matter how unpopular Trump is with independent voters.
But if Biden does the right thing and debates his Democratic Party opponents—at least RFK, Jr.—then he runs the risk of negating whatever strengths he had going into the fight with the Republican nominee. Whatever flubs and missteps that Biden makes in the DNC debate will be used by the Republicans to weaken Biden’s standing in the General Election.
Hidin’ with Biden ‘24
Do not expect, therefore, Biden to debate anyone until at least the General Election. Even then, Biden will likely avoid direct confrontations with the GOP candidate, knowing that he just might harm his own reelection chances by making himself look foolish (which he easily does).
That alone should disqualify Biden as a viable candidate for the presidency in 2024. Sadly, it does not. If Biden won’t debate even RFK, Jr., and Marianne Williamson because he’s afraid of answering their questions or defending against their legitimate attacks, how is he qualified to be president?
He’s not.
But the Democratic Party elite don’t care. He’s their guy precisely because he cannot think for himself. Biden is a puppet for much more powerful, scarier interests in Washington and on Wall Street.
Let’s hope that his fearfulness in debating candidates who polling significantly lower than he is enough to dissuade people to vote for him in 2024. He’s not ready for another four years in office.
Heck, Biden was barely ready for the first term in office.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
From 19FortyFive
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