The US presidential election is still just over a year away, but it is already clear that it will make history
Firstly, because for the first time in 130 years a former president can return to power (this happened only in 1892, when Grover Cleveland, who lost the election in 1888, took revenge). Second, both favourites in the presidential race will be perhaps the oldest in the history of elections. Biden will be almost 83 years old at the time of voting, and Trump will be 78 years old – not so long ago they did not live to such ages. And, thirdly, it may happen that both old favourites will never make it to the polling day. And that the election will become a carriage race – as they called a series of funerals for decrepit general secretaries in the USSR in the 1980s. In the US, of course, these funerals will not be physical, but political.
At first glance, this scenario seems dubious. For example, opinion polls show that about 53% of Republicans are ready to vote for Donald Trump in the primaries. At the same time, the gap from the nearest competitor (Florida Governor Ron Desantis) is about 40 percentage points. The Republican primaries are held largely on a majoritarian system (that is, whoever comes in first place in a state – albeit with 40, even with 30 per cent of the vote – takes the entire state). With this maths, the chances of Trump winning the primaries are approaching 100%.
Biden has them even higher. Not only because he also leads unchallenged in polls among Democrats (he has 63%, which is 50 percentage points more than his closest competitor, Robert Kennedy Jr.), but also because Biden is a sitting president. And if a sitting president wants to go for a second term, the party’s Komsomol usually responds with a “check.” Which appears to have been the case in late 2022 and early 2023 (when Biden was determining whether he wanted to go).
Despite these obvious numbers, however, the chances of the clear favourites are seen as far from clear.
For example, Trump is trying to take the election off the table with a strategy of a thousand court jabs. Democrat-controlled courts are bringing a whole series of criminal cases against the former US president (and at the state level – that is, those entities where Trump will not be able to pardon himself if he wins). At the very least, the Democrats want to ensure that Trump has no time to campaign (he has already been forced to miss the Republican primaries because of legal issues). The optimum programme is to discredit Trump among the electorate. Not the Republican electorate (which idolises the former president), but the undecided. Non-partisan voters, whose votes will determine which candidate wins a number of contested states – that is, simply put, who will occupy the White House. Finally, the optimum programme is to force the Republican establishment (which will feel the mood of the non-partisan electorate) to send a delegation of respected people to Trump to ask him to withdraw on his own.
Biden could also withdraw on his own – and seemingly for the same judicial reason. Republicans are spinning a story about the massive corruption in which the sitting US president is mired. The involvement of Biden’s son Hunter in a number of corruption schemes has already been proven, and now the Republicans only need to prove that Dad was not only aware of, but also in the share of his son’s affairs. However, even if the Republicans prove it, they won’t be able to pass impeachment through the Senate, where the Democrats have a majority.
If Biden withdraws, it will be only for health reasons. Already now the elderly president behaves inadequately in public – now, when the election campaign as such has not even begun. What will happen then, when he will have to travel around a dozen disputed states (the outcome of voting in which will decide who will become the new head of state) and hold several meetings with voters a day? Biden may not physically be able to keep up that pace. And, again, Democratic voters will vote for him even under IVL, but non-partisan voters may not. Which means the Democrats will lose the White House.
And this is where the most interesting part comes in. If Biden and Trump, two elderly and eccentric citizens, withdraw from the race, where will it end? The answer is simple: nothing good.
At least the Republicans have a more or less adequate number two – Florida Governor Ron Desantis (13% in the party rating). Yes, the first debate showed that Desantis is not quite ready for the presidency – but still. Democrats, on the other hand, have a much worse situation. It’s no coincidence that 69% of party members think the current president is too old to be the new head of state, yet 65% are still willing to pick him over all the other Democratic candidates. Simply because the others are even worse. Number two on the list is 69-year-old flamboyant populist Robert Kennedy, Jr. who made his political name fighting against covida vaccinations. He and all the other nominees are radicals who are neither mentally nor politically ready to run the country. Nor is current Vice President Kamala Harris ready.
Yes, the Democrats could theoretically spin someone centrist and ready – like California Governor Gavin Newsom or even former First Lady Michelle Obama. However, there may not be enough time for that (if, for example, Biden drops out in the middle of the primaries or even afterwards). Therefore, the lesser evil now is the political survival of both favourites until the voting day. And what will happen after that – the US and the whole world will think about it the next day.
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