I have worried for some time about Joe Biden’s appeal at his age. People who care about that, including just about all but his die-hard supporters, know that he would be 86 before the end of a second presidential term.
We all see what we are looking for, and those who are convinced that Biden’s age impairs his ability to fulfill the office, or only worry that it could, will see plenty of evidence to confirm the impression.
In a recent guest opinion in the Boulder Daily Camera, former Democratic Congressman David Skaggs wrote: “Political perceptions may be unfair, but they are real, and often have more impact on elections than a reasoned, factual recounting of achievements.”
“If politics and campaigns were rational matters,” Skaggs wrote, “Biden should be in great shape. But he isn’t. Polls in most of the half-dozen states key to an electoral college majority now have him consistently trailing Trump.” (see: https://www.dailycamera.com/2024/02/23/skaggs-im-voting-uncommitted-on-super-tuesday-because-democrats-deserve-a-choice/)
On February 9, 2024, the New York Times editorial board wrote:
A remarkably broad swath of the American public — both Mr. Biden’s supporters and his detractors — have expressed increasing doubts about his ability to serve for another five years because of his age. As Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, noted, ‘In Times/Siena polling last fall, more than 70 percent of battleground state voters agreed with the statement that Mr. Biden’s ‘just too old to be an effective president.’”
One of those battleground states is Michigan, where the Muslim population has just sent a clear warning to the Democratic Party. It cannot count on Muslims closing rank with the Party and its erstwhile support for Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. Among Muslims there is much talk of casting their votes as protest votes if it comes down to Biden versus Trump. By my calculations, two protest votes in this case equal one vote for Trump.
What Michigan Muslims have done, Muslims in other battleground states can do. Democrats cannot expect Muslim Americans to overlook what they–and much of the world–perceive to be genocide in Gaza. As I write, we are one day away from total confirmed dead Gazans since 10/7 exceeding 30,000. Starvation and disease could quickly accelerate the daily body count.
Coming from a different life experience than most American Muslims, and given the threat to America Trump poses, you might think it is unfair, even foolish, for any block of voters to prioritize Gaza. But that frustration will not change Biden’s prospects in Michigan, or Pennsylvania, or Georgia, or anywhere else. And in addition to Muslims, large numbers of Black churchgoers* as well as liberal Jews and many young voters see the President as being complicit in war crimes. Those people won’t pound the pavement for Biden, even if some might very reluctantly vote for him rather than cast protest votes.
The Gaza factor is something that many of the most vocal advocates for a new Democratic nominee to date have not mentioned. Presumably, among the many Democrats and Independents who want an open convention in August are staunch supporters of Israel. (One is New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, with whom I am worlds apart on Israel and Palestine.) That is because this question of whether we should stick with Biden or choose another nominee is more important than any single political issue.
Nonetheless, Democrats will sideline Gaza at the Nation’s peril, because a modest defection of voters furious over Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians just might decide this election.
To beat Trump, the Democratic nominee needs to re-energize large numbers of Muslims, Blacks, liberal Jews, and young voters. That nominee should forcefully call for an immediate and permanent cease-fire in Gaza–which most eligible voters support– and must be willing to leverage military assistance to Israel to bring about a political solution. That nominee needs to make clear that he or she will not be at the service of the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
That narrows a bit the field of possible Democratic candidates. But I see no other route to preventing the most insecure man in the world from becoming, again, the most powerful man in the world.
Stop Trump 
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