In life, as in science, it can be useful to extrapolate, and here, in the summer of 2024, it comes time to do just that. It is by now near-universally acknowledged that Joe Biden is too old to perform his duties. It is less universally acknowledged that this has serious implications — the chief among which is that, for all the rococo pageantry that attends his reelection campaign, Joe Biden is not, in fact, running to be president of the United States.
I do not offer this observation in a conspiratorial tone. Joe Biden won the 2020 election legitimately; he is currently serving as the rightful occupant of his office; and he remains eligible to run again, to win again, to take office again, and to exercise all the levers of power that the Constitution would grant his office during a second term. Instead, I mean that Biden is operating as a stand-in, a widget, or a MacGuffin, whose primary purpose is to make it to November 5 of this year without expiring. Most candidates have plans for their coveted four years; Biden has none. He does not expect to be there, and the public agrees with his hunch.
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