Old and confused, corrupt and dishonest: A recent poll shows what Americans think of US President Joe Biden and his likely challenger in the next presidential election.
Joe Biden’s deputy campaign manager Cedric Richmond doesn’t like to talk about his boss’s age. When he was asked on ABC on Sunday how the team of the US President, who wants to be confirmed in office for another four years next year, wants to deal with the criticism of his old age, Richmond replied: “While they As we continue to talk about aging, we’re going to talk about the things that Americans talk about, and those are the issues that they discuss around the kitchen table.”
But Richmond is likely to be mistaken if he believes that the 80 years of life that Biden has under his belt do not also find their place at the voters’ kitchen table. The Democrat is already the oldest-ever U.S. presidential nominee and would be 86 at the end of a second term — and that poses a problem for the vast majority of Americans, according to a recent Associated Press (AP) and National poll Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
Joe Biden is too old even for his supporters
77 percent of those surveyed said that Biden was too old to remain in the White House for four more years. And not only supporters of the Republicans are largely of this opinion with 89 percent, but also 69 percent of the Democrats. There is a desire for a younger candidate across all age groups, although older Democrats in particular have shown stronger support for Biden’s 2024 candidacy, the AP reports.
The survey also asked respondents to name the first word or phrase that came to mind when they mentioned Biden. According to the AP, 26 percent mentioned the president’s age in their responses, and another 15 percent used words like “slow” or “confused.” Among Democrats, 28 percent would have mentioned Biden’s age rather than terms like “president,” “leader,” “strong,” or “capable.”
The respondents should also comment on Donald Trump, who is already 77 years old. Here, about half said the candidate for the Republican presidential nomination was too old for the office, with significantly more Democrats than Republicans holding this view. In the association task, the difference between Biden and Trump became even clearer. According to the AP, only three percent gave “confused” as the first description for the ex-president. And only one percent used terms like “old” or something similar.
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Trump has a completely different problem for this, as the survey made clear: a character problem. According to the AP, 15 percent of respondents first associated words like “corrupt” or “fraudulent” with the quadruple defendant, 11 percent came up with terms like “bad” and other general negative terms, and 8 percent each thought of words like “liar ” and “dishonest” or terms like “good” and other generally positive expressions.
“Biden appears to be very hampered by age-related circumstances,” Eric Dezenhall, a consultant on corporate scandal management and a White House staffer under Ronald Reagan, told the news agency. “Even people who like him see him as frail and not quite ‘there’.”
In his opinion, however, most people do not see Trump’s negative sides as an age-related disability. “The more you throw at him, the more he seems like a scolding toddler,” Dezenhall said. “Disturbing, sure, but old? Not necessarily. Trump has been ranting like this for almost eight decades, and it just keeps driving him.”
Biden himself is aggressive about his age and tries to sell it as an asset: “I think the world is changing,” he said last month on US broadcaster CNN. “And I think there’s one thing that comes with age […]and that is a certain wisdom.”
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Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
