Democrats proudly proclaim themselves as the big tent party that welcomes the diversity of thought, culture, religion, no religion, race, ethnicity, age, and sexual orientation that exist within its ranks. But recent polling data and comments by Democrat Party strategists indicate that the Democrat Party might be developing a new strain of prejudice, discrimination, and lack of empathy within its ranks.
According to the U.S. Labor Department, 517,000 jobs were added to the American economy last month, dropping the unemployment rate to 3.4 percent its lowest rate since 1969 over 50 years ago. During the 4 years of the Donald Trump administration, every other week was a fake infrastructure week of promises about future infrastructure work that never materialized, in Joe Biden’s first year as President he negotiated, passed, and signed a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill. It will funnel billions of dollars to state and local governments to upgrade outdated roads, bridges, transit systems, airports, clean drinking water systems, and enable broadband internet access to rural America and underserved urban communities for the first time.
As high gas prices last summer worsened inflation’s impact on working-class Americans, President Biden used the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to lower gas prices, something Republicans would not do and continue to criticize Biden for doing so. And when President Biden took office in 2021 Covid-19 was a raging pandemic that had shut down the American economy and killed thousands of Americans each day. 6 months after taking office Biden restarted the American economy and transformed an out-of-control Covid-19 pandemic, that was killing thousands of Americans daily, into a controllable Covid-19 epidemic that killed tens of people monthly.
And yet according to an Associated Press-NORC Center (AP-NORC) poll, only 37% of Democrats say they want Biden to seek reelection, down from 52% in the weeks before last year’s midterm elections. Since there have been no political, economic, or military catastrophes between the November mid-terms and the AP-NORC January 2023 poll, and based on follow-up conversations with poll respondents, Biden’s 80-year-old age accounts for the 15% drop since the mid-terms and the fact that now only 37% of Democrats think he should seek a second term. By all traditional standards of scrutiny, President Biden’s administration has accomplished more in 2 years than some previous administrations have accomplished in 4 years and he has done so, at 80 years old, without any major health complications.
If age is the reason Democrats think Biden shouldn’t run again, Democrats might want to check themselves to make sure they are not guilty of pre-judging, in other words, prejudice against, Biden based on stereotypical or biased preconceptions of the condition they think an 80-year old should be in, as opposed to the condition an 80-year old Biden is actually in. Democrats would be justified in raising the age question as a barrier for Biden if he were seeking election for the first time at 80 years old, but Joe Biden has been on the job for 2 years now.
After Biden’s 2 years on the job, the AP-NORC poll reveals that among Democrats 82% approve of Biden’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, 71% approve of his handling of race relations, 71% approve of his handling of climate change, 74% approve of his handling of foreign policy, 69% approve of his handling of U.S. relations with Russia, 67% approve of his healthcare policies, 63% approve of the economy Biden has created, and 55% approve of how Biden has handled immigration.
An 80 year old President Joe Biden walked up and down these steps without the use of handrails with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his recent trip to Ukraine
For Democrats, Biden has done such a satisfactory job as President that no Democrat has or could creditably claim that old age is currently affecting his job performance. The only signs of Biden’s 80 years that poll respondents and Democrats consistently point to are his occasional cough, the gait of his walk, and his occasional verbal gaffes. If Democrats need to know if and when a public servant’s old age should prevent them from continuing to serve, they have a real-life example currently playing out in real-time in the U.S. Senate.
Last April a Democrat who has had many rigorous policy discussions with Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein over the last 15 years, sat down with her prepared for their usual in-depth policy discussion. Instead of an in-depth policy discussion, the Democrat had to reintroduce themself to Feinstein multiple times during the conversation, which lasted over an hour, and Feinstein kept repeating the same question with no apparent recognition or memory, that she had asked the same question, and the Democrat had answered the same question several times during their conversation.
When most 79-year-olds fall down at home they break a hip. Above a 79-yer-old President Biden fell of his bike on to concrete last year without breaking any of the 79-year-old bones in his body
Senator Feinstein’s incoherence concerned the Democrat so much, that the Democrat began discussions with fellow Democrats to see if some kind of intervention to persuade Feinstein to retire was possible. Last week when a reporter asked Feinstein if she had any comments about her retirement statement released by her office she said “Well, I haven’t made that decision. I haven’t released anything, at this point, her staff member quickly cut in reminding her “Senator, we put out your statement”, Feinstein responded “You put out the statement? I should have known they put it out”. Unfortunately, at 88 years old Senator Feinstein’s mental acuity is failing her or she would have remembered permitting her staff to release the statement about her retirement.
NO ONE who has come into contact with President Biden during his last 2 years as President, can recall a conversation with an incoherent Biden or a memory-lapsing Biden. Democrats concerned about the gait of his walk should remember the most consequential President of the 20th century, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, could not walk at all and could not dress himself, yet he held America together during a time of the greatest economic threat to American democracy, the Great Depression, and led America to victory during a time of the greatest military threat to America’s existence in World War 2.
The fact that President Franklin Roosevelt could not walk or dress himself did not stop him from being a great President of the United States. The wheelchair pictured above is the one he used when staying at his Hyde Park, New York home
Democrats concerned about Biden’s verbal misinformation gaffes should remember that Biden has been making misinformation gaffes since he was a young vibrant 29-year-old Senator, as Rev. Joseph Darby of South Carolina said “Joe’s always been gaffe-prone, it’s just a piece of who he is”. Democrats concerned about Biden’s occasional gaffes of mispronouncing some words should remember that his mispronunciations are not a mental failing, but a sign that 80 years of living have made it harder for Biden’s physical body skills to hide his lifelong stuttering problem.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor, President Biden’s personal physician, has issued Biden a clean bill of health after giving him a physical this month at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Dr. O’Connor said, “The president remains fit for duty, and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations”. Biden’s checkup revealed an echocardiogram which indicated his heart has “excellent functional capacity”, his lingering occasional cough is due to acid reflux, and the stiffened stride gait to his walking is attributed to wear and tear on his spine and a formerly fractured foot from playing with his dog.
One of the ways an 80 year old President Biden stays in good physical shape is by making frequent bike rides
S. Jay Olshansky, a public health professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who has researched presidents and aging said after reviewing Biden’s physical released by the White House that all factors point to Biden living a very long life, and he highlighted how consistent Biden’s baseline trends, numbers, and results were with his previous years’ medical reports, a key sign of good health for older adults according to aging experts.
Based on the reality of President Joe Biden’s health, Democrats are committing prejudice against Biden by prejudging what they think the state of his health should be at 80 years old, instead of judging what the state of his actual health is at 80 years old. Democrats are threatening to discriminate against Biden by denying him a 2nd term in office based solely on the number of his old age, and not because the number of his old age has actually made him mentally or physically unfit to be President. And Democrats apparently lack any empathy for an 80-year-old who works out 5 days a week, maintains a sometimes 10-14 hour work day, and just demonstrated this week, with his 2 trips to Ukraine and Poland, his ability at 80 years old to start a trip at 4 am in one time zone adapt and maintain a full working schedule after arriving in a completely different time zone.
Democrats constantly quote the famous words of Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “That my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”. Democrats must apply Dr. King’s non-discrimination principle to Biden’s old age. President Biden should not be judged by the age of the bones in his body, but by the content of Dr. Kevin O’Connor’s medical report on the status of Biden’s health, or to be more precise President Biden should not be judged by the age of the bones in his body, but by the content of the brain in his head. To do otherwise means Democrats are guilty of prejudice, discrimination, and lack of empathy toward a mentally and physically fit Joe Biden, who has thus far demonstrated the mental acuity and physical ability to perform the duties necessary to be President of the United States.