We should absolutely be relitigating Joe Biden's age right now
Ignoring problems doesn't make them go away.
Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson have a book out this week, titled Original Sin, about the coverup in Democratic circles during the 2024 election cycle of Joe Biden’s mental acuity and cognitive decline. Through extensive reporting and interview, the book purports to document how those closest to the former president, and those high up in the Democratic Party, ignored signals from the electorate and their own common sense, and continued to push a Biden re-election at 82 years old as somehow smart or good politics.
I haven’t read the book, but I have read a lot of the coverage and reaction, including an excellent interview with Tapper on Ezra Klein’s podcast earlier this week. I have a mild interest in this topic, as someone who stated early and publicly last year that I would not be voting for Joe Biden for re-election, explicitly because of this age. I wrote a long post on Facebook almost a year ago, after that disastrous debate performance1. In it, I said the following:
Last night showed what I have felt for a long time now: Joe Biden is no longer fit to run for or be President of the United States. He is now 81 years old, will be 82 on Election Day, and if re-elected, 86 when he leaves office. The odds of him living that long are slim. The odds of him retaining all of his mental and physical faculties that long is even slimmer. The trust the public has in him is in tatters, and the last of it was torn away last night. He should step aside, immediately, and let the Party make a decision between now and the convention later this summer.
I highlight this to say, my bona fides on this topic are established all around: I have been a strong and persistent critic of the current regime and their daily attacks on democracy and the American Constitution, but I also recognize that we don’t fix things by simply blindly voting D next time. Both parties are complicit in where we find ourselves as a nation, for different reasons. And the primary way Democrats are responsible is because of their abdication of responsibility when it came to Joe Biden’s fitness for office. The GOP is primarily responsible for the Donald Trump moment over all, starting all the way back in the 90s with Newt Gingrich and the earlier Aughts with the Iraq war; but, in the immediate moment, Democrats bear responsibility for Trump taking office a second time, because their unquestioning commitment to Joe Biden last year showed they hadn’t learned the lessons from Trump 1.0, and weren’t at all interested in listening to voters.
Here is what I wrote about the Democratic Party last year in that same essay:
And, in saying this, I want to express my very clear anger and disgust with the Party I was once a proud and active member of. For four years now, voters have been telling them time and time again that we are not ok with Biden’s age and his future prospects, that we were tolerating him as a bulwark against Trumpism. And they have consistently not just ignored, but handwaved those concerns away, telling us we are wrong, or ageist, or misguided for feeling that way. Instead of listening to us, the rank and file who make up the Party, they have ignored us and tried to lead us like sheep to slaughter, all for some weird and misguided fealty to Joe Biden’s reelection, as if not offending him by telling him the truth is more important than doing to right thing. It’s disgusting and I’m absolutely ashamed by my Party.
I got a lot of pushback for writing that, from friends and fellow travelers on the left. People felt I was focusing on the wrong thing, or excusing a Trump victory, that I was doing the dirty work of the GOP and the right. Those same people are angry this week at Tapper and Thompson, for pushing this question back into the headlines. And on one level, I get it: we have a lot of really important things to be worrying about. Whether its the uniquely damaging and irresponsible budget framework the House GOP pushed through on a party line vote in the middle of the night earlier this week, or the Administration’s continued assault on free speech on college campuses, or the revelation that they have been trying to ship immigrants to south Sudan while simultaneously taking in white Afrikaners mad that their government in South Africa for fulfilling the promises of Mandela and Tutu: there is a lot of alarming shit continuing to happen, day in and day out. Frankly, it’s exhausting and discouraging.
But, one of the only ways the Democratic Party and the political left in this country is ever going to find the traction needed to make electoral gains against this regime going forward is by owning up to their real mistakes in 2024, by taking responsibility and doing the real work of showing they understand the mistakes they made and how they will avoid them going forward. One of the primary things I hear from Trump-skeptical centrists and conservatives that gives them pause about supporting the Democratic Party in 2026 or 2028 is about the trust that was shattered in the cover-up of Biden’s problems last year. Democrats must listen to voters, and do the hard work now of addressing these failings. Because if they don’t do it now, in May 2025, then they’ll be forced to confront those failings in October 2026 or the summer of 2028. And trust me: you may not want to have the conversation right now, you really don’t want to be having this conversation then.

But, of course, the loudest Democratic voices in the media aren’t willing to admit any wrongs. They are instead attacking Jake Tapper, like somehow its his fault Joe Biden’s family and advisors betrayed the country and the party last year, or trying to imply that actually this isn’t a big deal or story at all, that we shouldn’t pay any attention to it (sound familiar?) “Forget Biden”, Salon.com writes. “The Truth About Biden’s Health Doesn’t Change Anything”, asserts MSNBC. “Joe Biden has nothing to do with the 2028 election”, blithely declares the Washington Monthly. Here on Substack, Amy Siskind captures the mood of most delusional Democrats well:
Oof. Talk about tone deaf and delusional.
Democrats lost voters’ trust over Joe Biden. The Party has to face it, especially if it wants to be relevant in the next election cycle. It seems many in the Party think political inertia will pull them to victory in 2026 and 2028, just like they thought it would do for them last year. They have hung their hats on the inevitable midterm backlash, and seem to believe the polls of early 2025 will somehow hold true for three and a half more years. But none of this is a given. If Democrats really want to have a chance going forward, they have to prove to voters they are listening and that they have learned from past mistakes. And right now, that means reckoning with the failures of the Biden campaign and their own complicity in the obfuscation.
And in doing so, they have to realize something really important: age matters. And, frankly, voters are sick and tired of voting for candidates who should be retiring and enjoying the fruits of their labor. We live in a fast-paced world, where AI and technology and social media is forever changing the landscape, not by the day or hour, but by the minute. Hell, I’m 36, and I can’t keep up. How the hell do we expect people in their 70s and 80s to do so? Politicians need to learn to step aside and make room for new voices, and they need to do it much earlier than they think: not at traditional retirement age, but in their 50s and early 60s. The left should be churning people through leadership, because in the end, this shouldn’t be a celebrity culture, but an ideas one. It’s not the individuals that matter, its the ideas. Let the Right be a personality cult; we should be focused on the things that make the lives of people better, not on making stars out of politicians and fangirling over them. There is constant debate about how to make the Democratic Party “relevant.” This is the best way to do just that: new voices, all the time, who are responsive and normal and aware. Hell, get really radical: the Party should impose an age cap, an internal term limit of its candidates, and an income cap. You want relevant? Think about the headlines if they did that.
But, I don’t have a lot of hope about that. I don’t really think they will learn the lessons they need to. We have corruption and fascism overrunning our government, and meanwhile, Democrats are still fighting the battles and using the language of 2015, or 2008, or hell, in some cases, 2003. They say they feel the urgency of this moment. But their actions - like defending Joe Biden, or continuing to court corporate interests, or dismissing large swathes of the electorate - say otherwise.
So let’s have the conversation about Joe Biden. Let’s fight it out, get messy and sloppy, show the public we are aware of the failings. And in doing so, let’s reset the future of the left and the Democratic Party in America.