US President Joe Biden, who is currently 80 years old, is pushing himself to become the next president of the country. But, this isn't simple as it sounds. As the country is gearing up for the next Presidential elections in 2024, his age would be the major hurdle for him as well for Democratic Party. This is the main perturbation of why the incumbent President has mocked himself during public events.
On several occasions, he is increasingly musing aloud about his advanced age, cracking self-deprecating jokes and framing his decades in public life as a plus, hoping to convince voters his age is an asset rather than a vulnerability.
In short, he’s trying to own it.
I’m at the end of my career: Biden
"I stand here humbled being the first sitting president of the United States to have an opportunity to speak at Ebenezer Sunday service,” Biden said in January at the historic Atlanta church where Martin Luther King, Jr. was the co-pastor. "You’ve been around for 136 years. I know I look like it, but I haven’t."
When Biden told the Irish parliament last month that he has never been more optimistic about the future, he notably added, “And I’m at the end of my career, not the beginning.”
“The only thing I bring to this career after my age — as you can see how old I am — but is a little bit of wisdom,” Biden continued to the approving crowd. “I come to the job with more experience than any president in American history. It doesn’t make me better or worse, but it gives me few excuses.”
Biden's punchline
Other times, Biden — his mood buoyed by a crowd full of supporters, whether among Democratic lawmakers or at a lively union hall — is often speaking off-the-cuff, eager to make the audience laugh by poking a little fun at himself. At the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 29, Biden made his age an early — and frequent — punchline.
“You guys were founded 122 years ago – that’s not when I got endorsed,” Biden told a crowd of machine operators and engineers with the International Union of Operating Engineers in Accokeek, Md., in April. He referenced “my career of 280 years here” at a Black History Month reception before being interrupted by laughter, and at an Air Force event last month, Biden noted that President Dwight Eisenhower addressed the first class of the Air Force Academy more than six decades ago but that “I wasn’t there ... no matter what the press says.”
57% per cent of voters are wary about Biden’s capacity to do his job
Biden’s personal doctor said after the president’s most recent physical exam in February that Biden “remains a healthy, vigorous 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.”
Still, the public remains wary about Biden’s capacity to do his job. A majority — 57% — of voters in last year’s midterm elections said they did not think Biden “has the mental capacity to serve effectively as president,” according to AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of the 2022 electorate. Forty-one per cent of voters said Biden did.
About 9 in 10 Republicans, along with about 2 in 10 Democrats, said they thought Biden doesn’t have the mental capacity to serve as president. Among Democrats, though, voters under 45 were roughly twice as likely as older voters to say they thought Biden doesn’t have the mental capability, 27% vs. 13%.
(With inputs from AP)
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