Now that Democrats seem to agree that President Joe Biden is experiencing some level of mental decline, it’s fair to wonder what impact that condition might have on the rest of his presidency, as well as on the future of his party. It’s also fair to wonder just what might be crossing his mind these days.
Biden’s political genius has always been his ability to locate and occupy the center of his party. As the Democratic party moved left in recent decades, he has migrated leftward as well. Will that continue to be the case for the president in the immediate future and for his party in the years to come? Or will it not? And is this what President Biden wants to see happen? Or is it not?
A key factor in all of this might well be his mental condition, especially since those who suffer from dementia live increasingly in the past. In fact, they often remember the past better and more accurately than they do the present. In some cases they seem to be living in the past as much or more than they live in the present. Is any of this the case for Joe Biden? And, if so, for how long?
To be sure, President Biden surely does know a few important things about the present. He knows that he is the president, and he did know that he wanted to run for a second term. He likely also knew that he wanted to win his re-election bid and defeat Donald Trump once and for all.
But remembering—and living in—the past might have convinced him of something else. Both might have convinced him that anointing Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president is as near a sure thing as could be found to trigger the onset of the long process of restoring the Democratic party of the past.
It’s even possible that he may have been having such thoughts for a good while. After all, she had performed even more poorly than he did in the early going of the 2020 election cycle. And once the country gets a sustained look at her—and once she’s been put in charge of the chaotic border issue—it could have occurred to him that she’d be a sure loser in 2024. And for that matter, it might even have crossed his mind that it would be better that she lose to Trump than he.
But a huge question remains: Why would he want his party to lose at all in 2024? Mainly because his thoughts about the past have been crowding in with much more frequency as his presidency and his dementia have progressed.
Those would be thoughts about the Democratic party of Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson, of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Such thoughts must be flooding back to ol’ Joe at this late point in his presidency and in his life.
By and large those were good days. After all, those were the years when the Democratic party was both a staunchly working class party and a strongly anti-communist party. This was also the party that helped give birth to Israel, thanks to President Harry (“I am Cyrus”) Truman.
Speaking of births, the party of his younger days was much more pro-life than was the GOP. More than that, the Democratic party of the 1960s was also the party that was working its way toward becoming a party committed to civil rights and color blindness, thanks to a Minnesota senator by the name of Hubert Humphrey and his call at the 1948 Democratic National Convention for Democrats to walk in the broad sunshine of civil rights.
Of course, young Joe Biden would not have been old enough to have any memory of that speech. But there surely must be moments when he recalls the civil rights movement of the 1960s. After all, he still likes to regale listeners with stories of his own involvement in it.
At times he may well remember Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream speech” and his call that we be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin. Even on his more lucid days, he surely must recall that late August day of 1963.
As those memories crowd in, he might well be thinking that going down in flames in 2024 could prove to be a good thing for the Democrats. And he might even have more than a fleeting thought that going down with Harris at the helm would at least mean that it could never be said that he had ever lost to the Donald.
To make matters more urgent, even an occasionally lucid Joe Biden has to know that today’s Democratic party has next to nothing to do with the Democratic party of not all that long ago. More than that, nay worse than that, the Republican party of today has become the Democratic party of yesteryear. Today’s GOP is a party that is seeking to re-fashion itself as the party of the working class.
It’s also the party that lends much more support to the embattled state of Israel, as well as to the cause of the unborn. And it is the party that seems more prepared to take on the chief anti-communist challenge of today. That would be China, not Russia.
For toppers, the GOP wants to control our borders. Not all that long ago the likes of Bernie Sanders and Paul Wellstone thought the same thing. What a stroke of genius it turned out to be to open the borders, thinks today’s Joe Biden. That would be the same Joe Biden who then proceeded to put Kamala Harris in charge of dealing with the entire mess!
Finally, today’s GOP is the party that seeks to build a color-blind society, rather than promote policies on the basis of skin color, whether they be slavery, segregation, disparate impact or affirmative action quotas.
What’s a good Democrat to do, given all this? For the time being, the answer is to head hard left with a Harris-Walz ticket. The new ol’ Joe, meaning the Joe Biden of today who is living more and more in the past, must be grinning ear to ear. The old Democratic party might be revived after all.
For now, the Democrats seem bent on trying to pretend to be the old Democratic party. But will a defeat in November and a spell in the political wilderness lead to re-thinking, re-tooling and re-building?
If so, will the Democrats finally—and openly—emerge having decided once and for all to be the progressive party of the left, as well as a party that no longer resorts to hiding behind—or propping up—either an ancient relic of their liberal past or a well-coiffed, smiling face of more current vintage?
Or maybe, just maybe, the Democrats might come to their senses and actually return to their past. And if that should happen, a new generation of Democrats might one day trace the onset of their revival to the remembered past of one ancient relic of that past in particular, namely the Joe Biden of the summer of 2024.
John C. “Chuck” Chalberg writes from Bloomington.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not represent an official position of Alpha News.
Chuck Chalberg
John C. "Chuck" Chalberg taught American history at Normandale Community College.
