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Biden gets to choose whether or not to run again. [1]

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Date: 2022-11-21

Our 2020 winning team

I’m honestly pretty astounded at the number of people who are trying to use Nancy Pelosi voluntarily stepping down from the House leadership as an excuse to pressure Joe Biden to do the same thing. It’s almost like they’re all repeating the same mistake that the media made in the run-up to the 2022 midterms in assuming that the Democrats were going to be flooded by a massive red wave.

Look, I get it. Biden is in his eighties. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about that either. But trying to argue that Biden shouldn’t run again because of his age is completely missing the point of what Pelosi did. Nobody pressured her into stepping down because she was too old. She voluntarily stepped down from her leadership role and in so doing gained a lot of moral authority.

Whether you like it or not, this has to be Biden’s decision, and only his decision. If he gets pressured into stepping down by people who are concerned about his age, or because they think we need youthful energy instead, or whatever, then he looks weak and ineffectual in ways Republicans have been insinuating all along. And I don’t know about you, but I was getting pretty tired of hearing it.

So I say, let him run if he so chooses. He’s more than earned the right to tell us if he’s up to running. And of course you all have the right to tell him if you think he should be running or not during the 2024 primaries. But trying to push him into taking himself out of the running is more likely than not to backfire horribly on us. Remember, aged experience tends to win out over youthful enthusiasm.

As a personal aside, one of the last conversations I had with my mom before she was hospitalized in 2020 and later died was her being despondent over Biden’s early primary losses and being extremely upset about what that meant about the prospects of Donald Trump winning his second term. I tried to cheer her up by telling her that whoever eventually won would still be able to beat Trump (and although I didn’t say it, I personally didn’t think he could), but events proved her right: Biden not only could win, he did win. I only wish I could have told her that in person, but I’ve never forgotten that she was right and I was wrong about Biden being able to win.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/21/2137664/-Biden-gets-to-choose-whether-or-not-to-run-again

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