The upcoming presidential election in the world’s first democracy has all the hallmarks of becoming a repeat of 2020: Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump, a tiresome duel between two candidates who are resisting retirement and still want to say their last word. The current president has confirmed this week what was an open secret. He shows up “to finish the job he has started” and defend democracy against the populist and nationalist threat embodied by his rival. Despite what is at stake, the health of the republic, the announcement has not aroused great enthusiasm. Biden favors campaigning from the White House. Electoral inertia usually leads to granting two terms, and not just one, to presidents. For him, it’s not so much about winning but not losing. However, his popularity ratings are low. He has not achieved his main objective, to reduce polarization, that is, the deep division of the country into two parallel and confronting worlds. Politics is still toxic. In return, Biden has been able to boost the economy, through the approval of various economic stimulus laws, with protectionist effects in the rest of the world, and has stemmed the Republican tide in the legislature. The main success that he can display has taken place in foreign policy, the success of weaving and leading a coalition of forty countries to stop Russian aggression in Ukraine. At home, 70% of citizens think that in their eighties they should not aspire to the most strenuous job in the world. That is why the favorite Democrat has highlighted in his announcement the figure of Kamala Harris, with whom he will team up again. The vice president is very effective at campaigning, but her governing skills are not comparable to her prowess at rallies, something that worries him in the event that he were to take the reins of the presidency from her. She lacks the pragmatic instinct of her boss. Harris attracts the votes of women, young people and members of the African-American minority, all of them very important to stop Trump, an aspiring candidate without rules. The former president wants revenge and uses the long list of legal cases that he has pending in his favor, as if he were a victim of the system. The most sensible thing is that Joe Biden would have stepped back to support a young and moderate Democratic candidate. But power is addictive, and it changes even someone as experienced as the current president.
#tiring #duel
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