“Following the debate, the Beltway class is counting Joe Biden out. If we see changes in polling, it won’t be the first time overblown media narratives have driven dips in polls.” — Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden-Harris Campaign Chair
All right, everybody calm down. I know Joe Biden didn’t have the best debate performance. Or TV interview. Or radio interview. Or July Fourth address. Still, this whole thing about his age is getting blown way out of proportion by a small group of political insiders, journalists, delegates, donors, former staffers, former presidents, senators, representatives, governors, European diplomats, swing state voters, independents, and regular American taxpayers spread across all fifty states.
As the Biden-Harris campaign chair, it’s my job to tell you to relax and that all this concern about Biden’s mental fitness is just needless bedwetting coming from pretty much everyone in the country. Sure, we’ve seen some losses in the “people paying the slightest bit of attention to current events” demographic. But rest assured, this flock of alarmists only represents the entire voting constituency.
It’s easy to forget, but there is an America that exists outside the privileged clique of people with TVs and functioning organs. If you spend time with everyday folks, they’ll tell you they’re not going to let a bunch of hysterics going on in Washington, DC, Iowa, Alabama, California, Virginia, New York, New Mexico, Texas, Wyoming, and forty-two other states stop them from voting for Biden.
But thanks to a few columnists using their platforms to push fear-mongering op-eds, along with a few million US citizens using their frontal lobes to assemble basic lines of reasoning, Biden’s numbers are taking a totally unearned dip. His donors are scrambling for a backup plan. Senators are calling for him to step aside. This all might seem like an organic shift away from Biden at first glance, but if you dig deeper, you’ll see it’s all being stirred up by literally anyone who watched the nationally televised debate that was our idea to have.
Look, let’s just break down the average person fretting over Biden’s acuity: they’re probably white, or Black, or Asian, or Latino, or Indigenous. They likely have a PhD, or a master’s, or a bachelor’s, or a trade certification, or a high school diploma, or a GED. They live on a coast, don’t live on a coast, or live somewhere else. They work in politics, media, or a field that is not one of those two. Now, does that sound like some huge group who’s going to decide the election to you?
I mean, would you even be worried about Biden’s age if you and every single person you know hadn’t seen it with your own eyes then talked about it all week?
So, I think it’s time for all you pundits, pollsters, podcasters, interns, car salespersons, guidance counselors, Uber drivers, 401(k) managers, hairdressers, librarians, college students, small business owners, Subway sandwich artists, and stay-at-home parents out there to apologize to the American people. You have undermined the president and opened up a lane for Trump to return to power, and he will do nothing but lie, conceal, and make hugely important decisions based on ego—something the Biden-Harris campaign would never, ever do.
