In 2024, Trump and Biden will be older, if not necessarily wiser

Editorial: If Donald Trump manages to navigate his legal battles, maintain his lead for the Republican nomination and win, he will be 82 by the time of his last day in office in January 2029. Mr Biden would be 86

(Dave Brown)

Four more years? Joe Biden’s declaration that he’s running for a second term was widely expected but, it has to be said, cannot be entirely welcomed.

America’s voters have repeatedly stated their preference that the next contest not be a rerun of the one in 2020, but it appears that they are to be presented once again with a choice between the two most famous senior citizens in the world. At least they are familiar faces, and their strengths and weaknesses very well known – the only differences being that they’re both a little older this time round, though not necessarily wiser.

If Donald Trump manages to navigate his legal battles, maintain his lead for the Republican nomination and win, he will be 82 by the time of his last day in office in January 2029; Mr Biden would be 86.

Either, therefore, would be by far the oldest president to hold office. Neither will be able to recycle, in their 2024 campaign, John F Kennedy’s ringing phrase about “letting the word go forth that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans”. In fact, Mr Biden and Mr Trump were already teenagers in 1961, and will have heard JFK’s inspirational inaugural address “live”.

Age, as they say, is just a number, and despite the odd senior moment, Mr Biden appears in good health, and up for the fight. When he helped to rescue American democracy from the proto-fascistic peril of a second Trump term in 2020, there may have been an assumption in some minds that he was something of a caretaker leader – a man who really only had one job, and that was to make Mr Trump history.

Mr Trump, though, is still around, and still highly dangerous, and Mr Biden plainly believes that, once again, he is the best man to stop him. In truth, Mr Biden is fortunate to have the deeply flawed Mr Trump as his opponent, if events turn out that way, as Mr Trump is probably the only Republican candidate he can be confident of vanquishing.

The Biden campaign looks to be a bold one in other ways. His launch video clearly focuses on the need to defend freedoms against the predations of “Maga extremists”, whether they be led by Mr Trump or otherwise. With the emphasis on civil rights, resisting voter suppression, racial and LGBT+ equality and women’s reproductive rights, it represents a kind of progressive revival of the spirit of the 1960s.

No doubt Mr Biden will also focus on his plans for the thriving economy and for greening America’s energy infrastructure, but the wilder ideas and actions of the Trumpist right have given him plenty of material with which to win over centre-ground voters. The attempt by Mr Trump to steal the 2020 election, coupled with the insurrection on 6 January 2021, proves beyond doubt that Mr Biden isn’t exaggerating the threats.

Of course, Mr Biden also has all the usual advantages of incumbency, and the power to command the headlines and dominate the media with the best of images – as his recent trip to Ireland amply demonstrated. Given the ever more obvious flaws in his most likely Republican opponent, and the newsflow of ugly allegations that will pour out as various legal cases against Mr Trump proceed, there seems little doubt that, this time round, Mr Biden has the advantage, age notwithstanding.

Given their ages, and without wishing to be indelicate about either man, more than usual attention will inevitably be paid to the vice-presidential picks for the election in 2024. By the look of the first Biden campaign video, this will once again be a Biden-Harris ticket, and Kamala Harris will be subject to even more scrutiny than she was four years ago.

It’s fair to say that she’s been a less visible veep than some of her predecessors, and she’s made few real gaffes, but she should expect to answer the toughest of questions over the course of the campaign. As a woman of colour, she and her family will also, sadly, have to withstand some vile abuse as well. She and Mr Biden should be ready for that.

As for Mr Trump, he will need a replacement for Mike Pence, who put country before Trump during the events of 6 January and is himself a fringe candidate for the Republican nomination.

Ideally, Mr Trump should choose someone who balances his ticket and would act as a kind of restraint on his petulant, vindictive, dictatorial ways. Being Mr Trump, however, he will no doubt run with someone whose outlook is as close as possible to his own, who has no inclination to challenge his or her chief. That does not necessarily make for the best running mate, if some clownish Trump stooge looks like being a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Ronald Reagan, who was a mere 77 when he left office in 1989, was once asked how he felt about his age, and he quipped: “All I can say is that, compared to the alternative, I’m very happy.”

No doubt Mr Biden and Mr Trump are also very happy about their prospective rematch – exhausting as it will be, including another round of debates and mud-slinging – and it should be entertaining; but Americans will be wondering throughout about what the alternative to this ageing pair of old sluggers might have looked like.