Biden 2024. Whatever.

Joe Biden plans to announce his re-election bid for 2024 this coming Tuesday, and Democrats couldn't be more . . . un-enthusiastic.  Many Democrats don't want Biden to run again primarily because if his age, and they would really, really like to see someone else.  But, it turns out, there is no one else.

The Democratic Party has been run by its old guard for years, and the party spent the 2010s seeing rising stars become shooting stars when they ran for office against Republicans and lost.  Ironocally, this was the result of a star who rose all the way to the top - Barack Obama, who - I know I sound like a broken record, but this is worth repeating - wanted so much to be above politics that he turned the party apparatus over to people who didn't know what they were doing.  Even though Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the poster girl for political incompetence, is long gone from party leadership (though she still represents a House district in Florida, a state where Democrats have become a nonentity thanks in no small part to her), the inability to cultivate and develop new talent persists.  Thanks to their electoral losses in 2022,  Wisconsin's Mandela Barnes, Iowa's Mike Franken, Texas's  Beto O'Rourke, and Ohio's Tim Ryan are no longer on the contact list of Lawrence O'Donnell's cell phone.  

As for Biden, well, despite his impeccable record of accomplishment, Republicans now control the House and aim to implement supply-side economics for the sixth time since 1980.  Meanwhile, inflation has put a damper on Biden's economic progress, the country might go into default, the county's immigration crisis still hasn't been taken care of, and Republicans are as enthusiastic to renominate Donald Trump for President as Democrats are reluctant to renominate President Biden.  The President goes into 2024 with a mixed record at best, and the excitement that should be there for an incumbent President standing for re-election just isn't there.  Nor is there anyone who could run in place of Biden and provide any excitement.

Sorry, Democrats, but you're stuck with the guy who brought you - or chaperoned you - to the dance.  You have no one to take Biden's place for the same reason there's no one to rescue rock and roll from oblivion - you spent your time turning to the old folks and turned your backs on young guns without giving them a chance. Or if you did give them a chance, you didn't give them enough support - maybe you finally would have gotten rid of the insufferable Ron Johnson in Wisconsin if you'd been more strongly behind Mandela Barnes' U.S., Senate bid.  Ohioans are stuck with the self-righteous James David Vance representing them in the Senate because Tim Ryan - a fellow former Republican operative Steve Schmidt argued would make a great President - couldn't get any money from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.  Now he's only fifty years old and a total hasbeen.  

So who are you going to get nw, or in 2028 and beyond, to run for the White House?   Who to get in 2028 is something you'll have t figure out for yourself, but for 2024 you're going to have to go with Biden.  And by the way, don't think he can't win a second term. After all, you guys didn't think you could win everything in Michigan, increase your majority in the U.S, Senate, or cut your losses in the House in 2022. 

Sometimes I think the Democrats are their own enemy (but not their worst).