How President Biden might play to young voters.
President Joe Biden, born in 1942 during the onset of U.S. entry into World War II, is having difficulty convincing young voters that he deserves another boring term being stable and productive.
Let’s define young voters as under age 35, born after 1988. All of them had their fun president, Barack Obama, now not exactly young at 62.
Each generation gets a fun president. Baby Boomers got President John F. Kennedy, born in 1917. Then they got one of their own, Bill Clinton, born in 1946, who took presidential fun to a whole new level.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Mostly, however, presidents and presidential nominees aren’t really all that fun. They can be qualified. They can be competent. But, generally speaking, their entertainment value is low.
Sometimes, older presidential candidates can light up young voters. President Ronald Reagan, 69 when elected and younger than Biden leaving office than Biden entering it, comes immediately to mind, as does Sen. Bernie Sanders, 82, who both had a rather strong youth following.
Biden, poor guy, doesn’t ignite anyone other than what I call the Crave Normal demographic. After the absolutely chaotic presidency of Donald Trump, Crave Normies felt like they had run for four years in high heels. I mean, can we please just sit down, take off the stilettos and not be endlessly “entertained?”
What’s wrong with Biden, according to young voters? While many can sympathize with Biden’s Gaza Gordian Knot (it’s complicated and has been since the time of Jesus Christ), young voters aren’t buying it. Gaza is a tragedy, but Biden is supposed to solve it instantly.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
I’ve raised quite a number of young voters and have lots of interaction with others. They’re not upset just about Gaza. They’re upset about climate change. They’re upset about student loan debt. They’re upset about all sorts of things they should be upset about.
Biden climate czar John Kerry, a former not-all-that-exciting 2004 Democratic presidential nominee and freshly 80, came home from COP28 in Dubai with some sort of framework to keep climate progress moving. But his effort hasn’t budged Biden’s numbers. At all.
Young voters want the X Factor, and we’re not talking about Elon Musk’s latest imploding business venture.
Watching Biden day-to-day, one can see that his gait has certainly stiffened a bit, but he generally offers complete sentences, gives thoughtful responses to complicated questions and even manages to hit the Peloton regularly. The only thing his likely GOP opponent has hit is the Mar-a-Lago french fries basket.
Biden’s career was utterly washed up by 2008. He was rescued after a disastrous ninth-place (ninth!) finish in the Iowa Caucuses. Then this young dude Obama (47) picked him to be his running mate when he was 65, which is really nothing compared to Biden’s current age (81) and Trump’s (chronological age 77, emotional age 3).
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Young voters mostly are pretty impressive these days. They care about their country and the world, and millions act on the things they care about through personal political activism of some kind. They tend not to be hung up on race or gender. But they do need to be a bit more stimulated than people who liked Ike. Ike wasn’t on TikTok, but, in the words of Fonzie from “Happy Days,” “He did win World War II for us.”
I know a lot of my age peers were influenced more by Alex P. Keaton, the junior Reaganite from NBC’s sitcom “Family Ties,” and Gordon Gekko’s greed-is-good vibe from Oliver Stone’s film “Wall Street.”
We were also given the staid-but-Minnesota-nice Walter Mondale, the “Look, Muffy!” preppy poster boy George H.W. Bush, the sincerely tedious technocrat Mike Dukakis, the student-council-guy Bill Clinton AND his even-more-student council wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the slightly inarticulate professional scion George W. Bush and the aforementioned Kerry.
Oh, and deer-in-headlights Dan Quayle, proto-Trumpie Wasilla, Alaska, Mayor Sarah Palin, and Suddenly A National Liberal Hero Dick Cheney.
Biden looks pretty fun to me now.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
He is political comfort food, a big chicken pot pie mom made especially for you. His former persona as a Senate mouth-runner has given way to Gravitas Grandpa, and he’s done a lot of good stuff, starting with not being in your face on social media every 90 seconds.
In a Taylor Swift political environment, Biden is a James Taylor vinyl record from 1973.
Is Biden exciting enough for young people to win? After checking out the stimulating possibility of a no-choice “Mein Kampf” aficionado facing jail, maybe they’ll develop a preference for Grandpa Joe.
Jack Ohman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and writer. He can be reached at jackohman.net, on Instagram at @jackohman60 and Threads at @jackohman60.
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Andrew Mitrovica
Mort Laitner
Rami G Khouri
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
visit website
