A recent poll conducted by HIT Strategies found that a majority of Black Americans think Joe Biden should run for president again. In the year 2024, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. will turn 83 just weeks after the election. President Biden, who is so old his middle name is Robinette, is already the oldest president the United States has ever seen. His actual policy record notwithstanding, does this country really need white men older than barcodes running the country?
The HIT Strategies BlackTrack survey, which accounts for registered Black voters, is the first one the company has done since the 2022 midterms. In it, 59 percent of respondents said Biden should run for president in the next election; 66 percent were over age 50 while 55 percent were under age 50. Seventy-four percent of all Black voters surveyed approve of President Biden’s job performance so far.
As for Biden’s record, as a senator, he opposed busing and is one of the architects of a crime bill that devastated Black families and communities for generations. Sure, he’s rectified some of his wrongs, but for decades Biden was never a popular or progressive senator—he was never a voice for Black people. The perceptions around him have changed because he was President Obama’s right hand for eight years, but this man is not a transformative leader in a broad sense, so he’s definitely not going to be a transformative leader for Black people. He’s staunchly an advocate for funneling more money into police forces. No matter where you land ideologically on abolishing the police, evidence suggests giving the blue and whites more money and resources does nothing to actually help citizens. Police department budgets nationwide dwarf other city resources. Your streets might be covered in potholes, but they’ve probably got some futuristic robots at the precinct. The community centers are poorly staffed and have bad hours, but the cops have military-grade tanks and weapons.
Biden, at 82, is not the answer in 2024. We’re face to face with a grave era in America where the fate of this country hangs in the balance in terms of economics, institutional racism, and women’s rights. We have to contend with this, ageism charges be damned. Eighty-two-year-olds should all be retired somewhere, not working as the president of the free world or even as a Walmart greeter, which is another problem this country faces that Biden cannot and will not fix. He has the choice to just give his political career a rest unlike a low-income person forced into retail work in the twilight of their life. There are a lot of younger, brighter, more resilient minds fit for the presidency than Joe Biden. My brothers and sisters, we can’t imagine something better than this?
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