“I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” Joe Biden said on the campaign trail in 2020. “There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.”
When Biden was sworn in as the 46th president, he inherited a country still struggling to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and political institutions cracking under the pressure of authoritarianism.
In its first one hundred days, the Biden administration signed into law a $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, rolled out the miraculous COVID vaccines, and replaced his predecessor’s unhinged tweets with a refreshing respect for social norms. In the first year of the Biden presidency, the unemployment rate dropped from 6.2 percent to 3.9 percent and over 6 million new jobs were created. That’s no small feat.
ADVERTISEMENT
His administration also led the charge to pass a $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which includes transformational investments in rural broadband and vital infrastructure repairs that could lead to new jobs all over the country.
And yet somehow, just over a year into his presidency, 51 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters said they'd rather see the party nominate a different candidate in 2024.
How could this be?
The answer is simple: Joe Biden was always meant to be a bridge, not a superhighway. And he hasn’t delivered on his promise to look out for the interests of Black Americans.
The allure of President Biden was never an eight-year presidency that would re-shape the country and inspire a new generation of Democrats. It was meant to move America back to a place where the president didn’t cause global anxiety over whatever he saw on Fox & Friends that morning, inflict devastating damage to our institutions and alliances, or refuse to commit to the peaceful transfer of power.
Joe Biden has done just that. But Biden isn’t the fighter the Democrats need moving forward.
He’s a creature of Washington who spent almost a half-century in the Senate. And he’s far too cozy with the man most responsible for blocking his agenda, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell—who stole multiple Supreme Court seats, continuously aids in the disenfranchisement of Black voters, and wants to deny health care to tens of millions of Americans. Biden, at a National Prayer Breakfast called McConnell his “friend,” and even went so far as to call him “a man of your word” and “a man of honor."
As a Black man who supported Biden in 2020, this was a slap in the face and a punch in the gut. It was tone-deaf, utterly ridiculous, and the moment I realized, like 51 percent of Democratic-leaning voters, that Joe Biden needs a primary challenger.
Don’t get me wrong, Joe Biden is a good man. His heart is in the right place and he wants to do the best job possible. But after a year in the White House, President Biden acts less like the president and more like a senator. He’d rather be liked than be feared, even when it comes to a Republican Party hell-bent on destroying his presidency.
If this were the late 1980s or early 1990s, President Biden’s rhetoric and tone would meet the moment. But in 2022—in the wake of both an attempted coup by the former president and an attempted insurrection by a mob of his followers—Biden’s response just reeks of weakness.
Why should the American people fight for a second term for someone who seems so uninterested in fighting for them? With the demise of his signature spending bill, Build Back Better, and voting rights weaker than they were when he took office, how could President Biden not expect a primary challenge?
His failure to adequately use his bully pulpit has been nothing short of political malpractice. His administration’s inability to message their successes and hold Republicans accountable has been nothing short of stupefying.
But most importantly, Biden, like many Democrats from his era, has taken for granted African Americans and their support for the Democratic Party.
Joe Biden owes his entire presidency to the support he received from Rep. James Clyburn and the African American community in South Carolina. Biden’s campaign was nearly dead in the water after he was trounced in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. Then his huge win in South Carolina—in large part thanks to overwhelming support from Black voters—catapulted him into frontrunner status, and eventually the nomination, then the White House.
Did this inspire him to fight tooth and nail to abolish the filibuster and pass voter protection laws? Far from it. Did this lead him to take on members of his own party to ensure that the very people who revived his campaign would be able to vote in the next election? Not even close. Instead he stayed in the background, refusing to take the reins, refusing to be bold, refusing to take a risk, until his thoughts on the issue were performance theater at best.
Biden could have gone public earlier with his displeasure with Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema—the two obstructionist Democrats who’d probably feel more comfortable at a Republican Christmas party than the Democratic Convention. He could have publicly threatened to support a primary challenge against Sinema or barnstorm Manchin’s home state of West Virginia, like a modern day LBJ.
But he didn't.
Instead, he repeatedly invited Manchin and Sinema to the White House for “discussions,'' as if they were heads of state on an official visit. Practically giving them a reward for disenfranchising African American voters.
Those voters deserve better, and Biden’s neglect could make them a less reliable asset at the polls in 2022 and 2024. It’s no accident that Biden’s approval rating among Black voters has fallen from 83 percent last April to 64 percent.
President Biden has certainly accomplished a lot in his first year, but there’s no clear rationale for giving him a second term.
When he said “I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” I took him at his word.
If Democrats stand a chance in 2024, it will take an inspirational candidate who understands that whether you’re poor and Black or poor and white, you’re still poor in a country that lobbies for the rich and exploits the vulnerable.
Biden has served his purpose, which is to not be Trump. We as a nation should be eternally grateful. But his belief that the arsonists attempting to burn down our country are his “friends” demands a primary challenge. That wasn’t a gaffe, it’s how the president actually feels.
President Biden is a nice guy, but we don’t need a nice guy right now, we need someone ready to fight for our democracy. Someone ready to go to the mat for our Republic. Someone who isn’t a bridge, but is a battle axe confronting the opposition.
It’s not that Biden has had a bad first term, quite the contrary. But that doesn’t mean he automatically deserves a second term.
A new Democratic leader isn't just what America is calling for, it’s what Joe Biden himself called for. That “entire generation of leaders” of which Biden spoke is ready and able to meet our nation’s challenges. He should brace himself to meet their challenge in the next primary.
