Trump Is Not Eternal, Nor Is He The Eater Of Worlds

He's still beatable.

Last week, I wrote a piece for

Public Notice

about how the talk about Donald Trump seeking an unconstitutional third term ignores how incredibly unpopular he is. Some people responded with reasonable concerns: Trump was never actually popular yet has still won elections, and considering that he’s governing like a wannabe dictator, there’s no reason to assume he would actually leave office if he lost another election.

I don’t wish to minimize the threat Trump poses, but an authoritarian strongman’s power lies in the public assuming he is, well, strong. Pointing out Trump’s weaknesses isn’t wishful think or complacency. It’s a critical part of the resistance.

Consider how the media covered former President Joe Biden. There was no question over his eligibility to serve another term, but the media immediately and almost relentlessly focused on why this was a bad idea. This helped his political opponents cement a narrative that eventually doomed his presidency.

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Biden's Old But Trump's Old, Evil, And Insane. Why Did Voters Choose The Combo Package?

In July 2019, not long after Biden declared his candidacy, CNN’s Chris Cillizza asked, “Is Joe Biden too old to be president?” The Atlantic also asked if “Joe Biden Is “Too Old?’” Edward-Isaac Dovere wrote that Biden was “looking for that sweet spot between ‘wise’ and ‘over the hill.’”

A New York Times headline from the same month read, “Why Joe Biden’s Age Worries Some Democratic Allies and Voters.” The article itself raised the stakes for Biden upcoming primary debate performance, which was billed as a “rematch with [Kamala Harris],” noting that Biden and his advisers were “grappling with how to make sure he doesn’t appear so shaky, cognizant that a repeat performance could do lasting damage to his campaign and erode his advantage in the polls.”

Politico also asked, “Is Joe Biden Too Old?” in August 2019, when he was admittedly a month older than he was in July.

Even before Biden clinched the nomination in 2020, there were already questions about whether he’d serve a second term. Who can forget the infamous Politico article from December 2019: “Biden signals to aides that he would serve only a single term,” which quoted unnamed advisers who “weighed the advantages of a one-term pledge” from the then-77-year-old candidate. There were, of course, zero advantages to such a pledge, but this article succeeded in triggering a Mandela effect where people would swear Biden definitively stated he’d only serve a single term.

From Bloomberg in August 2020: “Biden Says He’s Open To Second Term, Despite Age Questions.” In November, as Trump actively plotted a coup, NBC News ran this article on Biden’s birthday: “That’s a lot of candles: Biden turns 78, will be oldest U.S. president.

New York Times Declares Biden Decrepit Old Man, Trump Strong Youthful Dancing Machine

Trump turned 78 in July 2024, so he’s once again the oldest person elected president. Biden’s age was supposedly a bigger deal than Trump’s in 2020 because there was reason to believe he might run for another term, as most first term presidents do. The only possible justification for giving Trump a pass on his age is that he’s definitely leaving office in 2029. If that’s actually up in the air, then the media should focus more relentlessly on the fact that Trump would be 86 at the end of an (unconstitutional) third term.

The media never stopped reminding us that if re-elected, Biden would be 86 at the end of his presidency. Biden hadn’t even completed his first year in office before calls emerged for him to stand down in 2024. New York Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote in December 2021, “Biden Should Not Run Again — and He Should Say He Won’t.”

When Biden turned 80 shortly after the 2022 midterms, Reuters released a poll showing that 68 percent of people surveyed thought Biden wasn’t up to the “challenge” of serving another term. A New York Times article from the same year suggested that Biden’s own party was starting to question his fitness: “Should Biden Run in 2024? Democratic Whispers of ‘No’ Start to Rise.” From The Guardian in summer 2022: “Too old to run again? Biden faces questions about his age as crises mount.”

The nation’s experiencing far worse crises now but the media seemingly doesn’t think it counts because Trump’s only governing style is “perpetual crisis.” The Guardian continues: “Faced with a grim outlook for 2022, some Democrats are looking ahead to 2024 and asking, is Joe Biden the best person to lead the party and the US?”

No Republicans are wondering this about Trump because the GOP is now an organized crime syndicate posing as a personality cult that’s long since stopped behaving like an actual political party.

Of course, Biden’s weakness was more pronounced because Republicans didn’t act as if they were terrified of him. Faux Democrats like John Fetterman are playing nice with MAGA, as if it’s an actual popular political movement. Fetterman was boasting about appearing on Lara Trump’s Fox News show the weekend before major elections that Democrats are set to win. It’s especially pathetic considering that Lara Trump openly mocked his past health struggles and said he “was probably never fit for office to begin with.” She’s a terrible singer but perhaps she was right about Fetterman’s fitness for office.

However, I’m not delusional like some Biden dead enders, who insist that his age was only a media-contrived issue. Karine Jean-Pierre has face-planted in recent interviews when attempting to spin this narrative. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris is stuck in a political purgatory where as Biden’s former vice president, she must defend what has become increasingly indefensible. During a recent interview on Jon Stewart’s podcast, Harris said she believed “Biden] was fully competent to serve” a second full term … but with a weird qualification. (Watch below.)

STEWART: What’s the distinction?

HARRIS:  Well, being a candidate for president of the United States is about being in a marathon at a sprinter’s pace, having tomatoes thrown at you every step you take.

This is frankly irritating. A major part of the president’s job is effective communication and wielding the bully pulpit. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton both did this masterfully. Unfortunately, so did George W. Bush. It’s considered a key reason why Bush held off John Kerry in 2004.

And while Democrats would argue that the current president is very old, they still talk about Trump as if he has the entire Republican Party under his thumb. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN last week: “Understand, until Donald Trump tells them what to do, Republicans in the House and Senate are going to be unwilling to find a bipartisan path forward because this version of the Republican Party, they don’t work for the American people. They work for Donald Trump.”

The Democratic rhetoric about Trump doesn’t suggest that random aides are running the administration. You could safely argue that an unhinged Stephen Miller is directing most of Trump’s immigration policy, especially the invasion of Democratic-run cities, but Democrats haven’t effectively sold voters on the idea that Trump isn’t actually in charge. Whereas, Republicans pushed the narrative that Biden was submissive to an out-of-touch “radical” left-wing.

Democrats’ sweeping victories on Tuesday should prove that Trump isn’t immune to normal political gravity, and although we should rightly fear a wholly corrupt GOP trying to keep him in office forever, he also won’t (and can’t) live forever. If we make Trump’s increasing frailty the leading headline, we can defeat him like the Losers Club defeated the more respectable Pennywise in Stephen King’s It.