Back in 1984, Ronald Reagan’s political advisers had a nickname for their candidate. No, it wasn’t “The Gipper,” a favorite Reagan moniker based on his starring role as George Gipp in the 1940 film “Knute Rockne: All American.” Instead, they liked to refer to Reagan as the “O and W” candidate, shorthand for the oldest and the wisest.
At age 73, Reagan was the oldest candidate ever to seek reelection to the presidency. Reagan’s advisers claimed he was also the wisest one, given his experience as a two-term governor of California, his White House years and his long apprenticeship in the conservative movement.
Debating his Democratic opponent, former vice president Walter Mondale, Reagan joked, “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
Today, Joe Biden is the O and W candidate. Nearly a decade older than Reagan, Biden is seeking another term, which, if successful, would make him the oldest president to leave office at age 86.
Yet, Biden seems exhilarated by the job — traveling to two war-torn countries, Israel and Ukraine, both grueling, unprecedented trips. He relishes holding the nation’s top job after a long apprenticeship serving as a U.S. Senator for 36 years and vice president for eight. Finally the person in charge, Biden has used his experience to accomplish far more than even his 2020 opponents thought possible.
In just two years, he signed the American Rescue Plan, the Chips and Science Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the PACT Act and the Inflation Reduction Act to name a few. These bills do big things, whether it’s finally improving the nation’s dilapidated infrastructure, allowing the U.S. government to negotiate the price of prescription drugs (long opposed by the powerful pharmaceutical industry) and setting insulin prices at $35 for seniors or providing healthcare benefits to members of the military and their spouses who suffered exposure to toxic substances during their service.
It is fair to say that Biden’s long experience in Congress and the vice presidency put him in the position of having the most legislative accomplishments in his first two years since Lyndon B. Johnson.
Today’s foreign policy crises also tap into Joe Biden’s expertise. Over the years, Biden developed a long history of relationships with foreign leaders.
Immediately upon taking office, he traveled to the Munich Security Conference to reassure our allies that “America is back.” During his tenure, NATO has expanded to include Finland and Sweden, immeasurably strengthening the alliance. Managing the U.S. response to the war in Ukraine has required both tact and diplomacy.
As for handling the current crisis in the Middle East, Mika Brzezinski put it best.
“A lot of people say Biden’s age is a factor, and you’re damn right it is,” she said. “With age comes wisdom, experience,” she continued, calling him “unafraid” and “an effective negotiator,” who is “effective at diplomacy.”
“I wouldn’t want anyone else doing it,” she concluded.
When Ronald Reagan ran against Walter Mondale in 1984, no one believed that Mondale represented a threat to the republic. Instead, the issues centered around the economy, taxes and spending. Mondale believed that Reagan’s tax cuts were excessive and proposed raising taxes. Reagan defended his tax cuts and joked that Democrats spent money “like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors.”
Today, things are vastly different. Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) cautions that Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy, warning, “We are sleepwalking into a dictatorship.” Cheney is right. This isn’t 2016 anymore. Back then, neither Trump nor his advisers believed he would win. Trump entered government knowing little about it. In a memorable incident, while visiting the White House after Trump’s unexpected win, Jared Kushner asked how many appointees would stay after Trump was inaugurated. The answer, of course, was none of them.
This time, Trump enters the White House with far more knowledge about the workings of government and no guardrails. Already, plans are afoot to ensure that those working in a second Trump White House would be loyal to the president. He is promising to fire 50,000 career civil service employees and replace them with his shock troops. A new attorney general would follow Trump’s directive to prosecute the Bidens and anyone else who opposed him, including former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley and former Attorney General William Barr and investigate media critics like MSNBC for “threatening treason.”
Adding insult to injury, Trump has pledged to pardon “a large portion” of the rioters convicted during the Jan. 6 insurrection and promises that Special Counsel Jack Smith will end up “in a mental institution by the time my next term as President is successfully completed.” To top it off, Trump says he will invoke the Insurrection Act to quell any dissent, promising he will be a dictator on day one.
As Joe Biden admitted, the prospect of Donald Trump returning to the White House factored in his decision to seek a second term. Twice defeating Trump could set the Republican Party on a course correction to become the loyal opposition, as losing parties have historically conceded to the victor and adjusted to new circumstances. Then, perhaps, the underpinnings of democracy would be strengthened.
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln had a recurring dream of being alone in a boat heading toward a distant shore at great speed. His 1864 reelection saved American democracy. As Lincoln privately wrote, losing meant it would be “my duty to so co-operate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards.” Lincoln’s victory guided the United States to safer shores.
When Joe Biden declared, “America is back” in 2021, France’s Emanuel Macron ruefully responded, “For how long?” In 2024, Joe Biden is the O and W candidate best suited to navigate the United States toward safer shores that preserve the Constitution and provide a definitive answer to Macron’s haunting question.
John Kenneth White is a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America. His forthcoming book is titled “Grand Old Unraveling: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, and the Rise of Authoritarianism.” He can be reached at johnkennethwhite.com.