Yes, Joe Biden is old, but his opponents are stupid. Prominent Sikh murdered in Canada: Trudeau accuses India of murder

Taxes, jobs, national debt, inflation: these are the topics that are usually debated in the run-up to elections. Not so in the US at the moment. The country is debating the age of its politicians, especially the age of its president. Joe Biden will be 82 next year. If he wins the election, he would be 86 years old at the end of his term.

Age has become the biggest handicap to Biden’s re-election. An Associated Press/NORC poll from last August found that 77 percent of Americans, including 69 percent of Democrats, believe Biden is too old for a second term. His likely opponent Donald Trump is only three years younger.

In general, American politics suffers from the aging population. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein – she is over ninety years old – appears to be suffering from senile dementia. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, took two minutes-long pauses during a press conference. In general, there are many women and men in the Senate and House of Representatives who actually belong in a retirement home for a longer period of time. Or as Nikki Haley, a presidential candidate from the Grand Old Party (GOP), flippantly put it: “Congress has become the most privileged nursing home in the country.”

Just as presidential candidates must make their tax returns public, they must also take an intelligence test in the future, Haley also demands. One person who loves this idea is Donald Trump. He, who once described himself as a “very stable genius,” likes to refer to the test he took during his time in office, the legendary “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV” test. Because it was so banal, this test was the butt of jokes among late-night comedians for weeks.

Today, it is uncertain whether Trump himself could overcome this simple challenge. In a recent speech, he said he was campaigning against Barack Obama and that Joe Biden was about to lead the US into World War II. And: Trump’s father died of Alzheimer’s disease.

None of this, however, can disguise the fact that Biden is getting old. He occasionally stumbles like an old man, occasionally stumbling and becoming confused in his speech. (He already did that as a young politician.)

When the president recently declared at a press conference in Vietnam that he was going to bed after a few questions, the conservative media turned the incident into the political event of the day and evidence that Biden could not fulfill his duties. However, Senator John Fetterman (the giant in the hoodie) immediately had the right answer: “I’d rather have my president say I’m going to bed than say I’m going to jail.”

Yet there is also a certain nervousness among Democrats. The aforementioned study was no exception. Biden’s age is the main reason why the president also performs poorly in other surveys despite an impressive track record. In some cases he is even on par with Trump.

That’s why Sharon Sweda, leader of the Democratic Party in Lorain County, Ohio, explains: “Biden is at an age where he could die at any moment. The clock is ticking.” In addition, several prominent American political commentators have recently made the president’s age an issue and called for him to forgo re-election. These include David Ignatius in the Washington Post, Mark Leibovich in the Atlantic and Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal.

However, the majority of Democrats still support Biden. There is no serious competitor in sight, not even Gavin Newsom. The California governor has been repeatedly brought into play as Biden’s replacement. However, he clearly supported the president.

Kevin Munoz, spokesperson for the Biden campaign, explains: “The next election will see a stark contrast between the Biden agenda and an unpopular, extreme MAGA agenda. We will win if we do our job and don’t let the polls fool us.”

Meanwhile, Republicans in the House of Representatives are being driven crazy. There they fight each other and provide a spectacle that even makes the friendly commentators shake their heads. What is meant is the futile attempt by a handful of hardliners to force a government shutdown. The crazy people around Matt Gaetz, a deeply unpopular Florida representative, don’t care that they are not only torching their own leader Kevin McCarthy, but that they are also endangering the sympathies of independent voters.

Even within the Republican Party, the actions of these ‘crazies’ are met with incomprehension. Ryan Zinke, a representative from Montana, complains that it’s hard to govern “when you have snipers in your own ranks.”

That doesn’t impress the “crazy people”. Because the national debt now exceeds $33 trillion, they ultimately call for a budget cut. However, they try not to mention that Trump has racked up about as much debt in four years with his tax handouts to the super-rich as Obama did in eight years – we’re talking eight trillion dollars.

A shutdown is not only a completely unnecessary hindrance to the US government and a stumbling block to the economy. It also boomerangs for those who made it happen. In other words, the Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot again. The Democrats can therefore rely on proven political wisdom. It goes like this: If your opponent is about to make himself miserable, you shouldn’t disturb him.