Biden hopes to use the calm he has brought back to the country after Trump in the campaign

under the motto “You have to finish work” President of the United States, Joe Biden, announced his campaign for re-election in 2024 for a second term. His argument: democracy is still “deeply threatened” in the country. With the president officially in the running, everything points to a rerun of the 2020 showdown with Donald Trump.

The announcement was made via a televised video that begins with shocking images of the storming of the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters on January 6, 2021. The story unfolds further with attempts by Republican extremism against fundamental freedoms in the country. : cuts in social security (pension); lower taxes for the very rich; limitation of women’s right to abortion; book bans and gay rights, as well as restrictions on the voice of minorities.

The president ends the story with the following statement: “When I ran for president four years ago, I said that we are fighting for the soul of the country.” And we still are.”

Although it is easy to ignore, Biden’s great achievement was probably restore normal government and civilian life in general. Anti-democratic extremism is still a widespread phenomenon in the country – the result of a four-year descent into chaos and unrest by the former occupant of the White House – but in everyday life there is a reduction in the level of anxiety.

All in all, Biden’s popularity numbers aren’t stunning. The president maintains a high disapproval rating (53.3%), and his approval rating is nine points below (42.5%) and continues to moderate. And although something has improved since the end of July, citizens’ indignation is similar to that of other presidents who were not re-elected.

The administration likes to tout its record in job creation—twelve million jobs—, reducing unemployment to historic levels, confirming the first African-American Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and record ObamaCare-subsidized health insurance payments. Although less visible and despite their limitations, laws on federal protection of gay marriage, on gun safety, or on reducing drug prices for the elderly have made significant progress with a real impact on the lives of the population.

Conditioned by his fragile majority in CongressIn just two years, the government managed to pass three important legal projects with significant consequences: Inflation reduction law aimed at promoting clean energy; Law on Investments in Infrastructure and Employment, with important public works renovation projects; and the Chips Act, which encourages high-tech manufacturing.

But the bill that isn’t being talked about enough is the March 2021 $2,000 Million Rescue Plan, a Rooseveltian-tinged bill that is arguably Biden’s most ambitious liberal moment, aimed at pulling the country out of the economic and health disaster caused by the pandemic. This law marked a radical expansion of welfare programs, such as unemployment benefits or child tax credits, while directing hundreds of billions of dollars in grants to state and local governments to finance projects across the country.

It is significant that despite its size and results achieved in recent years, the rescue plan does not appear to be part of the public message of the Democrats. The discretion is due to the administration’s fear of continued inflation, aware of the still precarious legislative supremacy it has in Congress.

On the other hand, Biden has failed in his immigration policy. Recent federal water auctions for extractive industries in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the approval of an oil project in Alaska, have further disillusioned the young electorate and significantly discredited him as the “climate change” president he claims to be.

In foreign policy, the Democratic leader and his team contributed a renewed seriousness in the international field, from which the USA was absent in the Trump era. In just two years in office, Biden has led one of the most intense phases of global reorganization change in decades. Despite missteps such as the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 or the lack of a deal to expand trade, his administration has expanded new alliances — the Aukus military, with Australia and the United Kingdom — and consolidated old ones, while re-engaging the country in global efforts on climate policy and other issues of cooperation.

A large part of these efforts is directed towards Ukraine. Biden focused on Washington leading a massive front to stop Russia in Europe’s worst war since 1945, as well as consolidating a bloc of alliances to contain China’s growing commercial dominance and military aggression in the Indo-Peaceful. But everything has its risks. Although it maintains communication channels with the Kremlin to send warnings about the consequences of the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, the relationship between the United States and Russia is otherwise volatile and unpredictable.

The advanced age of Biden, who at the age of 80 is already the oldest president in the history of the country, creates a certain uncertainty inside and outside the party. If he is re-elected, he will be 86 years old at the end of his second term, almost nine years older than Ronald Reagan when he left the White House in 1989.

In his first race as a “bridge president” to a second generation, many Democrats hoped that Biden would yield to a younger candidate this time. But despite his limited vitality, Biden has always maintained that he will run again. The lack of another Democratic candidate with the ability to win a national election makes him the only viable option.

However, despite the tradition of not challenging incumbent party colleagues, two Democrats have announced their candidacy for president: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the legendary assassinated senator, and these days steeped in the world of anti-vaccine conspiracies; and Marianne Williamson, a self-help author whose 2020 campaign collapsed before the first votes were cast. None will survive the first months of the campaign.