The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion Biden can beat Trump. Democrats should worry no one else can.

By
Contributing columnist|
May 1, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
An unattended lectern stands in the New Hampshire office of Joe Biden's campaign on Feb. 1, 2020. (Philip Bump/The Washington Post)
4 min

President Biden says he is running for reelection to “finish the job.” What job, exactly?

There’s an answer to that question that makes sense. But he’s not saying it directly, and it’s one that should worry Biden’s fellow Democrats.

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His announcement video presents Biden as defending freedom, democracy, Social Security, voting rights and abortion from “MAGA extremists.” It is not plausible that threats to any of these things, or what Democrats perceive as threats to them, would be vanquished in a second Biden term. Republicans and Democrats are going to continue to disagree about abortion and about how to protect voting rights long after 2028. Biden didn’t get his voting-rights bill into law when Democrats had the House and the Senate, and its prospects are not getting any better.

Biden’s real mission, the one that needs completion, is the one he set for himself in his 2020 campaign: keeping Donald Trump out of the White House. That was the theme that summoned the most passion from him throughout that year. In his speech accepting the Democratic nomination, he mentioned policy issues. But his focus was on being the kind of president children could look up to, and not the kind who would bash our foreign allies or equivocate about white supremacists.

Keeping Trump out of the White House is a job that Biden could finish. There is, of course, no guarantee that he will accomplish it. He could lose to Trump in November 2024, or beat him only for Trump to run again and win in 2028. But Biden has a good shot at shutting Trump out.