On Tuesday, Nov. 15, former president Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 Presidential Election. This comes right after the 2022 Midterm election which resulted in a Democrat-controlled Senate and a Republican-controlled House. It’s of little surprise that Trump decided to make his bid for Presidency again, it seemed like an inevitability that Trump would peek his golden toupee back into the spotlight of politics. The question is, how does the public feel about Trump’s return?
The most common reaction I gathered from friends and family towards this announcement was indifference, with critical or favorable opinions toward Trump sprinkled in. After the frenzy that was Trump’s previous presidency, it seems like most people are burnt out from caring about politics.
After all, most people who did care ended up pulling their hair out for four years straight. Trump’s presidency felt like the bus had been hijacked by a manic criminal who was trying to veer other cars off the highway. It was a very stressful four years. Once that ride ended, we decided to hire a driver on the opposite end of the spectrum, one who drives fifteen miles under the speed limit and stops to take a nap every five miles. Yet despite Biden’s slowness, most Americans felt content knowing they can ride the bus without it crashing into a ravine.
Biden has hinted towards a 2024 re-election too, but steady dissatisfaction continues to grow. Biden has been pulling only a 39% approval rating recently. Perhaps Americans are becoming restless with a President who struggles to uphold a firm presidential image, and that may be the strongest contributing factor to the regard for a resident.
Most people don’t have time to sift through the nitty gritty details of foreign and domestic policy. For many Americans, the image of the person sitting behind the desk of the oval office looking confident is enough to guarantee ease. This is Biden’s greatest weakness and the greatest danger of Trump.
Biden frequently looks like a confused nursing home patient, which makes him look complacent. Trump, on the other hand, has the presence of an unhinged used car salesman. Even without paying attention to the news, it was impossible to ignore Trump’s outlandish remarks that veered far from professionalism. As a vindictive and arrogant man, he made our country appear the same – a far more dangerous reputation than Biden’s bleary-eyed unawareness.
If we were to see Biden and Trump face off in 2024, that leaves us with two bad choices regardless of political preference. We’d either be seating a corpse or a maniac in the driver’s seat again. That’s our two choices: Weekend at Bernie’s or twelve-year-old playground bully.
This is the worst-case scenario, however. The election is still years away and there are still major players yet to make any significant moves. We will most likely see DeSantis make his bid for Presidency along with other familiar faces from the 2020’s election such as Andrew Yang, Ted Cruz, Pete Buttigieg, and others who would be significantly less of a bad choice as opposed to Trump and Biden.
This has all been about optics, and whether you like it or not, it is the most pivotal factor in how the public chooses a president. This is not a novel concept, it’s been happening since the first televised debate where Nixon was steamrolled by Kennedy who trumped him in confidence and good looks, and it will continue to happen as we grow more apathetic to what a President actually does, and care more about how they look on screen.