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This was somewhat surprising to me as well. Obviously, I can't know how I'd feel in the same situation since no one can, but I imagine that if I were 81 years old with as storied career as Biden's, I'd figure it'd be a good time to sail off into the sunset, hoping I have at least a decade or two left to spend with my grandkids and great-grandkids, instead of spending all my time and energy working what is reasonably considered one of the toughest, most scrutinized jobs in the world. Heck, even if it were a disgraced retirement instead of one where the history books will lionize me as the Fascist-Defeater who seamlessly transitioned the USA to a new, golden age of a black female POTUS, I'd think that'd be worth it.
But clearly, Biden thinks differently. I find myself thinking that there really are people who are just fundamentally different from most of us in terms of their ambition, that they would see working, again, one of the hardest jobs in the world, until their dying breath to be worth it for the... what, prestige? Status? Power? even if it means sacrificing a relaxing, luxurious, and potentially love-filled retirement. I see that in Trump, too, in his own political ambitions in the past decade, though he doesn't look quite close to his end as Biden is to his. Or maybe I'm just the unambitious weird one, and actually most of us would do the exact same thing and consider holding onto that power until my last, exhausted breath to be well worth the sacrifice. There certainly seem to be no shortage of rich and well-respected celebrities who have ruined themselves or at least severely harmed themselves by risking things to reach for even more.
Marius really wanted that seventh consulship and it killed him
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It's legacy, that's what they want, at that level. No one wants to be a one term president that handed over a massive mess. No one wants to be the next Jimmy Carter.
Neither Trump or Biden has secured a positive legacy. Trump wants to be remembered at least like a Reagan, a president at least half the US remember fondly, not a one term president impeached twice. Biden's legacy if he doesn't win is that he's the guy who people elected to replace the Big Bad Trump but was such a failure that the people prefered re-electing Trump over him.
If Trump wins, and the Democrats get the House, I predict he'll be impeached at least three times (one additional one), with the NY felony conviction being the stated reason. That's gotta be some kind of accomplishment.
As for Biden, he started out looking like Carter (high inflation and a disastrous military operation) and still does.
If Democrats had allowed some sort of positive legacy to survive from the Trump presidency and hadn't made it so personal with the lawsuits, maybe he wouldn't be so incentivized to run again. But they went and reversed everything and even deny him the objective foreign policy wins that aren't partisan politics. Likewise, for Biden, if he wasn't running against Trump the election wouldn't feel to him like a direct referendum on whether he ended up being worse than the guy he was supposed to fix the messes of; if he was facing anyone else, or was polling above Trump, he could ride into the sunset with the satisfaction of having done his job.
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The way Kruschev chose to gave up power without a fight comes to mind, if you know that story.
Kruschev came to power because Georgiy Zhukov’s troops massacred his opponents in front of the politburo and coronated him.
Brezhnev’s suggestion that he resign to spend more time at his dacha with the grands comes off differently in such circumstances.
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I think he ran in 2020 hoping to be able to pass the baton. But then by even late 2022 it was obvious there was no one to pass it to. He didn't want to be the guy who beat Trump then stepped aside only for Trump to prevail. So he correctly evaluated he was the best chance against Trump. Even now there is no obvious replacement that would defeat Trump. All the Democratic governors who have hype/juice only have it for reasons that appeal only to progressives. Whitmer and Newsom are major turn offs to anyone who doesn't think Covid lockdowns needed to be harsher and longer. Kamala has all Bidens policy problems, with the additional inability to appeal to anyone on stage.
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Actually a bit of a whitepill tbh.
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Biden is ambitious, but one reported aspect of that ambition is that he's wanted to establish a political dynasty, as a sort of a post-Kennedy Kennedy clan. That dream largely died with the death of Beau in 2015 when Beau was trying to run for Governor of Delaware (a governorship that's been solidly Democrat since 1993 and which would have put Beau on the bench for potential higher offices), and the less said about Hunter the better, but off and on there's long been reports / rumors that there's a family-level emphasis rather than just personal ambition.
That matters, because that would make his quitting not just a personal failure, but a dynastic failure. And, in turn, it gives the family members- especially Hunter and Jill Biden- substantial incentives to encourage him, as they would have none of the access, and none of the protections, that they've enjoyed with him.
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I think him staying in reflects less the feeling of being old and more that he’s in a bubble where he’s no seeing the polls and I’d surrounded by people who are telling him everything is fine. Supposedly his two bigg Confidants at the moment are Hunter Biden and Jill Biden — both of whom have fairly obvious conflicts of interest here. Hunter can get a pardon from his father, but is unlikely to from anyone else. Jill is nobody without Joe, so she won’t get attention if she’s no longer First Lady. Power is addictive and more so than a lot of drugs, most people don’t give it up willingly. I mean who is retired Joe Biden sitting in a care home? President Joe Biden is definitely someone important.
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