The real Joe Biden: what would his presidency look like?

It is usually a bad idea for a presidential candidate to leave himself open to the accusation that he is soft on law and order. Yet last weekend Joseph Robinette Biden Jr did exactly that. He attacked the ‘egregious tactics’ of the federal officers trying to control the apparently never-ending riots in Portland, Oregon. Sensing an open goal, President Trump’s campaign promptly accused Biden of ‘siding with the criminals’.

In any normal election year, such an exchange would be a major flashpoint. In the Covid-19-riddled anarchy cauldron that is America in 2020, nobody much cares. Joe Biden can say pretty much anything, or nothing at all, and his lead in the polls just grows and grows. There’s now fewer than 100 days until the presidential election, America’s cities are still burning, and the 77-year-old challenger who has no idea what he is saying is thrashing the 74-year-old President who has no idea what he is saying. The Chinese must be quaking.

Team Trump are quick to insist that, as November draws closer and voters begin to focus on the (still presumptive) Democratic nominee, the dynamics of the race will shift in their favour. Biden has kept a low profile, in large part thanks to the pandemic. As the media scrutiny intensifies, his weaknesses as a candidate will become glaring; his incipient dementia, too embarrassingly obvious.

The trouble is, the Trumpies have been saying that for months now, and Biden just keeps plodding ahead. It’s increasingly clear that Trump doesn’t know how to grapple with doddery old Joe. The President is flailing. In an effort to peel off a few black voters, his talking heads are saying that Biden is racist because he gave a eulogy for the infamous Dixiecrat senator Strom Thurmond and made some un-PC remarks in the 1990s. At the same time, they say he’d be the most hopelessly woke commander-in-chief.