Not the Almighty, but the alternative: Biden sets the tone for his narrative

Washington, Jan 21: US President Joe Biden has switched into election mode in recent days. Finally, as many Democrats will say, including his former boss President Barack Obama.

Biden is seen more in campaign ads, inserting himself himself into the ongoing Republican primaries, picking on the candidates, specially his predecessor Donald Trump, who holds an overwhelming lead over rivals, and Indian-American Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the UN who has been surging in polls and beats the President in head-to-head matchups with margins that beat Trump’s lead over Biden.

The Biden team’s plan is to now project their candidate -- the President -- as a choice between him and the Republican candidates, specially Trump.

As the President likes to say: “Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.”

Obama has been worried about Trump’s re-election chances and sought to counsel Biden over lunch in recent months, as it was first reported by The Washington Post.

Obama, who won his re-election bid in 2012, advised Biden to pack off his top advisers to the re-election headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, from their current jobs in the White House.

The former President also suggested that the president hire an election strategist like David Plouffe, who worked on Obama election campaigns in 2008 and and 2012.

That came from Obama. His aides from his time in the White House have been pressuring Biden. One of them, David Axelrod, went as far as to suggest the president was too old to seek a second term and that he should step aside for someone younger.

Trump is beating Biden in every poll. As is Haley.

But Democrats are more worried about the former president. Vice-President Kamala Harris has said she is “scared as heck” Trump could win.

Michelle Obama, the former First Lady who remains an iconic figure in the party, said recently she is “terrified” of who could happen in the 2024 election and she is not talking about Biden here or Haley.

It’s not clear just how much Biden has heeded his former boss’s advice. But he is clearly more aggressive than he has been in a long time.

He started with a strong speech on the eve of January 6, the third anniversary of the assault launched by Trump’s supporters to prevent US Congress from certifying Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

Biden framed the upcoming election as a fight for democracy with Trump as a threat.

“Today we’re here to answer the most important of questions: Is democracy still America’s sacred cause?” Biden said.

“It’s what the 2024 election is all about. He left no doubt who he thought posed the biggest threat to democracy. Trump is trying to steal history the same way he tried to steal the election.

"We saw it with our own eyes. Trump’s mob wasn’t a peaceful protest. It was a violent assault. They were insurrectionists, not patriots," he said.

Biden delivered these remarks at a community college in Pennsylvania state, which is merely 10 miles from Valley Forge National Historical Park, where George Washington, who led the revolution and became the first president of the freed country, mobilised troops against the British some 250 years ago.

Biden mentioned Trump by name 44 times in a 30-minute speech.

There is a view that the Democrats would actually like to see Biden challenged by Trump, one of the most discredited American presidents in recent history.

He is the only US Pesident impeached twice -- removal from office requires a senate vote, which did not come in both instances, and faces more than 90 criminal charges, any one of which could put him behind bars.

One set of these charges relates to Trump’s alleged involvement in the January 6 assault, which has already caused the incarceration of many participants.

Some analysts have suggested that Biden actually relishes the prospect of running against Trump again.

Despite his popularity among Republican voters, Trump is a profusely damaged candidate with independent voters, who will decide the outcome.

Apart from the criminal charges, he has already been blocked from running in two states, Colorado and Maine.

Trump is appealing against them.