President Joe Biden delivered a performance at Thursday’s debate with Donald Trump that was so bad even his staunchest allies are calling for the president to drop out of the race. But if Biden sticks it out until November’s election, as it looks like he plans to do, he’s going to need plenty of help convincing young people he can still do the job. And online influencers might be just the ticket.
Techcrunch spoke with Christian Tom, the director of the White House Office of Digital Strategy, on Friday who explained that the White House has plans to host a new conference in August with internet personalities. Importantly, the event is being hosted by the White House, not Joe Biden’s campaign, but it’s still an opportunity to let the president talk about issues that young people care about.
One issue that young people care about passionately is the TikTok ban, with 46% of Americans aged 18-29 opposing the ban and just 29% supporting it, according to the latest polling from Pew Research. Contrast that with Americans 65 and older. Just 4% of elderly Americans oppose the ban, while 71% support it.
It’s not clear yet when precisely in August the conference will be held, but topics will include data privacy, payment for creators, artificial intelligence, and mental health, according to Techcrunch. The new report doesn’t explicitly state that Biden will make an appearance at the White House conference, but he’d be an idiot not to.
The president is struggling to energize his base, with the latest polling from the New York Times released this week showing Biden and Trump still in a dead heat nationally. And last night’s performance at the debate in Atlanta probably didn’t win him any votes.
Biden acknowledged his lackluster debate performance at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina on Friday.
“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” Biden told the crowd. “I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I know. I know how to tell the truth. I know how to do this job.”
Strangely, Biden’s team seems to think the zinger of the night was when the president said Trump had the “morals of an alley cat.” Biden’s official account even tweeted it on Friday, despite the fact that it sounds exactly like the kind of thing an elderly person would say.
I don’t know what you did last night, but I spent 90 minutes debating a guy with the morals of an alley cat.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 28, 2024
While it remains to be seen whether Biden can recover, it’s obviously important to remember what will happen if he fails to beat Trump. The 45th president is the guy who tried to remain in office through a violent coup attempt after he lost the election in 2020. Trump is the guy who’s threatening to deport millions of people in a move that mainstream economists say would almost certainly wipe out about 4.5% of the nation’s workforce and devastate the economy. Trump is the guy who says he’ll be a dictator on day one.
There’s also the simple fact that Trump is a convicted felon who has suggested a top military advisor should be executed for “treason.” And that’s not even getting to the extremely racist and fascist shit Trump just casually spews on a daily basis.
Nobody knows for certain who’s going to win in November. But now is the time for the Democratic Party to pull out all the stops and make sure Trump never sets foot in the White House again. Hosting online creators is an admittedly small gesture. But we’ll take anything at this point that helps us avert another Trump presidency.
