Democrats lost the optics war with Joe Biden. They’re making the same mistakes all over again

ANALYSIS: Democrats didn’t see Joe Biden’s frail physicality as a political liability — they appear to be making the same mistake again. When the complete history of Donald Trump’s return to power from political exile is written, one of the most important players in the four-year drama that began with his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden and ended with his defeat of Biden’s handpicked successor may be a recalcitrant German Shepherd.

On November 28, 2020, then-President-elect Biden injured himself while playing with his dog, Major, at his Delaware home. According to statements issued to the press pool traveling with him at the time, Biden was taken for a CT scan that showed hairline fractures in his foot, an injury that required the use of a walking boot. Whether it was out of vanity or stubbornness, Biden didn’t wear the boot for long, so the fracture never healed properly, leaving him with a shuffling, arthritic gait that made him look exactly like the oldest president ever to serve in the nation’s highest office.

Biden’s shuffling became a constant feature of Republican attacks over the next four years to portray him as way too over the hill for the world’s toughest job. If you looked at official GOP social media accounts — or any of the unofficial ones that produced anti-Biden content to great effect during his presidency, you saw the shuffling. And for whatever reason, Biden’s team failed to see the problem until several years into his term when they started dispatching aides to walk with him between the White House and Marine One so his gait wouldn’t be so obvious. But by then, it was way too late. Even before Biden’s disastrous June 2024 debate against Trump, a majority of Americans thought he was too old for the job — because he looked way too old for the job.

Trump, a former television star, understands the power of the visual. He is notoriously obsessed with the appearances of those who serve in his administration to the point where he had qualms about hiring John Bolton as his national security adviser because of the former UN ambassador’s walrus-like mustache. Firmly ensconced back at the White House, he has a team of videographers and social media producers whose job it is to flood the zone with content making him and his administration appear strong, vibrant, and full of energy.

It’s superficial and sad, but it’s a big part of why he won. And less than a month into his second term, it appears that his opponents are still shuffling about with no regard for how they look. Just the other day, a flock of Democratic officeholders took to the streets outside the Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters of the Treasury Department to protest Trump’s enabling of Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

Opinion polls taken in recent days show Americans aren’t so enamored of Musk, who has empowered a small group of young programmers, some barely out of their teens, and dispatched them across the executive branch with orders to eradicate anything he does not like. It’s an issue that Democrats could be leveraging to their benefit. But in the absence of a single leader during their time in the wilderness, the most prominent members of their party are as old or older than Biden.

So when cameras tuned in to see the opposition to Trump, they saw Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — a 74-year-old New York Democrat — leading a group of House and Senate Democrats in an incredibly awkward chant: "We will win! We will win! We won't rest! We won't rest!". Next to Schumer, who has been a Senator since 1999 and spent nearly two decades in the House before winning his seat in the upper chamber, was Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. She’s 86 years old and has represented the Los Angeles, California area since 1991.

And standing right next to them and joining in was Texas Representative Al Green. Green is a relative newcomer to Congress, having first been elected to the House in 2004. But at 77, he’s no spring chicken, and the cane he was waving in the air as he shouted along with his colleagues did nothing to help their party project a youthful image. Naturally, Republicans pounced on the sheer awkwardness of it all in the same way they made political hay out of every stumble, stammer and shuffle on Biden’s part.