Has Joe Biden suddenly outlived his usefulness? That is what many conspiracy-theory-inclined Americans are saying as the fuss mounts around the classified documents found at one of the President’s offices and his home in Delaware.
The theory goes something like this: the mid-terms are out of the way, Trump’s power is waning, and everybody in Washington knows that Joe Biden is too old and doddery to fight on to the 2024 presidential election and beyond. So, the ‘deep state’ – the secretive powers who really rule America – feels it can now safely shuffle out the old man and bring in another Democratic leader. Dial up the sinister background music.
There are forces in the Democratic establishment who would now like Joe Biden to take his long-overdue retirement
At one level, such thinking is yet another example of the paranoid style in American politics. Yet conspiracy theories derive their power from elements of truth.
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