2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
It's a lonely time to be a very online Biden guy. Not a joke!
Chris D. Jackson doesn't think there was a cover up. In fact, he doesn't think there was anything to cover up.
'I fully admit that he got older, he got slower, but his mind was still there,' Jackson says of Joe Biden's much-discussed faculties. In fact, maybe Biden's advanced age made him a better president. 'When he was younger, he was a little less disciplined — he would make verbal gaffes, and he'd walk them back,' Jackson says. 'The president I saw over four years was more deliberative, he waited before he spoke, he made good decisions.'
Jackson, 38, chairs the Democratic Party in Lawrence County, Tennessee, and was an early, enthusiastic volunteer for Biden's 2020 presidential campaign. He built a sizable online following by posting a ceaseless stream of pro-Biden content to his then-Twitter account and was rewarded in kind with invitations to the White House.
Every time Jackson saw him — at least half a dozen times since 2019, Jackson says — he says Biden seemed sharp. The president always recognized Jackson and would recall specific details, such as calling Jackson's father when he was sick in 2019 and sending Jackson flowers after he was injured in a motorcycle accident in 2024. About that disastrous debate performance — where Biden appeared, in the worst way, every bit his age? 'He was definitely sick that night,' Jackson says. 'I think we've all had moments like that.'
But the idea that Biden's struggles were nefariously hidden from the public? Jackson will have not of it. 'There was no cover-up, period,' he says — saying the punctuation mark aloud, as Biden often did when making a point.
A recent book begs to differ. 'Original Sin,' by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios's Alex Thompson, alleges that Biden showed signs of cognitive decline while in office, such as being unable, at times, to remember the names or faces of aides and longtime acquaintances. They reported that members of Biden's inner circle limited his work schedule to a narrow band of hours when he was sharpest — while shielding Democratic officials and even senior members of his administration from a full picture of the president's limitations. ('There is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover up or conspiracy,' texted a spokesperson for the former president, who called Biden 'an effective President who led our country with empathy and skill.')
The book's arrival has sharpened the recriminations of Democrats in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's return to power. Many party officials now concede that the 82-year-old Biden was, in fact, too old to run — even the ones who defended his fitness for office before he dropped out of the race in July.
'It's frustrating. He was a good president,' Jackson says. He has a hard time watching some of the same people who supported Biden this past summer turn into critics and second-guessers. 'He's just a decent guy. For people to be attacking him, and there being very little pushback …'
So Jackson takes it upon himself to push back, upward of dozens of times a day, to his 125,000 followers on X.
'Who else is going to do it, if I don't do it?' he says.
Who's with him? Well, there's Jaime Harrison, the former Democratic National Committee chair, who disputed an account in the book that suggests Biden didn't recognize Harrison at an event in South Carolina in 2023. ('Better check my cognitive abilities as well because I sure as hell don't remember this,' Harrison wrote on X.) There are some former aides, such as former White House speechwriter Dan Cluchey, who said 'the relentless, ravenous media effort to portray' Biden as 'mentally incapacitated' was 'distasteful & baffling to me.' There are family members, such as Biden's granddaughter Naomi, who described the book as 'political fairy smut for the permanent, professional chattering class,' and his daughter Ashley, who posted a seaside selfie with the former president and first lady with a caption that began, 'The ONLY coverup of this family is a BEACH coverup.'
But Jackson's campaigning on behalf of Biden's fragile legacy might be the most relentless. He posted recent images of Biden — 'looking sharp, relaxed, and unbothered,' the caption read — and wondered if Tapper and Thompson 'need a wellness check.' On May 14, about a week before the publishing date of 'Original Sin,' Jackson posted that the book's 'breathless hype and promises of political bombshells … is now being compared to the infamous Fyre Festival.' As to who was making that comparison, he didn't say in the post. (Asked about it this week, he says he was referring to himself.)
Then there were the AI renderings he made of a reimagined book cover ('Original Sin: The Dramatic Overhyping of a Presidential Crisis That Never Happened'), and of Tapper and Thompson dressed as clowns. Spokespeople for Tapper and Thompson did not respond to requests for comment.
The book debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list and has been out for more than two weeks. The passage of time hasn't made Jackson any less vigilant. On Monday, he lashed out at former congressman Dean Phillips (D-Minnesota), one of the only Democrats to challenge Biden in the 2024 primary, over comments Phillips made about Democrats hiding 'the truth' about the former president. 'You ran, you got humiliated by a man we all knew was old,' Jackson posted on X.
Jackson, who has a day job in higher education, says he is not paid for his constant posting, which, he admits, can become all-consuming. 'My wife says I spend too much time on it,' he says. But his work has not gone unappreciated by the remaining Biden ride-or-dies (Bide-or-dies?): Jackson says has received notes of gratitude from some people who were 'pretty high up in the administration.' Though he won't say who.
The Biden presidency is over, and his legacy may be in jeopardy. But Jackson has no plans to concede.
'As aggravating as this stuff is, I won't give up,' he says, 'because I know the president won't give up.'
