No elected president has been denied his party’s nomination for a second term since Franklin Pierce in 1856. The last time one even faced a serious primary opponent was 1992, when Pat Buchanan challenged George H. W. Bush for the Republican nomination. And the last time it happened on the Democratic side was when Ted Kennedy ran against Jimmy Carter in 1980.

But according to recent polling, only 37 percent of Democrats say they want Joe Biden to seek a second term. His age has a lot to do with that. But so does the state of the country.

Biden came into office surrounded by credulous journalists hailing him as a second FDR. He’s utterly failed to live up to the hype. If anything, the recently concluded debt ceiling negotiations made him look more like a second Bill Clinton — haggling with Republicans about exactly how much to shrink the welfare state. Meanwhile, the United States is becoming ever more deeply involved in a potentially catastrophic war between Russia and Ukraine.