A high level Dem strategist tells me: "Biden has put Dems in a no-win position. They don’t want to go out there and tank him, but no one can credibly tell their constituents that he should be president for another 4 1/2 years."
Another thing, @hunterw.bsky.social, is that there is so much fear of aging in our youth-oriented culture, that a lot of this panic you're seeing may be due to that. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that your strategist is in his/her 50's, if that.