Why Joe Biden should not enter the 2020 presidential race
I like Joe Biden, I really do.
I like him because he is a hardworking, take-no-prisoners, blue collar guy.
I think if he got the Democratic Party’s nomination to run for the presidency, he would make mincemeat of the president in debate. You don’t want to get into a gutter fight with Biden because he will slice you up.
I think Biden is brilliant on foreign policy and should have switched positions with Hillary Clinton in the Obama administration. He would have been an incredible Secretary of State while Clinton would have been the whip Obama needed to rein in a renegade Democratic Congress that betrayed him, the party, and the nation. Biden was just never able to guide Congress, one of the most important jobs of the vice presidency.
I like Joe Biden, but I hope he thinks long and hard about stepping into the 2020 fray.
You see, his time has come and gone.
He is digging his heels in on the scandal that has bloomed regarding how he made several women uncomfortable by his touchy-feely actions.
Just days after the story broke, he defiantly tried to brush it all off with what he thought was humor. Unfortunately, the joke was on him, and he came away badly stung. His attempt at humor was not in line with evolved understanding of just how damaging misogyny can be, especially in today’s #MeToo climate.
Look, I would pretty much bet my last dollar that Biden was not making sexual advances on these women. However, Biden comes from a time when such behavior was considered flattery, no matter who it stressed the comfort zone of the women involved. Modern-day politics is not about kissing babies and hugging women. It has evolved into something much more substantial, and Biden just doesn’t get that. Charisma is something more than being appealing on a visceral level, which Biden doesn’t quite understand. Instead of coming across with the intended warmth his embraces were supposed to relate, he comes across now as a bit of a creepy old man using his celebrity to fondle women. While not as egregious as the statement from the president claiming that all a rich celebrity needs to do is grab a woman’s crotch to gain sexual favor, it is nonetheless unacceptable.
And if Biden doesn’t quite get that, what else is he missing?
Clearly, he is not in touch with the times.
His behavior during the 2008 campaign strained the relationship with Obama’s team, who often cringed at what they called “Joe-bombs” — offhand remarks that were not always on message with the rest of the team.
But it was also part of the reason why he and Obama worked so well, because Biden often took on the role of devil’s advocate, which made the president and his aides stop and consider perspectives they had not explored.
Plus, his gaffes, intentional or not, had become part of his charm.
“He’s someone you can’t help but like,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, has said of Biden.
That doesn’t mean he is, at this point, presidential material.
Biden has a long history of service. He holds a certain prestige and honor as a former vice president. He has earned the right to step away from the spotlight and do the kind of humanitarian work — from his pledge to stamp out cancer to his support of LGBTQ rights, his healthcare-for-all position, and his stance on tax reform — that can be more rewarding than sitting behind a desk in the Oval Office.
He still has political clout, he knows all the players, and he has the grit and experience to work the system — but as a statesman, not a president.
He’s a robust 76-year-old, to be sure, well able to handle the withering strain of the presidency.
But he’s an old-line politician, and that is not what voters are after, as we saw last election.
We saw that in the negativity toward Clinton by fellow Democrats.
We saw that in the divisiveness created by the Bernie Sanders aficionados, who shattered the party.
And Trump?
He didn’t win through any stroke of genius, because of some vast intellect, or because of his expertise in foreign policy, economics, or constitutional liberty.
He won because he was a rich, lily-white xenophobe who accurately tapped the pulse of a pissed-off electorate who wanted somebody — anybody — different than the black man who occupied a white house. They liked the celebrity of Donald Trump even though it was the tarnished sheen of a washed-up reality TV star, which in terms of real stardom is barely a notch above that of a carnival barker.
The deal is, the United States is in a shaky period of political transition that is rooted in the Ronald Reagan years, was fed by the redneck Tea Party infusion into the Republican Party, and is being fueled mightily by Trump extremism and anti-intellectualism.
The Democrats rolled over, belly up, during all of this, becoming the party of the meek. It was gutted, it quivered in the line of lies and flutter directed by white nationalists, and it failed last time around.
The party needs a backbone, to be sure, but it also needs to rely on its historical quality of intellect as a party of literate progressives who won’t be cowed by taunts, bullying, and the lies of a Republican Party gone mad.
Sure, it needs strength, vigor, and courage, especially if Trump is still around to give it a go in 2020, but it also needs to reflect these times, not the processes and norms of a bygone era.
Joe Biden has had his time.
He served the nation honorably.
He will be remembered as one of our more colorful politicians, a genuine character among the drab countenances in their hollow suits who walk the Congressional halls.
He will be remembered as a tough politician with a resume filled with human rights priorities.
But it is time for him to step slightly to the side and use that knowledge, that experience, that political acumen, and that passion to advise and support a new generation of Democrats who are in tune with a world that is vastly different from the one he served when he was first elected as a senator from Delaware in 1972.
Peace.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
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