Friday, February 28, 2020

Demportrait - Land of Confusion

Joe Biden is the single most failed Front Runner of all time. This seems like a cliche now. But, in reality it was a cliche before Biden announced his run. It is only a raw consolation to those of us who believe in some sort of poetic if not formal justice even in affairs as low as politics that that failure may well be the result of American voters not being as stupid as pols like Biden think they are and unwilling to listen to the lame explanations of him and his retainers in the Media that he had "done nothing wrong". A silent verdict is being given then against him much like the one finally given against Hilary Clinton in 2016. (Oh, and let's not forget that even Hilary does not count amongst her many crimes, plagiarism, although she might be POTUS now if she had tried to steal from her husband.)

But, even if it were not for the fact that he, Joseph Biden, is in the words of Political Corruption chronicler, Peter Scheizer, "The most corrupt VP in US History", there would still be plenty of reason for wondering how in God's name this cheap ward heeler became the "Front Runner" for anything let alone a POTUS nomination. First, there is the fact that, aside from being born in PA, his base is the vanishingly small combo of DE and the Naval Observatory. Past VP's that ran at least came from major states like MN (Mondale) or CA (Nixon) or TX (Bush). His track record, beside piggybacking on Obama's victories was to win 6 elections in one of the smallest states in the Union against mainly no-hopers while entering and badly losing a grand total of one presidential primary, the Iowa Caucus in 2008. His bad vote-getting thus should not have been a surprise.

Then there is his senility, first manifested I believe (although I do not claim to make a medical diagnosis as I am not a GP) by his status as a Gaffe Machine. I believe now that his comments like "Chains", "Clean African American" or "Stand up! (to a crippled supporter)" were manifestations as much of creeping dementia as of carelessness or bumptiousness (this also goes for his Me Too moments of tactility). People see that Mr. Biden is simply not all there. They note that he has already (along with his farcical claim that Obama did not endorse him publicly on Biden's request) desperately promised only to serve one term in office. They wonder why and note he will be about 82 then as well.

But, even if he were not going senile, even if he were Father O'Malley when it came to political cupidity, he will still be a monarch if not a president: the King of Confusion. He made all of the moves he thought he had to make to denounce pretty well all of his admittedly meager accomplishments such as the Crime Bill and voting for the Iraq War (oh, did I mention that he is also broadly a jellyfiish to forces he is inferior to and a bully to those beneath him?). But then he refused to disown and disavow his friendships with the many Klansmen who ran the Dem Party when he first got into the Senate. Why throw your precious rep for being "moderate" (that is not being wildly liberal all the time) if you are not going to give it all up? No one was convinced and not only did Biden seem confused, so did anyone considering supporting him. He seems to understand that one person he cannot throw under the bus is Obama yet seems at the same time to buy his Party's far Left narrative that Obama was like Reagan the Second.

His intellectual and ideological confusion seemed to reach its height when, in the NH debate, he refused to put up his hand to show he was bothered by being categorized as a "socialist". The big problem with that is that no one believes anymore than Biden that the once-called "Senator from Visa" is a Bolshie. It looked cynical because it was. It satisfied no one - if you wanted to vote for him because you thought that he was a moderate, you were shocked and appalled. If you were someone who likes your pols to be Socialist, you were both unconvinced and sickened while you read about his shameless efforts to serially enrich literally his whole family with his public offices.

If he is a king then it is that of Cynicism. As the rise of Trump and Sanders shows, it is not a title to be sought in this age. The Bushes and the Clintons, the most keen practitioners of the art and their followers are in bad odour on both sides. For what he has done in the Soft Graft Department, he should be SWAT'ed, perpwalked and jailed like others have for doing far less. It will suffice that, if he loses, that he will be condemned to the political obscurity and oblivion he has earned if biological processes do not make that also a personal darkness.

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