The Dude is a-Biden and he is a sometime Slick Demagogue. What just happened? Joe Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee for President in 2020. Something a lot of people who are smarter than me would have told me I needed my head examined for even hinting at only one day ago. So we are at full circle. The "Front Runner" turns out to be the Winner after an incredible journey that was arguably the story of as many as 6 frontrunners at one time or other in this benighted campaign. And it came on the end of what is almost certainly figuratively and literally the biggest comeback in US presidential primary history.
What one is reminded of when Joe has been up against pretty well ANY of the candidates he has encountered these past 8 months is the famous SNL scene of the 1988 "Debate" between Bush and Dukakis when Jon Lovitz as Mike says, after a typically moronic rant by Garvey's Bush, "How am I losing to this guy?" He has been more than a "gaffe machine". One can no longer keep track of all the times and ways Joe has got it wrong (chillingly, one journalist had his Twitter account suspended for referring to one of them!) often hilariously sometimes just poignantly. I have said before and finally people like Lounsberry or Beck have started alleging it openly - that these are the first symptoms of dementia. It is downright cruel therefore that he is here.
Then there is his corrupt cynical culture. He has denounced all of his major achievements except to take the credit for the Obama presidency and to stand by his friendships with the KKK (conveniently forgotten apparently by Black Dem voters). He has used his public office to brazenly make money for himself and his family for generations. He literally can be expected, in what moments of lucidity he has left, to express almost the opposite of what he has said just yesterday depending on what he thinks either the WAPO or NYT editiorial boards say or a focus group dictates or maybe the last person tells him (a lot in common in that way with Beto). He is a bully who kisses up and kicks down (witness his bizarre abusive behaviour with reporters and even supporters). As to his "moderation", his record is one of almost lockstep Democratic votes. The only reason he looks moderate to anyone is his bumptious avuncularity and how extreme his rivals look.
But, he triumphed nevertheless. There are several theories. One, is already alluded to: his opponents are all deeply flawed and extreme. Better, when there were at least 7 of them, he could disappear into the weeds in a debate and make like wallpaper, thus not receiving hits nor making booboos (although he still managed to make errors unforced). His Claudius-like act of fecklessness left many of his opponents to conclude that it was mean and useless to bother with him. After all, he was pathetic, stupid and had no chance to win, right? The big guns, mainly in the guise of Warren, were then focussed on Bloomberg and Sanders. Remember when Biden complained about not getting a chance to talk in the debates? He should have thanked his lucky stars ( and maybe he did) for the absurdly generous relative anonymity and immunity it gave him while his rivals mashed each other.
It surely cannot be the money. Bloomberg spent 500 million and won not a single state and almost no delegates while Biden launched a Skype fundraising video with his wife from the backstage of his SC rally. It surely is not charisma - Bernie's people would go through fire to support him while Joe's supporters might be arsed to piss on him if he was on fire. It's not about the ideas. Does anyone know just what Biden would do if he were POTUS that would not involve simply going back to Obama, cynically rubberstamping anything Trump did that works or doing what Pelosi and Schumer tell him to do? In other words, perhaps the real reason for his triumph sums up what he is all about - nothing. At least Chauncey the Gardener had pithy things to say about the weather or the rose bushes that made him charming enough for the gullible to believe he could be president. What does Biden have to tell us about anything of any charm or value except more of the manure he has been assiduously spreading in his political garden these past 50 years?
One is mightily tempted to say it was because he was the "Unity" candidate. All those last minute endorsements, like that of Clyburn, Reid, Buttigieg and Klobuchar, must have told. Yet, how can someone who was polling barely 15% in the national polls just last week so easily have donned that mantle? Maybe it's what NYT called his "avuncular vernacular". Above all, even if he was not all there, he was "there". He is, for at least 2/3 of Dem voters, the best available weapon for disposing of the hated Trump.
The simple fact is Creepy Joe crept up on everyone while aping being "Sleepy Joe" and he deserves the sort of credit you get in the Bank of Hell for thankless and generally unsought after victories. It is a thankless task to "save" a party that many thought did not deserve saving. However, that did not make it any less desirable that at least the nominal nominee of that party not be a Marxist. Unsought after as I cannot help but believe that no one really wants someone so mentally incapacitated and hardbitten in his cynicism ("the most corrupt VP in history" and "the Senator for Visa") to be president. Still, What we are seeing is no doubt unprecedented - the man won four states decisively that he never visited, spent money on or presented ads in. Who is more cynical then - candidate or voter?
E.G.: all those no doubt "clean, articulate" Black Dems voted for a man, who wanted to "put them in chains" in the 90's, did nothing else of any note for them in 50 years and was best buddies with segregationists, and thus catapulted his previously supposedly dead political carcass over the Dem POTUS parapets. So, who knows? I will still comfort myself that it really does not matter who they send, America will win as Trump earns another term. I am confident that Biden's record will speak for itself once he is candidate and sink him. But, if there's anything that this Topsy Turvy Tuesday has taught us it is the saying of another American who seemed to be hapless in his malapropism and hilarious misstatements - "It's not over 'til it's over."
(This blog was written almost entirely before Bloomberg dropped out.)
No comments:
Post a Comment