The Biden Paradox
By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
15 October 19
Hes under attack and slipping in the polls. Should Democrats be all in on
the former vice president, or all out?
On a blistering afternoon in the courtyard of the East Las Vegas Community
Center, former Vice President Joe Biden steps to the lectern. With white
hair and aviator glasses, he looks like he wandered off the set of an
Invisible Man remake.
Hows he going to hold up in this heat? whispers a middle-aged white woman
in the crowd to her husband. The latter keeps eyes forward under a golf
visor, as if attention might keep the 76-year-old Biden upright.
If Donald Trump is expanding with age, Baron Harkonnen-style, like a giant
zit, Biden seems to be shrinking. Always a verbal loose cannon, he goes
blank now with regularity, lacing every minute of every appearance with the
threat of media calamity.
Biden and Trump appear destined to be linked, by age, social media heat
(#BidenGaffe will rival #CatsofTwitter if Biden wins the nomination), and
now, the exploding Ukraine scandal. Las Vegas is the former vice presidents
first event since Democrats announced plans to push impeachment proceedings
against Trump, who is accused of pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky to investigate Biden and his son.
All year, Trump has displayed an almost gastrointestinal eagerness to face
Biden in the general election. He alerts to Bidens name like a spider to an
earwig, pounding the theme that the ex-senator is too old and too
punch-drunk to hold up in the internet blood dojo that is modern
presidential politics. I like running against people that are weak
mentally, Trump said of Biden in June.
Since Ukrainegate broke, a furious Trump has stepped up such attacks on our
not very bright vice president and Sleepy Joe. Will this abuse help or
hurt the Biden campaign? How will the candidate respond? In Vegas, a large
press contingent waits for a sign.
Look, begins Biden in a quiet voice, in the weeks and the months to come,
its the Congress job to pursue the facts, and, uh, to hold Donald Trump
accountable.
Cheers. The I Will Kick Trump in His Tiny Balls preamble is a mandatory
element in 2020 Democrat stumpery.
Biden goes on, seeming on the verge of settling into rhythm, when a heavyset
man with a blond Prince Valiant haircut jumps up.
Joe Biden is a predator! he screams, dropping into a weird power pose
while flashing a #MeToo sign. The media is covering it up!
The sign might reference Nevadas former candidate for lieutenant governor,
Lucy Flores, who last spring described being creeped out (What in the
actual fuck? she wrote) by Biden kissing her head and sniffing her hair
before a speech in 2014. Its one of many tales that have bounced off Biden.
If enough people think youre the best hope to beat Donald Trump, it turns
out, a lot of warts disappear.
Let him go! Biden pleads.
The heckler is ushered toward the door, to chants of Bi-den! Bi-den!
Thats how far weve fallen! snaps Biden.
People keep telling Biden he should just go away, but he takes the abuse and
keeps soldiering on, like a stray dog following a hiking party. Its
working, or it was, anyway, until he recently began sinking in the polls.
Biden is a man from another time, marooned in a public sphere that has
passed him by. His speeches about tax credits, investing in ourselves, and
building cutting-edge infrastructure feel like echoes of pro-growth
Democrat speeches from the Nineties, just returned to Earth after a journey
around the sun. Along with a history of questionable ties to campaign
donors, hes also an old white man with a history of wandering hands and
problematic utterances, which would seem to disqualify him these days for a
post as an adjunct lit professor, let alone the liberal partys nominee.
Everything seems like it should be against Joe Biden: #MeToo, age, a
radicalizing Democratic base, calculated attacks from a huge field of
primary opponents, an iffy past on racial issues, a Google-searchable mother
lode of verbal boners, and a dozen other things.
But no one who is familiar with Bidens past would ever write him off. He
lost his grown son Beau to brain cancer in 2015, and his first wife, Neilia,
and daughter Naomi were killed in a car accident in 1972. Unspeakable loss
has become intertwined with his political persona, so much so that current
Delaware Sen. Chris Coons once called grief Bidens superpower, in the
sense that it aids his ability to connect with voters. Bill Clinton said he
felt your pain with Biden its the opposite, voters feel his.
As great as Bidens personal tragedies may be, though, hes also suffered
significant political losses, and here we come to the first quirk of Bidens
bizarre career: He has a rare ability to convert disaster into opportunity.
The Ukraine story might sink his campaign, but it also may help. Trump
occupying the other side of an all-consuming media apocalypse may garner
sympathy, while solidifying the impression that Biden carries the flag for
Democrats. Could a scandal propel Biden upward? It wouldnt be the first
time.
The Biden paradox: One could make an argument hes building a legacy as the
most comically maladroit national political contender in American history.
At times, Biden 2020 has been more like an MTV blooper show than a
presidential campaign. Heres a rundown of what should have been a sleepy
August campaign:
August 1st: Poor kids are just as bright and talented as white kids.
August 4th: Expresses sorrow over tragic events in Houston today and also
in Michigan, i.e., mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.
August 8th: We choose truth over facts! August 16th: Confuses Burlington,
Vermont, and Burlington, Iowa. August 21st: Bobby Kennedy and Dr. King had
been assassinated in the Seventies. August 24th: In Keene, New Hampshire
I love this place. Look, whats not to like about Vermont? August 26th:
Forgets which Dartmouth College building he just visited, telling the crowd,
Im not going nuts.
From there, Biden drove into telephone pole after telephone pole. He told a
story about braving Godforsaken country in Afghanistan to pin a medal on a
soldiers chest that turned out to be an amalgam of multiple tales. He
called Bernie Sanders the president (hed already called Cory Booker the
president). Then, in front of 14 million TV viewers for the third Democratic
Party debate, he turned a question about the legacy of slavery into a
rambling diatribe about how inner-city parents should leave a record
player on at night, a line that was somehow both parody of right-wing
paternalism and outdated by about 30 years.
Yet Biden still could win the Democratic nomination. One can almost hear
party figures trying to work out the riddle: Should there be an urgent
examination of this candidates flaws before its too late? Or should they
circle wagons early, and start trying to force attention on Bidens bright
side heading into next year?
Biden has strengths. While he endures near-constant ridicule for tortured
verbiage and inappropriate statements, he rarely gets credit for his
tenacity. No matter what else this older, perhaps diminished version of
Biden might forget onstage, he always stays on script. Along with his
ability to connect emotionally with audiences, its his greatest asset.
In Vegas, he continues his campaign-long habit of avoiding mention of
impeachment, a word that has helped fuel rival Elizabeth Warrens rise up
the Democratic primary polls (Warren was the first Democrat to unequivocally
endorse impeaching Trump), but efforts to oust the president have a less
certain prognosis for the general election. Biden clings, instead, to
phrases like holding Trump accountable. This restraint takes discipline,
given that impeachment is on the entire worlds lips.
He reminds the crowd that his job is not fighting the impeachment battle,
but remaining electable against Trump, whom he claims to have bested in 70
head-to-head polls. My job, our job, he says, is to make sure above all
else
we
beat
Donald
Trump!
Theres a workmanlike, industrial quality to the way Biden doles out salvos,
like a man unloading boxes of frozen fish. Hes unafraid of redundancy and
reaches with awe-inspiring frequency for certain words. He says America 30
or 40 times per appearance literally getting there with heavy use of
related constructions like the United States of America, the American
people, and the story of America.
The perfect Biden rhetorical devices are metronome tautologies like those
used in Vegas: This election is about the American people, here in Nevada
and throughout the United States of America.
The American people, and this
is not hyperbole, have never, ever, ever let the American people down.
This
is the United States of America!
Biden moves through the first part of his Vegas speech in low tones, at
times turning sideways and whispering, like he saw someone over a wall in
the distance. Then he hits an applause line (You know what Donald Trump has
done. Im here to tell you what I will do!) and begins speaking in Loud
Voice. The ex-veeps emotional attitude in this campaign can switch from
distant to troubled to lucid and defiant and back again, in the space of
minutes.
Still, when he rolls, Bidens voice crackles with energy, and with his blue
shirtsleeves and swept hair, he looks like Politician Clip Art. His tepid
unoriginality on the policy front is in this sense a positive. In the Trump
era, many voters have had enough kink theyre looking for the absence of
something and few politicians can say nothing quite like Joe Biden.
Listening to one of his speeches all the way through is like being beaten
with a cliché hammer:
I was proud to serve as Barack Obamas vice president.
We have to make
health care a right, not a privilege.
You can sign up for a public
option.
Increasing subsidies for the middle class
Their debt will be
forgiven.
Ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump inherited a strong economy from
us, just like he inherited everything in his life!
While Biden talks constantly about Trump, he does so in a way different from
Hillary Clinton, who spent a whopping 90 percent of her advertising
attacking Trump as an individual. Biden has tweaked that message, ironically
using Trumpian themes to sell an anti-Trump message. Biden, like Trump,
relies on American exceptionalism but in a different construct. Trump argued
America had lost its exceptional status and he, Trump, would single-handedly
fix it. Biden argues America was always exceptional, but lost its status
because of Trump. He volunteers as the experienced old alley fighter willing
to go down into the labyrinth to slay the Orange Minotaur.
The logic of the Biden campaign, at least up until the Ukraine story broke,
had been avoiding hot takes, focusing on this elemental tale tailored for
the general-election message. This above the fray approach was described
by The Washington Post as trying to avoid the political spasm in which he
is now the central figure.
For a long time, it worked. After Biden announced his candidacy in April, he
surged to a huge poll lead and joined Sanders as one of two Democrats to
consistently poll well in head-to-head surveys against Trump. Commentators
said he offered voters normalcy and scored particularly well with the blue
version of the Silent Majority, the Hidden Democratic Party of
less-progressive, older voters. When California Sen. Kamala Harris assailed
him for his past support of school busing in the first debate, she
temporarily became a top tier candidate while Biden dipped, prompting
predictions that he would slide among voters seeking a fresh face.
But Harris cratered soon after and Biden rebounded, seeming to validate his
above the fray strategy. He took working-class voters from Sanders and
retained enough support from major donors to stall the momentum toward
Warren. The problem is, Ukraine makes staying out of the spasm impossible.
When the news broke that a CIA whistle-blower launched a complaint about
President Trumps apparent request that Ukraine investigate Biden and his
son Hunters ties to Ukrainian gas giant Burisma, Joe had no choice but to
respond.
His initial strategy, after Trump released the rough transcript of his call
to Zelensky, was to go full-on Liam Neeson and pitch Ukrainegate as a home
invasion requiring urgent vengeance. He said Trump abused his power to come
after my family, describing the implication that he or his son had done
anything wrong as a malicious conspiracy theory that has been debunked by
every independent outlet that has looked at it.
But Hunter Bidens acceptance of a $50,000-per-month position with Burisma
while Daddy was a sitting vice president with a foreign-policy brief is not
conspiracy theory, but fact. Its an automatically gruesome look. The
Ukrainians were almost certainly looking to create the perception that
[Burisma] was backed by powerful Americans, as The New York Times put it.
This is before we get to the question of whether or not Hunter actually did
anything to earn the money (unclear) or whether Joe Biden knew about the
arrangement (father and son have told different stories).
The standard media take on Hunters no-show Burisma job has been Sure, it
looks completely like shit, but is it illegal? (Of course theres an
appearance problem, a former adviser told The Washington Post, before
adding quickly that there is no evidence of wrongdoing.) Regarding Bidens
awareness or lack thereof of Hunters job, the standard line has been no
evidence of criminal wrongdoing, the word criminal being operative.
There are other angles on the Ukraine story that seem destined to remain
problematic, like Bidens visit to Ukraine as vice president in December
2015. Uncle Joe delivered a Kneel Before Zod dictum to then-President Petro
Poroshenko, declaring he would hold up a billion-dollar aid package if the
countrys general prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was not fired immediately. Im
leaving in six hours, he later recounted saying. If the prosecutor is not
fired, youre not getting the money.
This incident would look Trump-level terrible if it were to come out that
Shokin was investigating his sons company. The Biden campaign, and most
American news agencies, have insisted such investigations were dormant.
However, multiple foreign news reports, including an early-October exposé by
noted Russian opposition paper Novaya Gazeta about Burismas ties to a
Russian fugitive named Sergei Kurchenko, have insisted there were in fact
open investigations of the Ukrainian gas firm in late 2015. (The Biden
campaign did not comment on the record about this story.)
Part of the problem is that this is not the first time Hunter Biden has been
caught in a compromising position. In 2008, reports surfaced that Hunter had
been retained as a consultant by the credit-card company MBNA while his
father was on his way to voting for the infamous bankruptcy bill, which made
it harder for debtors to declare bankruptcy.
The Obama campaign insisted [Hunters] work had absolutely nothing to do
with the bankruptcy bill, but it sure didnt look good. It likewise looked
horrible when Hunter got a seat on the board of another major employer of
Delawareans, Amtrak, with Sen. Tom Carper offering what feels like a
sarcastic anti-recommendation of Joes son, saying he was qualified because
Hunter Biden has spent a lot of time on Amtrak trains.
This is in addition to Joe Biden in 1996 having sold his Delaware house to
an MBNA executive for $1.2 million six times what he paid for it in what
The New York Times described as a word-of-mouth transaction.
Even if there was nothing shady in any of this, Democrats have to ask
themselves if they want to return to parsing the not-wrongness of a
nominees head-scratching financial relationships. The Biden familys
history of confusing entanglements would represent a déjà vu return to the
2016 campaign, which saw a Democratic candidate having to spend nearly two
years explaining why it was OK to make $225,000 per speech to Goldman Sachs
executives. Why revive the soft-corruption argument?
The Ukraine story by its very nature will and possibly should, depending
on your view of Hunters Burisma job dog Biden for as long as his campaign
continues. The increased scrutiny and Trumps direct assault on his family
have forced Biden into a more combative mode on the trail. In one 24-hour
span, he attacked the New York Times coverage of his campaign as
journalistic malpractice while endorsing impeachment, saying Trump was
shooting holes in the Constitution.
Impeachment does commit Democrats to a strident defense of Biden and his
son, even if, or perhaps especially if, theres a real problem that needs
regular PR response. There are already reports that major party donors are
weighing whether to set up a Super PAC to independently defend Biden.
These include Julianna Smoot, who led Obamas campaign finance team,
Democratic consultant Mark Riddle, and others. The Washington Post reported
the group is concerned a pro-Biden PAC may trigger attacks from primary
rivals Warren and Sanders that he is being bankrolled by wealthy
interests. This comes as word leaked out that Biden has cut back on digital
ads after posting just $15.2 million in money raised in the third quarter of
the 2020 race, a dramatic fall from his second-quarter number of $22
million. He is far behind both Warren ($24.6 million) and Sanders ($25.3
million), so a sudden surge in PAC money would be a potential campaign
saver.
In other words, the fact that Biden has political vulnerability on Ukraine
may end up pushing more institutional support his way. Again, this wouldnt
be the first time a Biden political weakness became an asset.
The notion that >the former vice president is the perfect person to take on
schoolyard-bully Donald Trump is not entirely unsupported by the evidence,
even if the evidence comes from Joe Biden.
Bidens autobiographical works, Promises to Keep and Promise Me, Dad, tell
the story of a man who overcame stuff. The Pennsylvania and Delaware native
reports he was nicknamed Dash in high school, not because he was fast
(although he is quick to remind readers, I was fast) but because of a
stutter. I talked like Morse code, he recalled. You gu-gu-gu-gu-guys
sh-sh-sh-sh-shut up!
The story of Joe Impedimenta journeying from a high school exemption to
public speaking to Americas second-highest office earns him a deserving
spot on an inspirational list next to James Earl Jones, King George VI, and
others whove overcome a stutter (thats the word Biden uses) to make
history with speech.
Its impressive and speaks to an indefatigability that friends and
colleagues insist is one of the best arguments for electing the man: He
doesnt give up. Biden by his own account ate buckets of shit just to
survive high school. This prepared him for a career in the U.S. Senate,
which is basically a meaner and more corrupt version of high school. It also
provided at least some psychological practice for a potential general
election contest against a man who routinely calls him a loser and a
dummy who was picked off the trash heap to be Obamas vice president.
Beating his speaking demons, plus the experience of moving to the
moonscape of a working-class neighborhood when his high-school-educated
dad fell down on his luck, are central tales in Bidens legend:
My dad would say, Get up! he wrote. Youre lying in bed feeling sorry for
yourself? Get up...! Kids make fun of you because you stutter,
Bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-Biden? Get up!
You can hear the echo of his fathers tirade in Bidens current stump
speech, delivered in the form of his own paternal directive to a moribund
(or maybe hypersensitive/overwoke?) nation: Were walking around with our
heads down, like Woe is me! Whats the matter with us? Were the United
States of America!
Unfortunately, Biden is such a cliché-spewing, idea-borrowing goof, you
cant help but wonder if he borrowed the Woe is me! theme from one of the
Get up! speeches in the Rocky series (specifically, Rockys It aint
about how hard you hit, its about how hard you can get hit! rant to
pre-millennial loser son Robert in 2006s Rocky Balboa).
Carve the policy bits out of Bidens stump presentation and what you get is
something as trite as a Rocky movie, only with less-convincing action
scenes. Although he rode this legend of a boiler-cleaners son who kept
throwing punches all the way to the Senate, its not surprising it couldnt
carry him further. Bidens first two White House runs were launchpad
explosions.
In August 1987, at the Iowa State Fair, Biden delivered a stirring speech
about the difficulty of rising above working-class origins. Why is it that
Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? he asked.
Why is it that my wife, who is sitting out there in the audience, is the
first in her family...?
Unfortunately, British Labor Leader Neil Kinnock had asked the same thing
months earlier, in May 1987: Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand
generations to be able to get to a university? Why is [wife] Glenys the
first woman in her family in a thousand generations...?
Biden had been caught not just lifting, but morphing, to the point where he
seemed to believe new life details. (He did this with the medal story this
year.) He wasnt the first person in his family to have gone to college. He
started saying he came from a family of coal miners, going so far as to
claim a relative who would come up after 12 hours [in the mine] and play
football. The New York Times even reported Biden began using Kinnocks
gestures and lyrical Welsh syntax intact.
He dropped out of the 1988 race under a cloud, but never corrected the
record. Dec-ades later, he was still using constructions like, No Biden I
ever knew went to college (the collegians in his family tree were
Finnegans, on his mothers side).
In 2008, Biden again led with his face when he decided to run for the White
House at the nadir of public confidence in an Iraq War he backed.
He not only commenced what seemed like his last big run at power at a time
when 84 percent of Democrats believed the biggest decision of his career was
a mistake, he did so when a generational Democratic Party superstar was
centering his own campaign against the Iraq consensus Biden helped build.
Biden called Barack Obama the first mainstream African American who is
articulate and bright and clean, one of a growing pile of unfortunate
comments The Washington Posts Richard Cohen was soon describing as the
Himalayan barrier of Bidens mouth.
Stomped in the Iowa caucus, earning less than one percent of the vote, Biden
exited in January 2008, vowing, I aint going away. Nobody much believed
him. The general consensus was Scranton Joe was a half-bright anachronism
who could move the chains in Congress, but was no longer a viable archetype
for national contention.
Obama and then-New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson were believable leaders of
the partys new multicultural coalition; Hillary Clinton offered excitement
as a possible first female president; John Edwards spoke to a nascent
class-based progressive movement. What did Biden represent that meant a damn
thing anymore?
A lot, as it turned out. The perception that Biden killed his campaign with
inappropriate remarks about Obama, Indian Americans (You cannot go to a
7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent), and other
groups, in addition to an iffy history on racial issues like busing, was
offset by Obamas naming of Biden to be his running mate. Pundits believed
the move was designed to reassure white voters in economically strapped
areas.
This year, as Bidens campaign gained momentum, The New York Times reported
that Bidens relationship with Obama was a marriage of racial convenience.
Obama told Virginias Tim Kaine in 2008, Youre the pick of my heart, but
Joe is the pick of my head. Obama wanted someone with gray in his hair,
because he, Obama, was deeply worried about a backlash against a black man
at the top of the ticket, and believed an older white running mate would
ease fears in battleground states.
Thus Joe Biden earned a place in history books at center stage of a great
moment of racial healing, walking into the White House as the partner of
Americas first black president, precisely because his own political career
had foundered on a bed of Archie Bunkerisms. He won by losing.
This was an insane (but also darkly funny) piece of luck, but Biden by all
accounts made the best of it. He reportedly won Obama over with his
dedication to family and with the effort he put into his role as running
mate, which included learning to shut up, as former Obama aide David
Axelrod recalled.
In 2020, the calculus is similar. Biden in almost every respect is a flawed
politician. For progressives, he offers little, especially given his history
supporting policies like the Iraq War and NAFTA, while not only opposing
Medicare for All, but regularly dissembling about it (Medicare goes away as
you know it!). Past support of legislation like the 2005 bankruptcy bill
highlight his unfortunate ties to corporate interests like the powerful
credit-card companies in Bidens home state of Delaware.
Those who are hoping for a quick-thinking zinger -machine whod shine in a
campaign against Trump cant take much solace in the face-plant-a-day
pattern of Bidens run to date. A general election pitting an angry,
feces-hurling Trump against this version of Biden has awesome disaster
potential.
To all of these objections, theres basically one response: Hes better than
Trump. Even if hes losing faculties, has a few objectionable character
quirks, and is too cozy with financial interests, the argument goes, Biden
is at least not a terrible human being.
Biden does have a talent for connecting and projecting authenticity, a
concept of dubious value in someone 46 years into a political career, but
still. Many see in his incautious statements realness absent in slicker
internet-age politicians. In this sense and this shouldnt necessarily be
taken as a negative he shares an electoral strength with Donald Trump,
whose tweeting habits get him in deserved trouble but also rally fans who
appreciate being able to access a politician without barriers. The Biden
effect is similar: About once a day, you can peer directly into his cerebral
cortex.
Former Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi, who first met Biden back in
1987, says all authentic candidates have this problem: They mangle words,
not being afraid to say what they think. In the case of Biden this year,
Trippi says Democrats will not only have to ask themselves if they can get
past that problem to focus on the bottom-line character proposition, but
also if they should.
Is he a guy stuck in his ways, still able to connect, still mangling
unapologetically but prepared to be president who can read a teleprompter
and talk to us sincerely in most moments? Trippi asks. Or is it something
a lot more? I have no idea.
It may not come to this. Biden is no longer the clear front-runner. The
health problems of Sanders have coincided with a surge in support for
Warren, and even apple-cheeked South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg is out
raising him. Some commentators are noting similarities between Bidens
campaign and that of Jeb Bush, another early front-runner and invisible
primary winner whose campaign collapsed amid a long-term dearth of
small-money donations. Its not as bad as being compared to Mike Dukakis,
the campaign-journalism-cliché equivalent of circling vultures, but Jeb
comparisons arent a good sign, either.
After the event in Vegas, crowd members almost all say the same thing. They
like the way Biden has handled the beating hes taken all around, from media
jerks like me, from Democratic rivals, and especially from Donald Trump.
Class, says Alicia Tarr. Goes nose to nose with someone, doesnt put him
down. Experience, says a local print-shop owner named Richard. Not too
radical.
Ellen Vernon, a kindly Belize native, wanders out of the community center
last of all the audience members, wearing a smile. Shes a fan of Obamas,
and predisposed to Biden, but his forbearance this campaign season in the
face of constant attacks added to her admiration.
He never gets mad, she says. Now that is a man.
I ask her how she thinks a candidate with so many issues could prevail in a
general election.
People, she says with a sigh, have soft hearts.
This might be true. But while theres still time to pick a different
nominee, should they? Its a tough question, and Democrats are running out
of time to answer it.
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