Biden 2020
My admiration for Joe Biden has been put to a challenge.
I’ve been following his career for half my life, years before he was selected to be Obama’s running mate in 2008, and I largely credit his demeanor, statesmanship, and charm for influencing a lot of my own outlook on politics and civics. At a time when overly-polished politicians were a punchline, Biden was always refreshingly candid. While that has led to a far amount of gaffes and outright missteps, it has also helped move the national debate against cautious gridlock when it mattered most.
Which is why Joe Biden’s new strategy heading into 2020 baffles me. Yes, it’s still him. Yes, these are all the same things he’s said for 40 years, more or less. But his campaign seems hellbent on only focusing on his worst attributes, or at least promoting the wrong lessons from them. At this point, it’s too consistent to be an accident as if the strategy is to just convince everyone, with the exception of Obama, that the last 20 years never happened.
If you told me even three years ago that one day Joe Biden would be running in the Democratic primary but I wouldn’t vote for him, I would have called you crazy. I still love Joe Biden. I will always have respect for the role he unknowingly played in my life. And of course, I will move heaven and Earth to get him elected if he ends up being the nominee, but for him to claim that everything is just going to reset once Trump is gone, without acknowledging the unresolved issues that put him in power, is a fundamental misreading of the times we’re living through.
