The Electability Myth of Joe Biden
The leftstream media characterization of Joe Biden is that he is moderate, likable, and the most electable Democrat candidate. He is affable Uncle Joe, the self-made lunchbox-toting common man of the people.
In truth, he is none of the above.
Joe the Moderate
The "Biden as moderate" canard is getting increasingly hard to defend. On the economy-, car-, and cow-killing $93-trillion Green New Deal, Biden was asked if it goes too far or is unrealistically promising too much.
He answered, "No, no it's not."
When previously asked if there would be any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking, in his administration, Biden answered, "No...we would make sure it's eliminated, and no more subsidies for either one of those, period."
Green New Deal? Two thumbs up. Fossil fuels? Fracking and coal? Kill them. How he would eliminate them is one of history's great mysteries.
Not content to destroy the economy, Biden has embraced the full gamut of abortion radicalism, to include flipping to oppose the Hyde Amendment, which forbids taxpayer funds to pay for most abortions. This is the amendment that pro-abortion Democrats traditionally use to hide their radicalism, but Biden threw off even that fig leaf.
He said, "I can't justify leaving millions of women without the health care they need. If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support [the amendment]."
The death-cult pro-abortion groups love Biden because they know he is fully committed to their hellish agenda.
On border security, Biden's position is indistinguishable from those of the other radicals in the party. His hand went up when asked if he is in favor of decriminalizing border security and providing taxpayer-funded health care to non-citizens.
When asked about immigration detention centers, he answered, "Close them down! By the way, we don't need them!" Apparently, arguing that nations don't need borders exemplifies moderation.
Biden is a panderer with no core convictions. Today's Democrat primary voters are radical, so Biden is a radical. His positions are all but indistinguishable from those of socialists Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The entire Democrat primary has been an extremism arms race, and Biden regularly ups the ante.
Affable Uncle Joe
The media regularly compliment Biden for his sterling personality. He's that crazy but lovable uncle we should all want to meet for a beer to swap stories about toiling for a workman's wage in the coal mines. But, like most of Biden's biography, his entire persona is a lie.
Biden has always been a plagiarist and prevaricator. Most of his lies have served his own biography. These are among the creepiest of lies. He is relentless in his biography-building. He was the original valor thief, seeking to steal the best parts of other people's biographies to add to his own.
The media gloss over these bold lies as gaffes. But these lies speak to a serious character defect. Biden is egocentric, delusional, and small-minded. This lying addiction is not something new that can be explained away as a symptom of a failing mind. It has been the central strand of Biden's political DNA since before dinosaurs wandered the earth.
So, okay, Biden may be a liar, but at least he's a nice guy. Um...not so much.
Would a nice guy tell black Americans that Republicans are going to "put you all back in chains"?
Would a first-rate personality say candidate Barack Obama was the first "mainstream African-American," an "articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," implying that other black Americans are lacking in all these qualities and that Obama was somehow a new invention? This is one of the most outrageously racist comments I've seen in recent years.
Biden apologized to Obama, the one black American he wasn't really insulting. He should have apologized to everyone else. Pro-civility Biden is not very civil at all.
There is also Biden's penchant for making women and girls uncomfortable, a habit that would be treated entirely different if he were a Republican. Imagine if Vice President Mike Pence liked to bend over and sniff girls' hair, or grab a woman's arm and hold her essentially captive until he is done talking to her.
Somehow, I don't think the leftstream media would tell us it was just Mike being Mike, an endearing old-fashioned character trait. Instead, they would have painted him as the worst kind of pedophile and misogynist.
So if Biden is not moderate and not likable, what is he basing his electability argument on?
Electable Biden, the Political Unicorn
Biden has pulled off his greatest trick yet in convincing a sizable chunk of the Democratic Party, particularly the power brokers, that he is the most electable Democrat. He argues that he is an establishment moderate Democrat who has broad electoral appeal. That's about as true as his recent war story.
He's also argued that his exemplary personality will exert a gravitational pull on voters in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. But what will matter more to these voters: that Biden claims to have once been a coal miner or that he has promised to destroy coal miners?
Those voters who crossed over to vote for President Trump against a fake, condescending liberal politician who excites nobody are not going to cross back over to vote for...a fake, condescending liberal politician who excites nobody. Many Republicans are pulling for Biden, not because they like him, but because they consider him the weakest candidate.
Liberals will line up to vote for anyone not named Trump. The real battle is for independents and former Democrats who crossed over in 2016. Because of this, the most electable Democrat candidate is Tulsi Gabbard. Biden is not going to win disaffected voters back, nor will he drive turnout among the identity politics–obsessed Democrat base.
Gabbard, while liberal, has interesting things to say and embraces positions that could attract independents. She doesn't emanate raw hatred and contempt toward the military, police, and America. She acknowledges that we need borders and, while still an abortion radical, at least admits that some abortions should be restricted, which puts her way outside the Democrat mainstream.
This is not an endorsement. Gabbard is liberal and would be a poor choice. But, unlike the rest of the Democrat candidates, she is prone to occasional bouts of sanity. After both of the first two Democrat debates, she was among the most Googled candidates. She is this year's Bernie Sanders, the candidate the Democrat establishment buried. The Democrats did the Republicans a huge favor, because Gabbard would have been a tough out.
Instead, the Democrats are on course to elect an avowed socialist or a close facsimile in Biden. To loosely paraphrase advice given by Napoleon, never interfere with the Democrat establishment when it's in the process of destroying itself by nominating a boring, radical, unlikable liar like Lunchbox Joe.
Fletch Daniels blogs at deplorabletouchdown.com and can be found on Twitter at @fletchdaniels.