What Joe doesn’t seem to grasp is that this bygone era of gentlemanly courtesy was the product of relationships built between primarily white men of privilege for whom things were always pretty darn good. America was their oyster. There were no impediments placed in their way by our socio-economic system, a system established by, and designed to perpetuate the power of, people like themselves. Of course Joe wants to go back to that time. There were no uncomfortable realities that he and his privileged cohorts couldn’t deal with over a glass of scotch, a cigar, and a schmoozy golf or dinner club date.
I don’t want to unfairly disparage Joe Biden’s record. I don’t deny that he’s usually been on the right side of history in his legislative career. But he hasn’t always been on the right side - and he has demonstrated a particular blind spot when it comes to the plight of women (the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearing and l’Affaire Anita Hill) and people of color. The most recent example of the latter:
Mr. Biden noted that he served with the late Senators James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia, both Democrats who were staunch opponents of desegregation. Mr. Eastland was the powerful chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Mr. Biden entered the chamber in 1973.
“I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” said Mr. Biden, 76, slipping briefly into a Southern accent, according to a pool report from the fund-raiser. “He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son.’”
He called Mr. Talmadge “one of the meanest guys I ever knew, you go down the list of all these guys.”
“Well guess what?” Mr. Biden continued. “At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.”*Others have already taken Joe to task for these comments praising segregationists their using polite language when speaking to white men while they defended policies that oppressed black people. “We got things done.” What things? Things that had to do with national defense or highway funding, certainly - you know, the priorities shared by his white male brethren. Things like progressive social legislation and federal enforcement of civil rights laws? Eh, not so much.
“He never called me ‘boy’, he always called me ‘son’”. Of course Senator Eastland never called Joe “boy”. Joe is the “right” color. But I’ll bet he called a lot of black men “boy” during his life. (You see, Joe, as with a lot of other white guys, you have got to learn: It’s not all about you.)
Having said all that, I don’t want this to be an “I hate Biden” screed, because I don’t dislike Joe. But Joe - and the politics and governing style he espouses - is of an earlier, “pre-woke” era. The legitimate grievances of the historically ignored and downtrodden are finally beginning to be addressed by the new wave of representatives winning election (primarily, but not exclusively, on the Democratic side). It isn’t Joe’s physical age that will prevent his nomination. No, it’s the rusty, wheezing, coal-burning engine hauling his outdated political and ethical doctrines that will derail his Presidential express.
Americans don’t need to look to a mythical, “better” past with this next election. If you aren’t yet in a place you want to be, what use is it to say put - or worse, go backward? Only by going forward can we improve our lives - and by our, I mean all of us, together. Joe Biden came of age in a time when politicians had the luxury of being able to ignore the needs of the marginalized in the name of “getting things done”. That’s a luxury the marginalized are no longer willing to afford the elite.
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* Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/us/politics/biden-segregationists.html