I’m always grateful for the fact that I’m not a Democrat, but rarely am I as happy about that as I have been this week. What a mess. The race for the nomination is less of a contest of ideas, since all two dozen candidates are offering the same policy proposals, as it fight to out-pander each other and be the last person standing in a perverted “Woke Olympics.”
How anyone takes these people seriously is beyond me, but if you’d told me these grown adults were part of a hidden camera prank show rather than serious contenders for a major political party’s nomination for President of the United States, I’d believe you.
It was a bad week for “sniffy” Joe Biden, who seems less “with it” with each passing day, that started with the former Vice President telling a rich group of donors that “nothing would fundamentally change” if he won, after his party spent the last years promising to punish the rich; saying their existence was the cause of “unfairness” in the country. It’s funny what politicians say when they think they’re in a “safe space,” isn’t it?
But that wasn’t the worst of it for old Joe. He not only seems like a blast from the past, he yearns for it too. He regaled rich donors with stories of his prowess for getting along with people who have different opinions from his; he said it like it was a virtue in the modern Democratic Party. But the Democratic Party only views the ability to force people to bend to their will as a virtue these days, so Biden’s argument fell flat.
Worse for Joe was the examples he used – two long dead racist, segregationist Democrats most of the country had never heard of. This not only showed his age, it showed how oblivious he’d become to the current state of his party. Not only is saying nice things about bigots from the past not acceptable, not saying horrible things about them is akin to erecting another Confederate monument in the middle of a university’s “Diversity Center.”
Other Democratic candidates scrambled, they sensed blood in the water. Biden is so far ahead of all of them that they’d been waiting for an opening, any opening, to wound him, even a little. It was the perfect storm.
Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Bill de Blasio, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and the rest of the field stuffed so deep in the clown car of candidates that they’re stuck in the trunk collectively clutched their pearls in faux outrage. “He said nice things about racists,” they cried.
He didn’t, at least in any real way, but reality has no bearing in Democratic Party anymore. It doesn’t matter what he meant, what mattered was what others could project on what he’d said. And Joe Biden seemed completely unprepared for it.
Since the Clinton administration, the political left has made a sport out of taking things out of context and blowing them up into something they were not. This tactic has generally been reserved for conservative targets, but it was only a matter of time before they started firing it down their own trench. The monster they created has turned its focus on them; Frankenstein’s Monster always returns to burn down the castle.
What’s most shocking is just how unprepared Biden was for this. It’s as though he slept through the last 20 years, particularly his tenure as Vice President. Could he really be oblivious to the happenings on college campuses, liberal cities like Portland, and the whole of cable news over that time? Even if he’d used examples like run of the mill Republican like Bob Dole and John McCain, the outrage would have still flowed. But he used racist Democrats in a party currently purging its own history; a party that uses race as much as during segregation, just differently to the same effect. His party has passed him by and he didn’t even notice.
It’ll soon be forgotten. Hell, at least 2 MSNBC hosts claimed the Senators Biden named were Republicans, either because they’re too stupid to know or too lazy to find out; maybe both.
But all the cover in the world won’t change the fact that Biden, while he’ll weather this particular storm, is unprepared for the change in the climate of the Democratic Party he’s clearly missed. He’s a relic, a throwback. He’s a novelty basking in the glow of name recognition. The only question is whether or not there are enough semi-sane voters left in the Democratic primary to drag him over the finish line before he says something normal they deem truly unforgivable.
Be glad you’re not a part of it, but do enjoy the show. Like the real thing, the “Woke Olympics” gives out its medals only every four years, but the opening ceremony never ends.
Derek is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member