By Oscar H. Blayton
During the 2008 presidential campaign, when Ba-rack Oba-ma said, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” it triggered an angry response from John McCain’s campaign which charged him with an out-of-bounds attack on his GOP running mate, Sarah Palin.
Now, it’s time for Democrats to heed their own advice.
Joe Biden has become a liability for the Democratic party in the upcoming 2024 presidential election, and all the reliable polls reflect this.
In addition to his disastrous performance during his presidential debate against Donald Trump this June, he brings a lot of unwanted baggage with him to the party’s tent. He irrevocably has alienated a large portion of the electorate who are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza and view his initial dismissal of the reports of Palestinian casualties as painful evidence of his valuing Israeli lives over those of Palestinians. This self-inflicted wound is compounded by the fact that his administration continues to supply Israel with bombs and other weapons that indiscriminately kill Palestinian noncombatants, including children.
Added to his recent transgressions against people of color is his long history of making life miserable for Black and Brown people. Those of us of a certain age remember his stance in the 1970s against integration through the implementation of busing.
There also are legions of voters whose lives were ruined by the Biden-sponsored draconian Anti Drug Abuse Act of 1986. This law imposed a penalty one hundred times more severe for the possession of crack cocaine, which at the time was used more by Blacks, than the penalty for the possession of powdered cocaine, which at the time was used more by whites. This differential between crack and powder cocaine led to a sentencing disparity falling more heavily on Black offenders; even though the drugs are pharmacologically similar. And while Joe Biden was a principal proponent of these disparities, his son, who was addicted to crack cocaine, was never charged directly with drug possession, and never served a day in prison. This is not a point that is lost on American voters of color. Nor is it lost on these voters that when his having championed that horrifically unjust legislation became a liability to his political career, his response was nothing more than a public admission of, “My bad.”
Then there are also those voters who remember how, during the 1991 Senate hearings to examine Clarence Thomas’ fitness to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, Biden cut a deal with Republicans to block the testimony of four women who were prepared to present evidence that would have corroborated the testimony of Anita Hill. We can credit Joe Biden with delivering Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Months ago, the “common wisdom” among American voters who wanted to prevent a second Trump presidency was that we should hold our collective noses and vote for Biden as the best person to do that. But now, that sentiment is no longer wisdom. It is folly.
Biden has allowed his ego to run wild, as he continues to insist that he is the only person who can defeat Trump. His garbage bin full of hubris will lead America to ruin and end our
experiment in democracy. He clearly demonstrated this when he appeared July 5th in a nationally televised interview by George Stephanopoulos and said, “I don’t think anybody’s more qualified to be president or win this race than me.”
When asked by Stephanopoulos if he would commit to an independent medical evaluation of his neurological and cognitive abilities, the 81-year-old Biden responded, “Look, I have a cognitive test every single day. … Everything I do.”
And then to cap off his hubristic screed, he declared: “If the Lord Almighty came down and said:
‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race. The Lord Almighty’s not coming down.”
At this point, he sounds like the aging father who keeps putting dents in the family sedan but refuses to give up his keys. Thinking that it is all about him, Biden told a stunned national audience during the Stephanopoulos interview: “I feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.”
Aside from his using the word “goodest,” what sent shivers down the spines of those fearing a second Trump presidency was that Biden thinks it is okay to lose to Trump as long as he, Joe Biden, did the best that he could do. Using the automobile analogy, Biden is saying: “If I create carnage on the highway, as long as I tried my best to handle the family sedan properly, that’s what is important.”
But the reality is that Democratic lawmakers fearing that Biden will pull the party down to ruin, increasingly have called on him to listen to reason and abandon his fool’s errand of a campaign.
Amid a mounting number of Democratic members of the House of Representatives calling for his withdrawal, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) reportedly has begun efforts to pull together a group of Democratic senators to ask Biden to withdraw from the race.
Truth be told, Biden does not have the deep well of goodwill that his family and irrational friends allege exists. Four years ago, Biden saved this nation from the quicksand that would have been a second Trump presidency, and we have plodded toward a better horizon. But Biden’s awful record, accumulated over the past four decades, streams behind him like the trail of discarded souls cast overboard by an uncaring narcissist focused only on his own gain.
Now, what few gains America has made in the past few years are at risk if Biden continues to put his ego and personal goals above the national good.
It appears from several news sources that Biden is relying heavily on the counsel of his sister, Valerie Owens, his wife, Jill Biden, and son, Hunter Biden. If this is true, it should cause greater alarm among Democrats. Apart from Donald Trump’s family, it is unlikely that there could be any less qualified peanut gallery manning the helm of a presidential campaign and this nation’s future.
There are members of Congress who are demanding that the Democratic Party do better than Joe Biden. There are members of the American press who are demanding that the Democratic Party do better than Joe Biden. And now it is time for the American people to stand up and loudly demand that the Democratic Party do better than Joe Biden. A choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden cannot lead to responsible leadership for this nation. Democrats must stop whistling past the graveyard and admit that Joe Biden is not an attractive candidate, and as he loses support, that faction of the Democratic Party trying to keep him in the race will lose credibility.