This op-ed about Joe Biden from yesterday's Washington Post is a sly one. The op-ed wants us to believe Biden will be the most progressive president because the times demand it, and we who are progressive, and the progressive organizations we support, will be able to push Biden to do the right thing.
We see the slyness of this op-ed, however, in the very first sentence, where the writer says Biden was the "first national leader" in 2012 to merely say he was "absolutely comfortable" with two gay guys getting married, as if national power brokers-leaders, who appeared at least as often on the television talk show circuit, and known to most American viewers paying attention, never existed. The Senators who voted against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996, and who supported gay marriage at a time Biden most definitely did not, included Senators Teddy Kennedy, Diane Feinstein, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Daniel Inouye, John Kerry, neo-liberal favorite Bob Kerry of Nebraska (a big time talk show appearance person in the 1990s), and House Democratic Party leaders such as Nancy Pelosi, Howard Berman, Henry Waxman, Pat Schroeder. And of course, the corporate media erased at the time, Bernie Sanders, an "independent" House representative from Vermont. Thus, from the first sentence, we are invited to be spun.
From that first sentence forward, the thesis is set forth, which may be summarized as follows: Joe is always wrong in his gut and in his initial positions on important topics of public policy. However, eventually, when public opinion turns or is turning, Biden can be pushed to a liberal position, though rarely to a New Deal position. The examples the WaPo op-ed writer provides are largely cultural issues, which, of course, are telling in their own way, as the examples define the professional-managerial class bias the WaPo has long promoted, since before the Jeff Bezos ownership era.
Also, the drive-bys in the article are acutely pathetic: The writer admits how Biden supported the 1994 Crime bill, when Biden was the main Senate Democrat pushing the most draconian version of that bill, which met with vociferous opposition from, oops, Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders and the Congressional Black Caucus. Sanders and the CBC did a great job of amending language in the bill, adding various pro-minority rights elements, an innovative programs such as "midnight basketball" for otherwise wayward urban (mostly minority) youths to go, rather than fall into gangs. The writer, again, slyly states in parentheses "so did Sanders" support the ultimately passed 1994 Crime Bill, without saying a word about what I just did. Then the writer says Biden was one of the "few" senators to treat Sanders with respect. However, the one link around the word "few" is merely an article discussing in part about why Bernie would not go hard against his "friend" Joe Biden--with no showing Biden stood out as a friend compared to any other person in the entire Congress. Truth is, Biden treated him with no more respect than most congresspeople, and there were Republicans such as the late John McCain who worked well with, and had high esteem, for Bernie Sanders. See here and here. The writer is merely repeating, in again a sly form, the "nobody likes him" lie from Hillary Clinton. Yes, the campaign-strategist class, which hangs around with, enable, and control the DNC, hate Sanders. However, many senators and congresspeople respect Bernie by and large, as they are often cajoled into supporting his amendments to their bills. And what voters, including those who don't vote for him for policy reasons, or media-driven fear campaigns, like about Sanders is precisely how Bernie doesn't "tolerate bullshit" well.
What is most ridiculous about this WaPo spin piece is that, just last week, Biden's campaign disclosed how Biden had begun talking again with the neo-liberal architect, Larry Summers, for economic advice. You cannot pick a worse villain among progressives and even many who call themselves liberals than Larry Summers, though many are as bad.
It is interesting to compare the WaPo writer's take on Biden to this Salon magazine interview with Chris Hedges. Hedges' view is Biden is potentially worse than Trump's second term because he is a politician more likely to further divide, and, therefore, undermine, the liberal and progressive forces. Here is Hedges in the interview:
Let's take Biden. What does it mean to vote for Joe Biden? He has this kind of goofy persona which some people find charming. What is Biden's record? What is a person voting for if they back Biden on Election Day 2020?
The humiliation of courageous women like Anita Hill who confronted her abuser. You vote for the architects of endless war. You vote for the apartheid state in Israel. Biden supports those things. With Biden you are voting for wholesale surveillance by the government, including the abolition of due process and habeas corpus. You vote for austerity programs. You vote for the destruction of welfare. That was Biden. You vote for cuts to Social Security, which he has repeatedly called for cutting, along with Medicaid. You vote for NAFTA, you vote for "free trade" deals. If you vote for Biden, you are voting for a real decline in wages and the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs.
With Biden you are also voting for the assault on public education and the transfer of federal funds to Christian "charter schools." With Biden you are voting for more than a doubling of the prison population. With Biden you are voting for the militarized police and against the Green New Deal.
You are also voting to limit a woman's right to abortion and reproductive rights. You are voting for a segregated public school system. With Biden you are voting for punitive levels of student debt and the inability of people to free themselves of that debt through bankruptcy. A vote for Biden is a vote for deregulating banking and finance. Biden also supports for-profit insurance and pharmaceutical corporations.
A vote for Biden is also a vote against the possibility of universal health care. You vote for Biden and you are supporting huge, wasteful and bloated defense budgets. Biden also supports unlimited oligarchic and corporate money to buy the elections.
That's what you're voting for.
A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for more of the same. The ruling elites would prefer Joe Biden, just like they preferred Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump is vulgar and an embarrassment. But the ruling elites also made it abundantly clear about their interests: Many of these people were quoted by name saying that if Bernie Sanders was the nominee.
What is interesting to me is I can say Hedges is overstating the case against Biden, as he largely talking about Biden's cultural and foreign policy stances in a mirror image of the WaPo writer. Biden has come around on most of the cultural issues, following the crowd for the most part. But where the rubber meets the road, to use a car-tire analogy, is on the economic policies, and there, Biden continues to show a fealty to international corporate power. My take here, however, is let's just see how these proposed six task forces end up proposing in terms of public policies. Right now, I find it telling how Sanders has already submitted his people for the task force more than a week ago, and Biden has not. I have said on FB how we can likely expect to see Biden choose corporate lobbyists and executives for his "side" of the task forces, which would show us, once again, Biden's true "base." However, if the task forces end up proposing progressive policies, and I can see how some task forces may do so (not others, such as the one for medical care/insurance), it allows Biden to pivot to those positions during this virus crisis. But does Biden mean it when he pivots? That is where Chris Hedges could be far more right than wrong, which is why I most shake my head in abject despair.
Meanwhile, the corporate broadcast and most print media executives and pundits continue to ignore the Biden accuser's sexual assault accusation, notwithstanding how the accuser now has much more real time corroboration from others with whom she spoke than Dr. Ford ever had with now-Justice Kavanaugh. I remain concerned this sexual assault allegation is of a different level than anyone has ever accused Biden before, and the accuser's flakiness. Trump has multiple claims against him for sexual assault, which constitute a pattern. However, there is no longer any real doubt Biden's accuser spoke to this allegation with various people at and not long after the time it occurred in 1993, and simply refused to talk publicly about it until the start of this year. But, sure, just close your ears and eyes, Democratic Party stalwarts--and be ready to blame yours truly and Bernie supporters in general for Biden's eventually probable Rust Belt state losses to Trump, which will re-elect Trump under the Electoral College system for choosing presidents. The media will gladly blame the progressives, as we are the media's truly favorite punching bags.
