We all know that Uncle Joe is a handsy, sniffy, weird dude. But has he assaulted women?
I don’t know.
What I do know is that the allegations against Sleepy Joe are far more serious (in the sense of being substantiated by corroborating testimony) than anything brought against Kavanaugh. So this, as we’ve all heard, is a test for #metoo. Will they stick to their principles, or will they stick to their politics? (A couple prominent people in the #metoo crowd have come out in support of Biden’s accuser.)
But then again, is this really the right test?
A proper test would be when they’re faced with a candidate they like, who has a chance of winning, but is credibly accused. Then they’d have to decide whether losing the election is worth sticking up for the accuser, “believing all women,” and so on.
Is that a fair description of the current situation? Probably not.
Biden doesn’t seem to generate much enthusiasm. People support him because they see him as the best shot to beat Trump, but not because they particularly like him.
That in itself is not remarkable. We often vote for candidates because we dislike them less than we hate or fear the opponent. In fact, most of the votes in my life have been that way.
Still, I sense a strong lukewarmness about Biden. Despite the fact that I live in a blue state, I have not seen a single Biden bumper sticker. It’s also weird that Obama was so slow to endorse him. There seems to be a reluctance among the Democrats to come out with a full-throated endorsement of Creepy Joe.
Why?
It may be because he’s not far enough to the left. There is an alleged pattern in politics: when a party is out of power, they go extreme in the next election, then swing back to the middle four years later. Or so say some of the talking heads.
That may be an explanation for why Bernie did so well, and it provides some small hope that the Democrats will come back towards sanity in 2024.
Those explanations don’t cut it for me. I think the lukewarm attitude towards Uncle Joe is because we all know he’s suffering from dementia, and we can’t imagine him making it through the campaign, let alone four years in the White House.
There are other calculations going on among the Democrats. I suspect it’s something like this. Joe is a lousy candidate, so how can we replace him (with whom?) and still save face? We can’t go with Bernie, because he’s not even a Democrat. So how do we slide somebody else onto the top of the ticket?
#Metoo might be a convenient excuse to force Joe out, force a brokered convention, and find somebody who has a chance against Trump.
Given all that, I say that Biden is not a fair test of #metoo. Even if they use #metoo to dump the guy, it won’t be clear that they put principles above politics.
(P.S. — Yes, I’m aware of the polls that show Biden beating Trump. I’m also aware that polls this far out don’t mean a thing.)
In essence, #metoo is merely a tool to hold accountable those who are guilty of a sexually inappropriate offenses. If it were used in the way it was intended, I think it would be a proper test for “Uncle Joe” or anyone who holds a position of power. The problem is, those who use #metoo typically don’t do so to exact accountability but as a blunt instrument to bludgeon those they don’t like. Allegations against Biden SHOULD be taken seriously. Yet, they need to be validated or proven (beyond a reasonable doubt) before they can be used to disqualify him.
That said, I found the your following comments interesting and ironic:
QUOTE: What I do know is that the allegations against Sleepy Joe are far more serious (in the sense of being substantiated by corroborating testimony) than anything brought against Kavanaugh.
Maybe, but since we’re talking about the office of the POTUS, an apples-to-apples comparison might be more apropos. There were some pretty damning allegations against our current president when he was a candidate. They were corroborated by the testimony from MANY women (in the high teens) and his own testimony. On a recording, he stated that he “made a move” on a married woman, he couldn’t help himself when he saw a beautiful woman…he immediately started kissing. As well, he thought women would allow him and other men grab them by their “meow” because of their fame.
QUOTE: So this, as we’ve all heard, is a test for #metoo. Will they stick to their principles, or will they stick to their politics?
Alas, this was before the surge of #metoo. Yet, Republicans were very clear about their principles during Trump’s candidacy. It’s well documented that his supporters didn’t care about accusations against him. So, if Republicans, the alleged party of family values and morality, can let their candidate slide, I doubt the Democrats will give a rip about being hypocritical with Uncle Joe. As well, Republicans no longer have any legitimate grounds to criticize them for such behavior.
QUOTE: People support him because they see him as the best shot to beat Trump, but not because they particularly like him.
Ironically, if we get into the “way back” machine to 2015/early 2106…similar comments were made about Trump. Many who now hail his greatness, weren’t so thrilled about him. Lindsey Graham’s comments were classic. He specifically addressed this to Trump supporters…“…he’s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the values that the men and women in uniform are fight for…” Imagine that? What a difference a few years make, eh? Who knows, if Biden were to win, maybe some noted Democrats might feel differently in time.
QUOTE: It’s also weird that Obama was so slow to endorse him. There seems to be a reluctance among the Democrats to come out with a full-throated endorsement of Creepy Joe.
If the goal was to defeat Trump, it seems “strategic” rather than “weird” for Obama to wait to support the one who’d eventually win the nomination. Since he’s still one of the most popular figures in the Democrat party, he could rally the party based on their elected candidate. As for endorsements, I think Democrat voters made their statement fairly clear once the primary got into full swing. At the end of the day, that’s what counts most.
QUOTE: I think the lukewarm attitude towards Uncle Joe is because we all know he’s suffering from dementia, and we can’t imagine him making it through the campaign, let alone four years in the White House.
Unfortunately, one way or the other we will likely have a POTUS suffering from mental decline. This video features Biden opponents making claims about his mental instability. Yet, in every case, there is a documented occurrence where Trump displayed the same behavior.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iks184i9FOI
#Metoo might be a convenient excuse to force Joe out, force a brokered convention, and find somebody who has a chance against Trump.
This seems like conservative musings more so than what seems to be reflected in the liberal’s camp. Yet, time will tell. The only thing certain in politics is uncertainty. We will see.
Let’s give Biden a break. If he sexually assaulted any women, I’m sure he can’t remember it.
Good point.
Now here’s the question. If you deny having done something that you forgot that you did, is that a lie?!
When Trump doesn’t remember what he said last week, did he really say it?
Touche! But, sometimes it hasn’t taken a week…it’s been hours. 😉
Bringing up Trump’s foibles to defend Biden, are we? Now that’s a tu quoque!
I already explained why tuquoque is entirely appropriate in this case: One apple is compared with another in order to decide which one to buy.
QUOTE: Bringing up Trump’s foibles to defend Biden, are we? Now that’s a tu quoque!
Sorry Scott, that dog won’t hunt. Where’s the “defense” of Biden? I noted in my initial comments that he SHOULD be held to account. As well, any person in a position of power, inclusive of our current POTUS.
That said, are you willing to hold Trump accountable in the same manner you have Biden? After all, if the “concern” or “criticism” is about having a president with mental decline and/or accusations of sexual assault, both have those issues.
I haven’t heard anyone accuse Trump of sexual misconduct for months, so how is a woman’s accusation against Biden an attempt to minimize Trump’s indiscretions, i.e. a “tu quoque” argument? The original post was about Biden, but you guys immediately pile on Trump, showing that you prefer Biden and are making a tu quoque argument for him. (Personally, despite all his faults, I prefer Trump.)
Anyway, my point is that though Trump may be a liar, and that he has normal problems associated with old-age, he is not senile. Trump’s speeches may be a mixture of truths, lies, provocations and exaggerations, but there they coherent and intelligible.
Biden, on the the other hand, is in an advanced stage of mental deterioration. Once, he even forgot that he was running for president as his mind reverted to bygone days of running for senate. Biden’s speeches are incoherent nonsense. None of the other candidates exhibits such dementia. For example, Sanders, the oldest of them all, is as sharp as a whip. There is a big mental gap between Biden and everyone else, but most Democrats can’t see it. It is astonishing to me that he seems assured of the nomination.
QUOTE: I haven’t heard anyone accuse Trump of sexual misconduct for months, so how is a woman’s accusation against Biden an attempt to minimize Trump’s indiscretions, i.e. a “tu quoque” argument? The original post was about Biden, but you guys immediately pile on Trump, showing that you prefer Biden and are making a tu quoque argument for him. (Personally, despite all his faults, I prefer Trump.)
@Scott, you can stop clutching your Trump-supporting pearls. I addressed the initial issue about Biden and then went on to comment about Trump. Is that not allowed? Is Trump such the “chosen one” that he can’t be discussed or compared? I commented further because I found it ironic that many of the issues raised about Biden are mirrored by Trump. Yet, they are treated quite differently by Trump-supporters. You just proved my point.
BTW, why do you keep trying to make this about something it isn’t? First, you wrongly made an accusation about “defending” Biden. Now, you “assume” preference. The truth of the matter is any reasonable person could see the irony and hypocrisy…”if” their focus was to be “objective”. Frankly, I don’t think Biden nor Trump are above criticism. Given the criticality of the role, it’s all fair game.
QUOTE:Biden, on the the other hand, is in an advanced stage of mental deterioration.
Given Biden’s behavior, it’s a fair “assumption” and I find no issue with it. Yet, when mental health professionals made similar public statements about Trump, his supporters quickly pooh-poohed them…indicating such assessments cannot be legitimately made without direct psychological assessment. So, if speculation wasn’t appropriate for Trump’s bizarre behavior (even by mental health professionals), why is it acceptable to make such sweeping statements (without any direct diagnosis) about Biden?
QUOTE:It is astonishing to me that he seems assured of the nomination.
LOL! THIS is funny! People were making this type of comment about Trump (for various reasons) when he was a candidate…some were even Republican. Irony strikes again! 😉
As an outsider there are things I will never understand about Americans, no matter how much I study my southern neighbours.
Are there a lot of people who don’t think that Biden is losing his faculties? I was assuming it was one of those things that everybody knew and admitted privately, but Democrats didn’t like to bring up because they really want to defeat Trump and there’s no (public?) alternative yet. That strikes me as very dangerous, but if someone convinces himself that Trump is the worst thing ever since the last thing to be the worst thing ever, and thinks the problem can be managed, I can see how the story hangs together. I know what he wants, and what he’s willing to risk to get it.
But that people would claim not to see it, or try to tu-quoque it away, surprises me. A lot.
Is it maybe familiarity? Some boiling-the-frog scenario, where if you’ve been following Biden for a long time you don’t see what’s obvious to everyone else? Probably all of us have had friends in obviously toxic relationships which seemed normal to them because the pathologies manifested slowly, but when we met the partner we knew something was off at once. Maybe it’s like that?
Isn’t the attack on Biden a tu-quoque response for the obvious criticisms of Trump with respect to his cognitive and moral bankruptcy? Isn’t the right trying to tu-quoque the left into obvlivion and vice-versa? Since the Republicans have boasted about being the “family values” party and have shown themselves grotesquely hypocritical in that regard, will their strategy be to show the failure of the Democrats at being the female friendly party? Stay tuned, folks. This ain’t gonna be pretty – especially at a time when the divided house needs unity more than ever, but it will certainly be interesting.
That’s the interesting thing about the right’s criticism of Biden (relative to non-policy issues). What they readily point out in Biden, is reflected in Trump. Yet, somehow they are able to deny/ignore/rationalize/accept Trump’s obvious flaws.
That said, Biden and the left have been hypocritical. Yet, the right has lost their standing to “legitimately” criticize them on that, given their rampant hypocrisy relative to Trump and their alleged party principles. Of course, that won’t stop them. It will just reinforce their hypocrisy…somewhat like when McConnell announced he was NOT impartial, then took a public oath swearing to conduct impartial justice. What a joke!
It’s going to be very amusing watching the campaign mud-slinging this year. Both sides will be guilty of the accusations they make of their opponent. Yet, both will be in utter denial about “their” guy’s culpability. Oh well, given the government is a circus, we shouldn’t be surprised to see it being run by clowns.
Alas, as I said previously…relative to mental decline…no matter who wins, we will end up with a POTUS who’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
I’m not sure how family values got involved. Are you claiming you’re one of the people who legitimately doesn’t see Biden as suffering cognitive decay, and thinks that people who see it are fooling themselves?
Family values are obviously analogous to #metoo. The Republicans are accordingly hypocritical in their boast about supporting family values since they express boundless enthusiasm for a man who takes delight in banging porn stars and grabbing women by their vee-jay.
If you are asking me about Joe Biden, I wasn’t saying anything about him or defending him in any sense. I was only saying that Trump plainly exhibits cognitive decay. Accordingly the argument that one should prefer Trump over Biden because the latter has issues in that regard will not sail. If apple A is blemished, you cannot rationally prefer it because you find that apple B is blemished.
It’s rather sloppy to equate Trump and Biden as both experiencing cognitive decay.
Yes, Trump is pretty old and is experiencing cognitive decay. Most 73 year olds are.
But it’s an order of magnitude difference with Biden.
To compare them precisely would take too much work. The scary thing about Trump, however, is that he actually is in power and will surely get worse as time goes on. Plus, he has that mean-spirited tendency that people often develop as they age, but that’s a topic for another thread I suppose.
That’s just it, how do Trump supporters validate his level of mental decline. What psychological assessment has been authorized and distributed that they are certain that Biden is worse. Trump has done and said some very bizarre things over his tenure as President. It’s scary he has access to the nuclear codes.
For heaven’s sake. So when somebody says “Trump is too mean,” are you going to ask what psychological assessment has been authorized …..
It’s obvious to anyone watching that Biden has deteriorated dramatically in the past two years. There’s no need for an official report.
And speaking of official reports, remember the one that told us how much Trump weighed? 🙂
Hmm. It seems to me that on any metric of cognitive decay that I’m familiar with — which is only at the amateur level, although I have unpleasant family experience which gives me a stake in it, let’s say — Trump does not “plainly exhibit cognitive decay” in the sense that Biden does.
But since I was curious if there were people who felt this way or if they were only pretending for political reasons, assuming that you’re not doing the latter answers my question.
“If apple A is blemished, you cannot rationally prefer it because you find that apple B is blemished.”
Uhh.. I’m guessing you don’t do a lot of shopping for apples? Lots of apples are blemished. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t levels of damage.
I do not wish to support either candidate and have no party affiliation. But I would definitely say that Trump exhibits the blemish under discussion to an alarming degree. I in fact do a good deal of shopping for apples and can spot a blemish like that immediately. I will make a finer comparison when the entertainment event that they call a “debate” is brought before the public eye.
If when shopping, you choose randomly from among apples which are blemished on the grounds there is no rational way to prefer one to another, I don’t understand how you don’t wind up with a considerably lower quality of apples than those of us who reject this approach.
Maybe you are in fact a frequent purchaser of apples and are just terrible at it.
I suspect though that you don’t believe that, and are instead pretending that people aren’t suggesting that there is a level of cognitive function required of Presidential candidates and that Biden is below it and Trump is above it — which seems a reasonable principle, and factual claims which could be argued — but instead have this simplistic binary distinction which is trivially refuted.
If so, congratulations, Sir Robin! I declare you victorious, for what it’s worth. 🙂
My comments have been grotesquely oversimplified, but I leave it up to the intelligent reader to sort that out.
IMO, anyone who doesn’t recognize both are not dealing with a full deck…is fooling themselves. Still, the question remains, how do Trump-supporters verify one is in more severe decline than the other. What psychological verification do they have? Sorry, I don’t trust their observations because they are clearly biased when it comes to him (as those who support Biden). As the sage saying goes, “people should admit their own ignorance, of course. But it’s far more important that they admit their own bias.”
A note on “tu quoque”: When we are not only comparing apples to apples, but also trying to decide which apple is better, it is entirely appropriate that we allow for “tu quoque.” If, for instance, your friend recommends apple A because apple B is bruised, it is quite rational to point out that apple A is also bruised. If your friend is fully aware of this fact, he in fact is the one who is being irrational.
Scott said “There is a big mental gap between Biden and everyone else, but most Democrats can’t see it.”
I think they can see it. They’re just pretending not to. It’s like the emperor’s new clothes. The thing everybody knows but won’t say.
QUOTE: I think they can see it. They’re just pretending not to. It’s like the emperor’s new clothes. The thing everybody knows but won’t say.
Yeah, that’s likely. As well, the Republicans have MASTERED this behavior concerning Trump.
As I said previously, it’s going to be an interesting campaign season. Imagine this, Trump comes after Biden for this recent sexual assault allegation. You can be sure, Trump’s MANY accusers will be featured….with endless replays of porn star Stormy Daniels revealing she spanked him! Yet, the cherry on the top will be Trump’s tape featuring his self-admission that he “made a move” on a married woman and famous men can grab women by the genitals and get away with it. So much of this stuff will be flying it might be the first rated-X campaign season. Imagine parents having to explain that to their children. But wait, there’s more. Each side will vehemently deny ANY culpability and continue attacking each other as if “their guy” has no issues. Yeah, lunacy on steroids…can’t wait! 😉
The Republicans proved highly successful with the emperor’s new clothes and they will continue to do it – shamelessly. It was only a matter of time before the Democrats caught on to this road to “success.”