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I Will Not Mock Joe Biden
“You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.-Alexander Solzhenitsyn
A few of months ago, I made a couple of (what I thought) were amusing posts on social media about Joe Biden’s gaffes on the campaign trail. They were generally good-natured little jabs about his tendency to slip up during interviews and how often he loses his temper in seemingly normal situations. At the time, they seemed funny, and my friends and I got a good laugh out of them. Now though, after some reflection, I’m beginning to think that my remarks about Biden weren’t nearly as funny as they were cruel, that perhaps I should hold myself to the same standards that I hold the world. I have decided, for the sake of my own moral character, that I will not mock Joe Biden.
Let’s begin with the most basic truth: I’m not a fan of Joe Biden. He’s a career politician that has been the architect of countless bad ideas and has generally pulled the country in the wrong direction for forty years. However, I do not hate Joe Biden. Hate is a counterproductive emotion, and hating someone simply because you disagree with their politics is destructive to both your moral character and political discourse. My personal disagreements with him do not justify any cruelty on my part toward Joe Biden as a human being. I hope that I am above that.
I only wish that the party that is nominating Joe Biden felt the same way.
It is clear that Mr. Biden is a diminished man. In countless interviews, the presumed democratic nominee has shown that he simply lacks the mental acumen to hold elected office. He stumbles over names, speaks incoherently about boilerplate subjects, and has obvious difficulty maintaining his train of thought. He is a man in decline, which is not that unusual for a 77 year old. In a better world, he would be at home spoiling his grandchildren, holding his wife, and reflecting on his accomplishments after four decades of public service.
We, however, do not live in a better world.
For reasons that are beyond me, the democratic party has decided to pitch their efforts behind Biden, in what has become something of a ghastly spectacle. Each day, they trot out a new video of Biden rambling on about the issues of the day. With each new installment, I am driven to point of pity. Encouraging this man to engage in a highly stressful activity when he is clearly not at his best is cruel, and I wonder about the health of an institution that would allow it to go on unabated. I understand the that desire to beat Trump (of whom I am not a fan) has reached a fever pitch on the American left, but is it worth your basic human dignity to do so?
In my imagination, I foresee what a debate might look like between Trump and Biden: an insecure, petty political animal vs. a man that quite literally has no faculties with which to defend himself. It will be a bloodbath of epic proportions. We, however, will watch with bated breath. One of the hallmarks of our decadent society is our bottomless appetite for the blood-sport of partisan politics, and nothing, not even the destruction of a fellow human being on national television, will sate that hunger.
Perhaps if a better man were on stage with Biden, he would say something like this:
“I understand that the democratic party has already formally nominated Mr. Biden for president, but it has become clear to me that the stress of this campaign and his general mental decline has made him unfit for office. It is beneath my dignity to tear down a man simply because I am running for political office. With that in mind, if the democratic party chooses to replace Mr. Biden with a more capable candidate, I will offer no opposition. I fully understand that replacing Mr. Biden may lessen my chances of winning this election, but no election–even the presidency–is worth destroying a fellow human being. Please, for the sake of human decency, consider my offer.”
These, of course, will not be the words that Trump speaks. They might have been the words of a Ben Sasse or a Mitch Daniels, but our current political process is built to self-select those most willing the inflict damage on their fellow man for partisan gain. It is a process that rejects decent men and women as defective and promotes the mast savage and craven among us. What we are currently witnessing is the apex that process–I hope.
No, I will no longer mock Joe Biden. I will not participate in a process that destroys another man. I may not be able to stop the disease of American political culture from soaking into the very marrow of our moral fiber, but I will not invite into my soul. Let it take over the world, but not through me.
Published in General 
There’s much to like here, and particularly in the first portion. This isn’t at all about Trump, so speculating about how he’ll contribute to the ongoing exploitation of Vice President Biden seems premature. But the rest of it, and in particular the call for compassion, I think is spot on.
As long as we don’t conflate mocking with criticizing, I’m fine with this as a personal choice.
I must confess that “Crooked Hillary” didn’t particularly bother me though.
This process will expose the real Joe Biden regardless of his faculties. The Democrats have selected a grifter of the highest order to represent their interests in the next election. Their choices were slim – a communist, a couple of social justice warriors lacking Obama’s charm and charisma, a small time mayor who tried way too hard to check too few boxes, another grifter (though female), a man who looked like a Kennedy but acted like a cartoon character, and on and on. Joe Biden actually seemed to be the best of the bunch, that is, until he started to campaign. The Joe that everyone remembered, the blue collar, truculent, train riding, Democrat loyalist, never arrived. What we saw was a braggert, a much diminished, shell of a man whose arrogant. opportunist past, whose pandering and profiteering, whose corruption, reflected the real Joe; his corruption, like corrosive desilvering on the back of the political glass, exposed an ugly, old, distorted, contorted con man and nothing like the candidate they had hoped for. Joe Biden should be exposed as the arrogant, corrupt, swamp creature he really is.
Pity not old Joe. If he were smart he’d drop out, cite his health. We know he’s not smart and not getting any smarter. I will gain no satisfaction when he is drubbed by DT; I probably will not even watch. But Biden deserves nothing less and the rest of the Democrats deserve no quarter.
I have speculated openly here on Ricochet that Biden may be suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Having seen the effects of Alzheimer’s directly as it gradually eroded the intellect of my father who was a brilliant and good man, it is something I hope others may never have to experience in themselves or for their loved ones. And the most upsetting aspect of Biden’s condition is that his wife, his other family members, and his supporters are either in denial about his decline or are so hungry for power that they’re actively excusing it or trying to scoff it off. If the latter, then that is utterly shameful but also indicates how vile those are who are around him.
All that said, it would be remiss to forget that Joe Biden has not just been a blundering and deceitful politician over the years but has become wealthy and allowed his family to become wealthy through rampant graft. Recently has been accused of sexual assault which most in the #MeToo movement and the news media at large – including Fox News – have chosen to ignore. His other strange behavior in fondling women and young girls is evident and has been documented in numerous videos. I believe all of those issues should remain to be front and center because it speaks to the character of the man not his current and apparent mental decline and should be fair game to criticize, mock, and shine a spotlight.
Since we will not be the ones who actively choose to abuse the elderly suffering from dementia, whoever is put up representing the opposition has to be held to account for their policies. That can be done without personal abuse. The fact that they do the abusing is reprehensible in itself and can be named as indicative of the party’s worldview.
I thought Crooked Hillary was pretty clever and factual. Has a ring to it…..
Least we forget Joe had two brain aneurysms one on the left and one on the right. This was in 1988. Both required open skull surgery.Most people are never quite the same afterwards including Joe. I have a cousin who is a neurologist that voluntarily quit his practice because he recognized he was no longer capable. That was after just one such operation. At least my cousin still had enough brain power to realize he no longer could cut it. Apparently Joe had no longer that much ability. Joe shouldn’t be mocked. The people of Delaware should have voted him from office. He isn’t capable of running a popsicle stand let alone be President.
I feel no special compulsion to pile on Joe, but I won’t pretend I’m a better person for not doing so, either. Or that I’m promoting a “better world”. I just don’t think it has any effect.
Anyone familiar with Joe Biden and the overall tone of Democrats over the last several decades knows they’ve been mocking Republicans relentlessly on any and every front. Biden told voters that Republicans want to put black folks “back in chains”. He said that before dementia stepped in. That wasn’t an attack on people’s mental acuities, it was an attack on our morals and worthiness of being considered decent human beings.
Somehow, I don’t think making light of someone’s mental abilities ( and Biden was already handicapped in that area) when they, their families, and their party are touting them as able to lead our country and have Presidential dominion over us is out of line.
It’s not my fault, or Trump’s, or Republicans fault that they have gotten themselves stuck with this guy. It’s a symptom, or a result, of their strategies for dealing with Republicans and their strange alliances and schemes to accumulate power.
Biden is entitled and he’s corrupt. He is so entitled and clueless he doesn’t even think he is one bit corrupt. His party doesn’t think he’s corrupt. Compared to them he’s probably a lightweight – at least compared to Hillary.
Of course it’s always ugly to watch people pick such low-hanging fruit mocking the obvious. It makes the person making the observations look uncreative and pedestrian. Where have I seen that in the last three years? Everywhere, and very often, daily, usually involving one particular President. Thankfully, that guy has a thick skin and a strong sense of self, so he remains unaffected.
“Trump… an insecure, petty political animal”
Really?
Your fantasy speech is absurd on its face. It is highly insulting to Biden and to Democrats and is a grandstanding virtue-signal. It’s also arrogant. But maybe you don’t see that, just like you have badly diagnosed Trump’s personality. He’s certainly not insecure. I think he can sometimes look petty, but generally I see him as magnanimous, and he’s not anywhere close to being the “political animal” that most inhabitants of Washington DC are. Not even close to the scheming Democrats who oppose him (and us).
But good for you! You’re a good person who wants a “ better world”. Good luck, but I’m not sure if this helps. We lose this election and the world will be much worse off and our freedom is at stake. But you be a good boy and set an example for everyone and maybe some day they will all come around to your point of view.
The Democrat Party is filled with people professing kind and generous intent for humanity while just under their surface lurks millions of little tyrants. You can be assured if the Party is inhabited by such a large quantity of little tyrants, it is run by a few huge tyrants. Joe Biden is the pawn being used by these puppeteers to ultimately choose for themselves who is going to be their candidate…and they certainly are not stupid enough to allow that choice to be Joe Biden. So first, they used Joe to rid themselves of Bernie, then they use Joe to rid themselves of their voters, then they pick their candidate. This will happen somewhere around the supposed convention. Biden will have a massive attack of ill health of some form. As a result, the huge tyrant’s candidate will be presented for all the little tyrants to approve. And so it shall come to pass, the selection of the 2020 Democrat candidate for POTUS.
It is certainly possible to publicly criticize Biden for his corrupt behavior and bad politics without mocking him for senility. If he is going senile, we should not hesitate to advertise the fact. But there is always a temptation to cruelty toward one’s enemies that must be resisted.
That all seems a little harsh, to me. Maybe it’s just because I tend to agree with the author that Joe Biden is more to be pitied than scorned, but I don’t think it’s meaningless to call for charity and compassion — and just a bit of self-restraint — in the face of pretty obvious growing mental incompetence.
You and I agree that the post’s dragging Trump into the Democrat’s debacle was unnecessary, and probably shouldn’t have been done. I think it was premature; we don’t know how Trump will comport himself on the stage when and if he debates Biden, and he deserves the benefit of the doubt. You’re right that he can be magnanimous. He can also be petty and mean, and sometimes clumsy. My own guess is that he’ll handle himself well, because he has a good sense of what works for the audience, but, as a Trump supporter who desperately wants him to win in November, I won’t entirely relax until the debates are over and I’ve read the transcripts.
Anyway, calling for compassion for people with declining mental facilities doesn’t sound like virtue signaling to me. It just sounds like basic decency. That doesn’t mean that we can’t criticize Biden, who was never a good man, however likable, never a smart man, and now not really a functioning man. We have to criticize him; beyond that, we have to excoriate the Democratic party for placing this literal incompetent on the ticket. But mocking the mentally ill for their mental illness isn’t good behavior, nor a good look.
My wife warned me about including Trump in the essay. I should have listened to her. LOL
Best wishes,
MBG
And make no mistake, it is a personal choice. My default position, when it comes to political debates, is: Scorched Earth. I’m doing my best to be an honest critic of my own behavior. I often find myself wondering: am I saying these things because I’m speaking the truth or because I want to wound my political enemy?
LOLing out loud. Listen to your better angel. ;)
But seriously, I’m entirely with you on the compassion thing. And this is one more reason to feel contempt for a movement — the American progressive movement — that has foisted such miserable choices on us that sensible people, including sensible Democrats, have to try to defend a mentally impaired Joe Biden over an outright socialist nincompoop that no one wanted. As long as they continue to elevate the most extreme and foolish people and the most discredited ideas, the entire political process is dragged into the gutter.
I blame the press, which has simply become a PR firm for the left, for much of what’s wrong.
That’s the key, isn’t it? We can criticize with compassion. It isn’t a binary game.
The video of Biden’s appearance last week on “The View” was sad, because surrounded by supportive questioners, Biden struggled to get his message out coherently, and in a couple of asides, commented about his problems getting his message out coherently.
So he does seem to have some sense of self-awarness that he’s struggling. But the fact he seems to be A-OK on bulling through that isn’t something to be supportive of, since this isn’t Joe Biden staggering to the finish line at the end of a 26-mile marathon; it’s Joe Biden staggering up to the starting line of the race.
He may really believe that only he can beat Trump, while at the same time he might also be OK with turning the job over to someone else after he wins in November because of his mental decline. But if that’s the game-plan, he and his people are running something of a bait-and-switch on the voters, who need to be aware that they’re voting for Biden’s Vice President in the fall in a more important way than any other race since Truman replaced Henry Wallace as Roosevelt’s VP in the 1944 presidential election cycle, because the Democratic Party leadership knew what might be coming.
I have compassion for Biden the man.
But as a politician/public figure, he’s running for an important public office, and given the obvious decline in his mental faculties it is unforgivable that he hasn’t stepped aside, or that the powers that be in his party haven’t forced him out. It is important that his deterioration be called out at every opportunity before it’s too late.
.
Do you remember the Vice Presidential debate with Ryan? Several times, Biden went on what seemed to me as incoherent rants and Ryan had no idea what to do. The media managed to spin it as a big win for Joe.
If Ryan had only said something like “Joe, do you need a short break?”, it would have made a big difference. Would that have been cruel?
I feel free to mock Joe Biden.
He is putting himself out in public in an effort to claim the most powerful job in the world when he clearly has no business doing so. And the people who presumably love him and have the moral duty to protect him from harming himself are not doing so. If they don’t see a need to protect him from embarrassment, I don’t see why I should.
I will not mock a person who is slipping mentally as that person navigates normal life. But if that person starts trying to position himself to run my life and none of his family or other protectors protect him, I consider him fair game.
I think most people have done exactly what M. Brandon is advocating. I certainly stopped highlighting Biden’s ‘gaffes’ months ago. Maybe it’s also because I find gaffes to be mostly stupid gotcha things anyway. Does anyone really believe Obama didn’t know there were 50 states? I even understand what Biden means sometimes. I also understand what Trump means when he misspeaks. These are often the most partisan and low attacks, especially when it’s just stupid and hostile.
It’s clearly something that goes beyond the gaffe and into the realm of dementia or loss of mental acuity. And that should be off the table unless the person is presuming to run the free world. So it’s nothing to mock, but something to remember and if needed, point out.
But if you are going to mischaracterize another person who, by the way has been mocked unceasingly for real and imagined faults on a daily basis for four years now, and you just noticed some crude and unfair mockery of Biden and write a post on it, well, not a good look, as you say.
To actually suggest that a politician ostensibly representing me should make a speech advising that the opponent his enemies ( and they are) selected to nobly suggest and allow them to pick a better champion for the sake of “basic human decency”, is beyond my comprehension. Sounds very virtue signally to me – and itself is an attack passive-aggressive style! Your candidate isn’t all there and find someone else with my agreement even if I have an increased chance of losing. Sounds along the lines of what McCain did. That sends the wrong message, as though your opponents are fighting fair. They are not, and they won’t be. Anyway, they will replace Biden soon enough.
Basic human decency has been abandoned long ago by Democrats. Kavanaugh? The false accusations? The spying? The endless claims of racism? The lies?
As I said, there’s no need to be like them and take pleasure mocking someone. Joe Biden included. But who is doing this? Not me. And other than the author, who admits he mocked Joe before, but that was before it became obvious he’s got a real problem, in which case he’s already exonerated in my book.
I just suspect the author has a skewed sense of human decency if this is what animates him.
Joe has been ruthless and effective in promoting evil and opposing the good. He should repent and ask God for forgiveness. He should fear God more than human mockery.
That’s actually a pretty good question. I’m sure that the cesspool that is Twitter is full of cruel stuff, but that’s Twitter: one wades in at one’s own risk. I haven’t seen any criticisms of Biden that seem cruel, though I’m sure they’re out there.
Exactly. When I have to think of Joe Biden now, I think of him in the past tense because his present appearances seem to indicate he is in severe decline. In observing him throughout his 40+ year political career I have found nothing in his actions or his character worthy of praise or acceptance. As you said.
What makes you so sure, Doug? I guess an approval rate of 40 doesn’t preclude a win, but I am not so sanguine. But then, I am in Massachusetts and don’t meet many other Trump supporters., though there are a few of us.
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.
Because, when it comes to mockery, it seems to me that promoting this conspicuously diminished, unprincipled, and corrupt careerist hack to be President mocks every American voter.
So I’ll stop when they stop.
I’m so glad you feel so good about yourself that you feel the need to tell us all about your virtuousness.
I’ve lived just outside Delaware my entire life so I’ve been privy to a close up view of Biden’s 45 year career in politics. Biden is a liar, a crook, a plagiarist, a bully, a sexual predator, a grifter. He is well known as one of the most vicious, nasty, underhanded men to serve in our body politic. He is corrupt, vain, underhanded, incompetent. What kind of man ruins another man’s life by repeating a lie that the driver involved in his wife’s fatal accident was drunk when he wasn’t; when it was his wife who crossed over into the oncoming lane, causing the accident.
He has managed to amass one of the largest fortunes in American history for himself, his family and his cronies on a Senator’s pay. Sound legit? He is a treasonous, corrupt, stupid man who has never produced one single thing of value for our country. He will do anything, and I mean anything, to disparage, smear or take down one of his political opponents. For just one example of his true character, re-watch the Clarence Thomas nomination hearings.
And this man with obvious and dangerous cognitive deficits wants to be the leader of our great country? As many are aware, I’m the wife caregiver for a smart, beautiful, loving husband who’s in the last stages of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. No one could be more sensitive to mocking or disrespecting a person with this horrid, life-wrecking illness. But based on the way that Joe Biden has lived his life, not only doesn’t he deserve a pass, I will do whatever is necessary and within my power to prevent this evil man from becoming our president, including mocking him if that is effective. G-d will sort it out in the end but for now I’ll follow my own conscience because I can’t stand still imagining the misery and suffering a Biden presidency would bring to the nation, including millions of unborn babies. If that makes me a bad person, so be it. I am willing to take the consequences.
Next time, I promise to tell you how I really feel.
I think the Democrats have learned that if they run a ‘marginalized’ candidate, the Republicans will be afraid to attack them. It worked with ‘of-color’, would have worked with a woman and now they are trying ‘cognitive defects’.
By his makes sense to me. Pawn Biden.
There will be no need for Trump to be magnanimous in deference to old Joe. The Dems will shed him, with no qualms.
Agree 100% and it angers me when both the right and the left harp on these misstatements. I expect it from the left but I expect better from the right. They are my team after all. Unless you are reading off a teleprompter, I suspect we all make these types of mistakes when speaking in public .
They picked Biden because they had no credible alternative running, then were left with only Biden or a crazy old socialist. The crazy old Socialist risked actually doing what he said. Biden won’t, he’ll just make himself, some key organizations and individuals rich and expand federal power. How Trump plays the debate isn’t easy to predict.