Column
The Hater’s Guide to Joe Biden
The man is a living rerun, and we’ve seen this show way too many times already
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Some people are supporters of Joe Biden. But many, many more people are NOT supporters of Joe Biden. This 2020 GEN magazine hater’s guide, the final in an already famed and illustrious series, is for those in the latter group.
Your candidate
The okayest boomer.
His résumé
Spent eight years as Vice President and would be a shoo-in for this nomination if his old boss, Barack Obama, had endorsed him already. Obama has not. Do you know how early Bill Clinton endorsed Al Gore back when Gore was running to succeed him? December 1999, well over a month before the 2000 Iowa caucuses. Gore would end up winning those caucuses in a predictable landslide, along with every single primary afterward. Biden, by contrast, will be lucky to beat out the fucking mayor of South Bend when the Iowa returns come in. Diamond Joe is on his own for this campaign. It’s been like watching someone throw a baby into a swimming pool.
There are a lot of reasons why Biden is sleepwalking his way toward defeat, but his record itself is more than damning enough on its own. You know the basics. The 1992 crime bill that Biden promised would “do everything but hang people for jaywalking.” Serving as Senate judiciary chair during Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings and leaving Anita Hill to twist and watching Thomas get confirmed and move on to serve as Antonin Scalia’s rubber stamp even after Scalia dropped dead. Offering a feeble apology to Hill — years and years after her life was ransacked — that Hill didn’t accept and wouldn’t even categorize as an apology. Voting for the Iraq war. Fighting against busing to help desegregate schools in the 1970s, and even courting segregationists to bolster his cause. You probably know about all of that.
But it gets worse. He lied about marching in the civil rights movement. He aborted a 1988 presidential run after he got caught plagiarizing a speech, Melania-style. And, of course, last year he said, without a hint of awareness or shame, “I just think there is a way, and the thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald…
