Biden’s Brain: Stuck in the 1980s

Joe Biden’s gaffes (like his recent one with the African-American NYC broadcaster) are pathetic. When he tries to be chummy, he fails because he uses the wrong words. Dear readers, I’m sure at some point in your career or at school you attended a diversity awareness seminar or event—where you learned what we say when we speak of minorities. It’s obvious Biden’s never had this experience, because Senators and Vice Presidents don’t do diversity seminars. His brain is stuck in the 1980s; a time before diversity issues entered the wider public consciousness.

How could this happen? It’s a result of Biden’s easy re-elections to the Senate, and having strict handlers when he was the V.P.

Biden was only 29 years old when he won his first Senate race in 1972. Sadly, his daughter and first wife were killed in auto accident a few weeks after the election. This accident established Joe Biden’s brand: the suffering widower. Even after he remarried about five years later, his brand was going strong in Delaware. He didn’t have to worry about a primary challenger, as the state party controlled the nominee selection process. On the Republican side, token candidates popped up to fill the line on the ballot, but running against Biden was a no-hoper cause.

It was a no-hoper because in the minds of Delaware voters, Joe Biden was that poor man who lost his wife and child in a horrible accident. And there was no way someone would challenge the incumbent by telling voters to stop feeling sorry for Biden!

Thus Biden skated to his re-elects, bragging about his ties to blue collar workers, while Delaware was hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs.

And there’s the culture of the Senator’s office. As someone who once worked for a Senator, the first thing a staffer learns is to sublimate themselves so the Senator gets the credit. Always. Secondly, the Senator takes advice from a handful of people, which he/she can accept or reject. No-one can ‘make’ a Senator do anything, unless the order comes from the Majority/Minority Leader.

In 2008, Biden was running for his sixth Senate term, when he was tapped by Barack Obama to be his Vice Presidential candidate. This new role involved handlers to ensure Biden wouldn’t do or say anything that would jeopardize Obama’s campaign. Then, as Vice President, those handlers continued to have Biden on a short leash.

The downside to the handler situation was how Biden was being protected from making a mistake—but not learning how to protect himself.

Apparently, the V.P. job was not a heavy lift, as every Friday afternoon I’d hear the whoosh-whoosh of his heliocopter flying over my house in Wilmington to take Joe to his home in “Chateaux Country” (as Delawareans call it).

Then, in 2015, Biden’s politically ambitious (and smarter) son, Beau, died from brain cancer at age 46. Joe orchestrated Beau’s funeral with an eye to a presidential run. The funeral received intense national coverage, although Beau was a minor elected official in a tiny state, whose father was not the top man in the Obama administration.

The funeral was a success, politically. It tweaked Joe Biden’s brand for a national audience. Now Biden was the suffering father, as he had once been the suffering widower.

He stood aside in 2016 as Hillary Clinton bulldozed her way to the Democratic nomination.

Then in 2017, he came out with a book, “Promise Me, Dad” about Beau’s last year of life and coping with grief. It was #1 on the New York Times’ bestseller list; his nationwide book tour was very successful.

It played to Biden’s strength: projecting a public persona of a man overcoming intense grief and loss while looking to the future.

It’s worth noting how the book tour was carefully scripted to keep Biden always on his own existential turf.

Fast forward to 2020, and Biden is no longer in control of his environment, with no enforcer-handlers to curb his behavior. He continually stumbles through this new political world.

Biden’s nearly half-century as the candidate from the Pity Party is over. As he’s learned from the African-American community, weepy sympathy can’t make up for insensitive gaffes.

I’m reminded of the scene in the hit series “A Confession” where John, a senior cop (played by Martin Freeman) has coffee with another (Ray), who uses vulgar language when ranting over the sexual harassment complaints against him. John warns Ray: “we don’t talk that way anymore”.

The same goes for you, Mr. Biden. We don’t talk that way anymore.