In the wee hours of Super Tuesday, my phone chimed. A friend of mine, a writer of acclaim–and coincidentally the first person I knew who got blocked on Twitter by @RealDonaldTrump–was DM’ing with a variation on a familiar question: What is it with you and Joe Biden?
I had spent the preceding week calling and texting South Carolina voters in the lead-up to Biden’s historic comeback primary win, and I’d been crowing about it on Twitter. I was excited.
What made me an oddity worthy of my friend’s writerly curiosity was not my support of Joe Biden, per se–the former Vice President would go on to secure millions of votes on his way to a resounding primary victory–it was my excitement.
In my progressive social circles, my guy was generally viewed as persona non grata. Yet, here I was: a feminist believer in Medicare for All, an AOC-loving Green New Deal supporter, voting for Joe Biden. Not just voting, volunteering. And not only that, standing up and cheering, alone in my living room, moved to tears by his, well, Bidenesque victory speech.
It’s a cliché of American politics that Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line. Yet in 2020, the most unprecedented of years, Democrats fell in line. By the end of that first week of March, the cake was baked. Biden would be the nominee, on the strength of dutiful, if not enthusiastic, support from Democrats.
Nearly eight months later, the narrative of his appeal has developed only slightly–Biden is the empathetic alternative to Trump the sociopath–but even less than a month out, pundits were still peddling the “Biden Enthusiasm Gap” story.
And so, less than 100 hours shy of a day I’ve dreamt about for five years, I’m stepping out of the shadows: here I am, the Progressive Biden Stan. And this is why I love Joe.
Joe the Empath
For all of his policy achievements (and there are many) and high-profile moments of both cringe and character, Biden’s signature quality remains his deep empathy. If the most predictive polling score is still “understands people like me,” then Biden’s had this thing in the bag since day one.
As a father, I find Joe Biden to be an inspiration and a role model. As a son who’s felt the loss of those closest to him, I find him to be a comfort. He gets it. He’s been there. He wakes up each day and keeps going, and it’s easy to believe that he does it for me.
But it’s not just that he’s humane, he’s human. Honest about his failings and transparent about working to evolve, grow, and improve. Even at nearly 78, having sat at the pinnacle of global power, he listens, acknowledges, apologizes, vows to do better. Have you ever thought about the courage that takes, on a national stage? If Barack and Michelle were the perfect 21st century couple, Joe is perfectly imperfect, and those imperfections spur us (at least, me) to want to evolve, grow, and improve too. Consider Joe Biden the president for the Ted Lasso era.
Joe The Progressive
This may surprise you, but Joe Biden has put forward the most progressive major party presidential platform ever. He is Warrenesque in his commitment to comprehensive policy plans, and he has been ahead of his party on important social issues like gay marriage.
But my enthusiasm for Biden’s isn’t just about abstract policy positions. I’m excited for him to deliver. I believe a Biden presidency will create a better America in 2024, because in the hands of Joe Biden, our progressive goals are more likely to be realized. Joe understands the machinations of progressive policy. My starry-eyed compatriots may chafe, but the lesson of Obama’s success can be summed up in a speech he gave just two weeks into his administration, which referenced Voltaire’s “Perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Take healthcare. Yes, many of us initially hoped for a single-payer plan, and when that proved impossible, our fall-back was a public option; yet the Affordable Care Act emerged as a Romney-style marketplace, far from the progressive ideal. But today it is undeniable that America with Obamacare is better than America without it. Joe Biden was correct when he called it “a big f*cking deal.” It was, and ten years on, it still is.
While the ACA has been under fire from the Right since day one, they’ve offered no replacement. Obamacare is now the baseline for acceptable healthcare on a national scale. Obamacare wasn’t the goal, it was the starting point.
The point here is, the march forward is long and frustratingly slow. As progressive public policy goes, it is a battle of inches, sometimes a war of attrition, but you gain ground and hold it, establish a beachhead, prepare your next attack. That’s how progress works.
Many on the Left speak derisively of “incrementalism;” it’s equated with weakness, lack of vision, or pessimism about the human spirit. I reject that. While the path may be slow, it is noble, and the battle worth it. It’s also decent: it meets people where they are, and helps them onward in their understanding of what’s possible; indeed, what is good.
Joe the Everyman
Early on in the primary, arguments of Biden’s electability were panned, considered by some to be flawed and outdated, if not downright misogynistic. But they have largely been borne out, and proven not to be based on sexism, but on the much more simple fact that people know Joe and people like Joe. Lots of people, from all walks of life.
I’ve always believed Joe Biden would be a strong candidate and an excellent President because people innately trust and respect him, and he trusts and respects the American people. He will give it to us straight, no malarkey. It’s what we need right now.
The numerous attempts at smearing Hunter and tagging Joe with a scandal are perfect examples of that. Sure, the media deserves some credit for having learned from their 2016 mistakes, but I think the larger reason why nothing sticks is that no one is buying it. It doesn’t pass the smell test. Remember Tara Reade? Me neither – I just had to ask Google for her name.
This air of basic common decency and mutual respect will blunt the weapon of Fox News and right-wing misinformation. Only the staunchest partisans and the kookiest conspiracy theorists really fall for the wacky stories, and that will re-relegate the right-wing propaganda to the fringes, from whence it came and to where it must return. That will enable him to rally the American people when he needs to, and shoot down attacks when they come.
TL;DR: you’re damn right I’m excited about Joe Biden. And if these don’t all add up to a reason to believe, there’s one hell of an ace in the hole: Kamala Harris.
—
