Joe Biden is stuck in a bygone era where Democrats were desperate to be accepted by wealthy donors. That’s at the root of his recent comments that he opposed “demonizing” the wealthy.
“’Remember, I got in trouble with some of the people on my team, on the Democratic side, because I said, you know, what I’ve found is rich people are just as patriotic as poor people. Not a joke. I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who’s made money,’ Biden told about 100 well-dressed donors at the Carlyle Hotel on New York’s Upper East Side, where the hors d’oeuvres included lobster, chicken satay and crudites.
‘Truth of the matter is, you all know, you all know in your gut what has to be done,’ Biden said. ‘We can disagree in the margins. But the truth of the matter is, it’s all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living would change. Nothing would fundamentally change,’ he said.”
Just to clarify, contemporary Democrats are mostly talking about restoring tax levels for the wealthy to, at most, something like the Clinton-era levels, a time when the wealthy still were getting plenty rich. That’s hardly “demonizing.” If Joe doesn’t understand that, he doesn’t belong in the race.
At a time when the United States has the worst wealth inequality since 1928, in no small part due to massive tax giveaways to the wealthy under Donald Trump and George W. Bush, a correction is obviously warranted. If Joe doesn’t understand that, he doesn’t belong in the race.
Moreover, restoring tax fairness through progressive tax reform is the only real way to responsibly finance badly needed help for families, children, students, patients, workers and the environment. Democrats can’t live up to their progressive values if they don’t make those investments. If Joe doesn’t understand that, he doesn’t belong in the race.
Policy substance aside, this episode reveals a dangerous political blindspot, and/or insufficient awareness that everything you say anywhere in 2019 is very much “on the record.” Characterizing core progressive ideas as somehow “demonizing” the wealthy is spectacularly dumb primary politics. It also forfeits perhaps the strongest issue Democrats have for running against a corrupt billionaire and his congressional apologists, whose entire agenda has been designed to further enrich billionaires at the expense of the middle class and future generations of Americans.
If Joe doesn’t understand that, he especially doesn’t belong in the race.
And you know what? After reading Biden’s remarks, I’m pretty concerned that the 76-year old, who has been an elected official for 48-years, during political eras that were very different from the current era, doesn’t sufficiently understand any of those 2019 realities.
When Biden said, ‘. . .nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living would change. Nothing would fundamentally change,” did he mean he is opposed to tax reform at all? I’m not clear on this.
We need tax reform, badly, and we also need to make policies without demonizing anyone. Trump demonizes people as a strategy, and it’s making our politics more toxic than ever. The internet is filled with self-righteous people demonizing those they disagree with. So I’m with Joe on not demonizing people, not even the 1%. But if he’s ok with the tax laws we have now, I’m certainly not going to be able to support him.
I agree with you, Joe, that Biden is a creature out of different era, and the reason he inspires very little confidence in me is that I don’t detect any sense of his awareness of how different the game is being played today. While I do believe the Democratic candidate has to project an image of confidence and avoid getting dragged into the sewer that is Trump, the coming season will require reactions and responses tuned to 2019, not 1989. Old school orthodoxy against the rancid hysteria Trump will take an unheard of level over the next 17 months has to be countered with something sharper and more, dare I say, explanatory than assuring voters the GOP will have an “epihany” once Trump is gone.
I get a kick out of ex-GOP black arts advisor Rick Wilson. His book, “Everything Trump Touches Dies” is full of gallows hilarity. Here’s him talking about last night’s rally in Orlando.
Veteran GOP strategist Rick Wilson on Tuesday pointed out one of the biggest problems Democrats must face up to “very quickly” during the 2020 election — President Donald Trump’s ability to lie, and lie rapidly.
Wilson warned on MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour with Brian Williams” that Trump will “spout a torrent, a tidal wave of BS in this campaign and they’re gonna try to play catch up with it every day and they’re not going to be able to because he can lie with a speed and faculty that no one else has ever had.”
The Florida based political consultant had earlier explained how Trump could “say anything and do anything and there’s no boundary he can cross” that loses the votes of his hard-core supporters, such as the members of his base who attended his reelection campaign launch Tuesday in Orlando.
“The ones that were committed enough to go and show up in that room tonight, they live in a completely separate political sphere now,” said Wilson, who previously worked on political campaigns for former President George H.W. Bush and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
“It is hermetic,” he added. “They live inside Donald Trump’s definitions of reality. He can tell them ‘the wall is 3,000 feet long and made of solid gold and has alligator moats’ and they’ll say ‘Of course it does.’”
“They believe what he tells them, and it doesn’t matter.”
I agree Democrats shouldn’t say “those greedy mofos.” If that’s what Biden meant by “demonizing,” I would agree.
But I’m pretty sure what he is saying is effectively “don’t worry donors, I won’t raise your taxes at all, or much” and those other Democrats who do want to raise your taxes are “demonizers.”
That’s what bothers me. Not being willing to openly and honestly say to any and all audiences, “taxes for the wealthy have been cut over and over in the Bush and Trump years to the point where we have historic levels of wealth inequality and that’s hurting ordinary Americans, so we need go back to the tax rates you were paying in the Clinton years.”
Look, if Biden is the candidate, I’ll certainly be pulling the lever for him in November 2020.
That said, he is definitely not my first choice. I also think that he is out of touch, and I don’t think he has the ability to counter Trump. I don’t think he is agile enough. Yes, he projects a sort of gravitas, and I appreciate the sense of a return to normalcy. But that simply isn’t enough, and I certainly don’t get the sense that there is more to Biden than that.
Agreed, I will enthusiastically vote for Biden if he is the nominee.
If I had a magic wand, I’d make Harris or Booker POTUS, Buttigieg VP, Warren Chief of Staff, and Biden Secretary of State. I’d send the rest of them back home to run for Senate or Governor. Still waiting for the magic wand to arrive though.
But there is no question that Biden would be infinitely better than Trump, and probably a much better President than candidate for President.
I agree.