Rodney Dangerfield
Despicable, Disgusting, Shameful: you’d think people were describing a child molester, or a serial killer. But in the last forty-eight hours, these words were used to describe Joe Biden, the President of the United States. And it wasn’t Republicans talking about the President. These were “fellow” Democrats describing the President of their own party.
Rodney Dangerfield was an American comedian who made an entire career out of getting “no respect”. And Joe Biden has been the “Rodney Dangerfield” of the Democratic Party, ever since the hair plug transplants of the 1980’s and aborted runs for President two decades apart. But he also was the overwhelming winner of the Democratic primaries in 2020, and seemed to be the only candidate that could defeat Donald Trump. And he did.
(Democrats tend to forget that. We remember the early primaries in New Hampshire, Iowa, and Nevada, when Mayor Pete and Bernie shined forward. Then came South Carolina – the powerful Jim Clyburn and Biden juggernaut. The next week, Biden won eight of ten major primaries – and the Covid pandemic began – burying every other news item of consequence, and more than a million Americans.. The rest of Biden’s primary wins seem lost in the lockdown).
Biden is, an always has been, a man in the middle of the Democratic Party. And in reflection of our current polarization, the “middle” is scorned by both sides. So it’s often the “progressives” who are using the most virulent terms against him. From the “despicable” fist bump with MBS, to the “disgusting” failure to get more gun control legislation through, Biden can’t win with his own party.
Hyperbole
Meanwhile, of course, Republicans have their own unique vocabulary about Biden: stumbling, gaffe prone, and sleepy. And the ultimate GOP insults: “Uncle Joe” (like an “Uncle Tom,” only white?) and, of course, “Brandon”.
Hyperbole is a part of politics, as “baked-in”, as red-white and blue bunting, handshakes, and kissing babies (though in the era of Covid, the last two are frowned upon – Biden still does them). But I do think that when our language becomes so immoderate, we lose the context. Those powerful terms lose their strength – and become emasculated (hey – there’s a powerful word).
Despicable: the Holocaust was despicable. Hitler was despicable. What Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine is despicable. Surely Joe Biden fist bumping Mohammed bin Salman, the young power of Saudi Arabia, is not in the same “class”.
Disgusting: the slaughter of twenty-one children and teachers in their classroom is disgusting. And we might argue that the Republican automatic denial that guns are part of that outrage, might be disgusting too. But is it disgusting that President Biden is unable to fulfill the campaign promise of passing stronger gun control legislation? I would argue that it’s sad; sad that Americans don’t recognize the danger of allowing weapons of war into our society, almost without restraint. But it isn’t Joe Biden’s fault – he’s spent a career trying to restrict access to those exact kinds of guns.
Voting Wrongs
Shameful isn’t Biden failing to pass the voting rights act. Shameful isn’t really even Joe Manchin, who is being exactly who Joe Manchin always has been – a “Blue Dog”, one of the last of the breeds of conservative Democrats. What is shameful – that a political party in the United States used a knowing lie, the “Stop the Steal” nonsense, to justify disenfranchising voters of their opposition party. The American tradition of “one person, one vote” isn’t even used as a “cover” anymore. Republicans are creating a voting process where the rural and the rich have the power. That better fits the definition of shameful.
Horrifying describes what the United States Supreme Court is doing to the rights of Americans. It’s horrifying that women lost control of their own bodies. And it’s just as horrifying that public schools can now legally be the center of religious indoctrination. What comes next, from a legal sense, has all the tension of those horror movies that I can’t stand to watch. Don’t go in the abandoned building, don’t go in the basement, don’t open that door. Don’t let the Court rule on voting rights – they’ll make them voting wrongs.
Self Defeating
I’m certainly not saying that all Democrats need to “get in line” with Biden. That’s never been the nature of the Democratic Party. Unlike the current Republican Party, purging the Kinzinger’s and the Cheney’s; the Democrats have always suffered internal opposition gladly. One only has to look at Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, in the same party with Joe Manchin and Henry Cuellar.
Internal opposition is one thing. And using hyperbole against the leader of your own party isn’t “traitorous” – that’s hyperbolic. But it is self-defeating. And we aren’t in a time when we can afford to defeat ourselves. There’s too much at stake — and that’s no hyperbole.
