Biden’s Flailing Identity Politics Over His VP Pick

Joe Biden is old. He’s so old, he probably had a pet dodo growing up. The first president he voted for was probably Wilson. I suspect he was involved in the Teapot Dome Scandal.

My point here is to say that this whole new wave identity politics thing probably doesn’t come naturally to him. I say “probably” because I’m being generous; it demonstrably does not. For example (as if you need proof), he’s with it enough to know that he should probably have some sort of patriarchal victim as his running mate, but that’s as far as he can be credited with getting.

At a campaign stop in Iowa, he told a voter that there were four women he was considering.

“You. Are you available?” Biden initially responded to the woman, as reported by The Des Moines Register.

Biden then said that if he started naming people “the press will think that’s who I picked.”

I think that’s a perfectly acceptable answer. Just leave it at that. It’s not satisfactory, but it’s a good enough reason not to give names. 10/10, Joe.

Wait, Joe, no, Joe don’t–

Biden proceeded to stumble through descriptions of the women’s most recent jobs.

“The former assistant attorney general who got fired who was just in Delaware,” Biden said, a reference to Sally Yates, the former Department of Justice official who was fired after refusing to enforce the Trump administration’s order to restrict travel from countries known to sponsor terrorism.

Oh, Lord. You’re campaigning for president, Joe, not playing a round of Guess Who!

He went on to allude to Stacy Abrams as “The leader of the, uh, the woman who should’ve been the governor of Georgia, the African American woman,” which sounds like he’s showing up for a meeting but doesn’t really remember who with. And adding “the African American woman” at the end? BIG yikes.

His other possible picks included “The two senators from the state of New Hampshire,” Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, which was pretty much the only non-cringy reference, but still cringier than just saying, I don’t know, their NAMES.

It’s so not hard to just talk like a person. Why do these primary candidates have such a hard time with it? At least Biden can use his age as an excuse; at what point can we all be honest with ourselves and say that it also disqualifies him from being a halfway decent president?