Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Friday twice jokingly referred to complaints from several women that he had made them uncomfortable with his physical contact, and then offered a convoluted apology about their concerns and his behavior.Biden made an apology video this week, but he clearly doesn't think his hands-on style is a problem. He says he's asking permission now, but that's a line he's used in the past.
“I’m sorry I didn’t understand more,” he told reporters about his hugs and kisses to women over the years. “I’m not sorry for any of my intentions. I’m not sorry for anything that I have ever done. I’ve never been disrespectful intentionally to a man or a woman.”
[He spoke] at an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers conference in Washington....
As he took the stage, he hugged Lonnie R. Stephenson, the union’s president. “I just want you to know I had permission to hug Lonnie,” he said, and the largely male crowd burst into laughter....
Several minutes into his remarks, Mr. Biden spotted children in the audience. After welcoming them to the stage, Mr. Biden wrapped his arm around a young boy. “By the way, he gave me permission to touch him,” he said, to laughter.
Biden's style is fine with many voters, according to a new poll:
A majority of registered voters say allegations that former Vice President Joe Biden inappropriately touched several women should not disqualify him from seeking the White House in 2020, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll.Older people are much more tolerant of Biden's behavior than younger people:
The survey, conducted on Thursday and Friday, found that 56 percent of respondents said Biden's conduct should not be viewed as disqualifying. Twenty-three percent said it should be, and 21 percent said they were unsure.
A majority of women and Democratic respondents said the allegations should not prevent him from running for president.
Unfortunately, HarrisX-Hill didn't provide a breakdown of party by age. (and i'm not sure I entirely love the question)... Still, this reinforces age as a key variable for understanding Biden. Older folks are a lot less likely to care about the Biden stuff than younger folks. pic.twitter.com/0uwbo35p2m
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) April 5, 2019
Here's the problem: Biden is defiantly hugging people now. He's engaged in a lite form of Trumpism -- They tell me what I'm doing is politically incorrect, but I'm just going to keep doing it, he seems to be saying.
This works for Trump because he plays the anti-PC card with maximum anger. He wants his voters outraged, and they want to be outraged. Republican voters like that sort of thing. The ones that don't like it tolerate it, because even they are driven by extreme negative partisanship -- they may think Trump is crude or gauche, but they despise Democrats, liberals, and tolerance just about as much as the overt haters do.
Biden isn't trying to do this in an angry way. However, he's reminding some Democrats -- mostly the older ones -- that The Kids want certain boundaries respected that older Americans never used to worry about.
The longer Biden makes an issue of this, the more anti-PC Democrats will think about their resentment of modern standards of behavior, and the more younger and woker voters will resent the people who aren't keeping up. It's making Democrats resent other Democrats.
We didn't need to have this argument in the 2020 race, but we're having it. We're going to have enough battles during the primaries (and probably afterward) -- on progressivism vs. gradualism, reparations, campaign finance, and so on. Why did we need to fight about this?
Biden isn't trying to defy new cultural norms in an angry way, like Trump. He's trying to do it in a "Who, harmless little me?" way.
It's still divisive. He's hurting the party.
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