Scranton's 'Stupid' 'Biden Street' Move Has Residents Feeling Buyer's Remorse 2 Years Later
Maybe “Corruption Corner” would have worked better. Or how about “Dementia Drive”?
Two years ago, Scranton, Pennsylvania, the town of President Joe Biden’s birth, celebrated the Biden’s ascension to the White House by changing the name of one of the city’s most important arteries in the then-new president’s honor. (The city also has a Joe Biden Way, the residential street that holds the Biden family home from when Joe was a boy.)
It turns out, though, that some of those most affected by the change aren’t happy about it at all.
A report about an informal survey published by the New York Post on Wednesday found business owners along “Biden Street” (nee “Spruce Street”) in downtown Scranton considered the move “stupid” and a “waste of money” among other things — almost none of them good.
On Biden Street in Scranton, voters are fed up with native son Joe https://t.co/Ez7lmaJw4N pic.twitter.com/wLFryDhCPI
— New York Post (@nypost) October 18, 2023
Some also thought it was considerably premature, given the constantly accumulating evidence that Biden and his family spent the years prior to his presidency grifting off his political career to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
“Do you think they’re going to change Biden Street back if he gets indicted?” the Post quoted one Scrantonite as saying.
“You want to name something after someone? Wait till they’re dead.”
The speaker is identified only as a business owner who is 80 years old. That, providentially, is the same age as the president, which didn’t appear to allay the respondent’s concerns that Biden’s brain power is “gone.”
(On that point, an observer’s age is irrelevant. After two years of Biden’s increasingly confused behavior, any American capable of fogging a mirror should be able to see that the president is not always all there.)
The Post cited a Washington Post-ABC News poll published in May that showed 63 percent of those surveyed thought Biden lacks “the mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively as president.” (The real surprise there is that a full 37 percent of Americans apparently lack the mental sharpness to see Biden’s obvious incapacity.)
Biden St., Biden Expressway. Kind of a big joke up here. We usually just “give the finger” to the signs while passing.
— Bernie Skalla (@brushburn25) October 18, 2023
Other business owners had a practical objection to the new name. They not only had to change their stationery, according to the Post, but some even lost business because some customers refused to shop on “Biden Street.”
“Unfortunately, I had to start changing everything over, even though I don’t want to,” one told the Post. “To me, he’s not from Scranton. He was born here. He’s from Delaware.”
“They could have made a street and named it. They didn’t have to take probably the most prestigious street in downtown Scranton and change it.”
But that’s what the Scranton City Council did — unanimously — in July 2021, according to Pahomepage, the website of WBRE-TV in Wilkes Barre and WYOU in Scranton.
The council also renamed the Central Scranton Expressway the “President Joseph R. Biden Expressway,” Pahomepage reported at the time.
This really happened today. Biden highway and Biden street in Scranton, PA. 🤦🏻♀️ pic.twitter.com/HJSCImTOey
— kb🐯kb🇺🇸 (@mckbkb) October 15, 2023
Maybe the motive was hometown boosterism. Maybe it was partisan pride. Maybe it was with an eye toward getting federal grant money that might have a better chance of coming through in the Biden administration if the town had a “Biden” name on its street signs.
Whatever it was, it had plenty of detractors on social media. As one user wrote: “Biden Street should be a dead end.”
Biden Street should be a dead end
— Local Hero™ (@HofSpillane) October 18, 2023
The Post didn’t seem to have trouble finding locals who still didn’t like the idea.
“We should have waited till we really saw what Joe Biden was capable of doing as president before we went around slapping his name on road signs,” one Scranton resident told the newspaper.
Now, granted, this is the New York Post, a brass-knuckled conservative tabloid that doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to covering Biden. But anyone who’s watched the pathetically dishonest coverage of the Biden White House by most major media outlets knows that the Post has acquitted itself admirably, practicing what used to be called “journalism” in this country.
This is the paper that broke the Hunter Biden laptop story back in October 2020, remember, only to be silenced by social media giants and mocked by politically biased competitors. The country would be a much healthier place right now if the Post coverage then had been given the respect it was due.
So when it says it’s found Scranton folks unhappy with streets being renamed after Biden, it’s a good bet there are plenty who feel that way in town — just like there are plenty of Americans across the country who want Biden out.
The inauguration of Joe Biden as president is one of the worst wrong turns this country has made in its 234-year history.
Its consequences — with national debt (now $33 trillion, according to the Biden-friendly New York Times), with an illegal immigration invasion, with an unstable world scene where dictators no longer fear the military and moral power of the United States, with the well-founded suspicions of Americans for their once-trusted institutions — are going to last far longer than Biden’s term in office, and whatever time he has left on this earth.
The earliest he can be replaced will be January 2025, but no matter when it happens, it’s going to be a long road before the country gets back on track.
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