How's It Feel, Joe? Biden Accused of Exploiting Stacey Abrams's Race over Rumored Running Mate Offer
Joe Biden hasn’t entered the 2020 Democrat field yet, which is interesting because it feels like every average politician of a liberal bearing has joined the scrum. The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is (seriously) at 4 percent in the national polls and is third place in Iowa.
The media, meanwhile, is going crazy over a rich white guy whose primary qualification is almost winning a Senate race because he had a truckload of money.
Perhaps it’s because Biden is the favorite that he’s waiting until the end to throw his hat in the ring. Or maybe it’s something more nettlesome to his chances. In a race where identity politics is playing a major part — where Beto O’Rourke is basically apologizing for being a white man — the former vice president and Delaware senator has some explaining to do.
We’ll get to that later, but the ultimate old, rich white man in the Democrat field (when he jumps in) seems to have a plan to circumvent this: He’s going to name his running mate long before he gets the nomination, and she’s going to be as intersectional as heck.
Stacey Abrams, the Beto O’Rourke of Georgia, is rumored to be the tie-in for the big Biden reveal. I compare her to everyone’s favorite hipster Texan because her major qualification is losing a race — in this case, the governorship — but she’s even less qualified, having been a state representative previously. At least Beto was a representative at the federal level, albeit one who distinguished himself primarily through livestreaming stuff.
Then again, Abrams became a Democrat hero when she refused to admit defeat, alleging that Brian Kemp’s enforcement of Georgia law as the state’s attorney general in regard to voter registration somehow constituted a grotesque, racist conspiracy against her.
“Let’s be clear: This is not a speech of concession,” Abrams said at the time. “Because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper. As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that.”
So, Biden is possibly choosing an African-American woman that liberals believe lost a gubernatorial race because of racist malfeasance. Apparently, losing a race now qualifies as experience if you lost in the right kind of way. If you’re wondering why this could be, BuzzFeed News reports the obvious, according to two sources: “the idea was brought up to attract high-level operatives and donors.”
“Neither source was aware of Abrams’ response, nor whether she was currently considering the proposition.”
Some sources in the Abrams camp, however, were a bit more unambiguous about the proposal.
“What makes it particularly exploitative is that Biden couldn’t be bothered to endorse Stacey in the gubernatorial primary,” an Abrams adviser said. “Now he wants her to save his a–. That’s some serious entitlement.”
The adviser, along with other sources, told BuzzFeed that it would reek of desperation. Which, yes. See, the problem is that Biden has said and done things that aren’t necessarily consistent with the modern intersectional Democrat Party.
Back in the 1970s, shortly after he was elected a senator, Biden came out against busing for school integration, as many politicians did during the era. What was unusual was the vehemence with which he did it — and how that sort of vehemence sounds like something which would get any politician nowadays called out, especially a Democrat one.
“I do not buy the concept, popular in the ’60s, which said, ‘We have suppressed the black man for 300 years and the white man is now far ahead in the race for everything our society offers. In order to even the score, we must now give the black man a head start, or even hold the white man back, to even the race,’” Biden said in 1975. “I don’t buy that.”
“I don’t feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather. I feel responsible for what the situation is today, for the sins of my own generation. And I’ll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago,” he added.
That’s not going to go over well in a year when reparations are a big theme. Neither is the fact that he openly disbelieved Anita Hill during her testimony before the Senate, something that’s problematic after the Democrats took it as an article of faith that Brett Kavanaugh was a sexual abuser. There’s also the fact he was one of the biggest proponents of stricter sentencing laws during the 1990s — again, something which Democrats swear is the Most Racist Thing Ever™.
It also doesn’t seem like Abrams is on board with the idea.
Asked about the potential ticket on “The View” this week, Abrams said, “I think you don’t run for second place.”
“If I’m going to enter a primary, then I’m going to enter a primary,” she added. “And if I don’t enter the primary, my job is to make certain that the best Democrat becomes the nominee. And whoever wins the primary, that we make sure that person gets elected in 2020.”
While Abrams didn’t say that she wouldn’t accept the vice presidency if offered by Biden once he became the nominee, her answer seemed to indicate that Biden pre-selecting her as his running mate/fig leaf for sins against the liberal creed wasn’t going to happen.
The idea of Abrams running in the primary would be funny, given her lack of high-level experience in government or the private sector until you realize that, again, Pete Buttigieg is seriously being considered as a candidate by some people. That all put aside, it’s humorous to see Biden called out for blatantly using Abrams’ race and gender to atone for his trespasses.
Say what you will about Biden’s past, he was part of the party that invented identity politics, both as senator and vice president. Now he’s getting walloped by it, and it couldn’t be more fitting. He helped create the monster. Now, it’s coming to eat him.
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