It’s an irony in keeping with the incongruities of 2020. That after a particularly fiendish four years of the public bemoaning the fact that the country is run by old white men, the oldest white man ever to take office has ascended to the presidency as the only one capable of “saving” America. The obvious “ace in the hole” for his ascent was Kamala Harris, sure, and many are not so secretly banking on the idea that Joe Biden could very well kick the bucket before his four-year term is over, leaving a woman of color who isn’t old as fuck in charge. What a revelation that would be. Of course, because it’s so anathema to what the U.S. is accustomed to, it likely won’t happen, and Biden has been waiting so long to ascend to the presidency that finally getting it could very well breathe new life into him (then again, there could already be some sort of machine behind the scenes literally breathing new life into him).
As a vice president sandwiched in between the ultra conservative presidencies of George W. Bush and the Orange One (though a new word for “conservative” might need to be invented for him in the history books), Biden’s “centrist” politics plays on the rare American anomaly of “allowing” an Irish Catholic into office. This aura of the JFK on him (sharing the name of John’s patriarch, to boot) adds to the decided baby boomer quality of his presidency. Not to mention his well-publicized history of sexual inappropriateness with women conveniently swept under the rug for the sake of preserving “democracy.”
In the true fashion of a baby boomer Democrat, Biden’s concern for the middle class stemmed from his own lusterless upbringing after his father, affluent before Joe’s cognizance, suffered the blows of losing his fortune until eventually becoming a used car salesman with a salary that could “comfortably” sustain his family. Another irony here being that the president who wants to work toward greater climate change initiatives had a father who supported his livelihood with playing up the necessity of fossil fuels in everyone’s life.
After getting a C-average in college, Biden proved his belief in the American dream that just because one is an “average Joe” doesn’t mean that he can’t aim high, hence going to law school and entering Congress (with his political beginnings leaning toward being decidedly Republican). Named in 1974 as one of TIME’s “200 Faces for the Future,” the publication likely had no idea just how true that would be, and that in said future, his would be a face belonging so obviously to the past. During the same year, he would almost foreshadowingly remark that he was liberal-minded when it came to the notion of senior citizens’ health care and other measures that might better behoove them (while also remarking he was conservative about abortion). Perhaps he couldn’t have known then he would be living proof that no matter how old you are, and in the face of a country renowned for its contemptuous ageism, you can ascend to the highest office in the land–continue to reinvent yourself anew. If you are a man. For let’s not pretend this is a luxury afforded to women deemed old bags, hags, crones, spinsters, shriveled shrews and the like. It’s unknown if their day in the non-ageist sun will even come in the United States, but as usual, a white male must pave the way. Not just for women of color but even white women.
Because you best believe if a white lady was patently anti-busing in the 70s while governing her Delaware constituency, voted against gays identifying themselves in the military and gay marriage in the 90s and had multiple men come forward to accuse her of sexual assault, it would have come back to haunt her campaign in the most detrimental way. She never would have secured the ticket with such a dubious past.
But back to Biden’s “boomer appeal”–a classification that led many politicals to believe that his first run for president in 1988 would be a great success (and, again with the irony, would have made him the second youngest president in U.S. history instead of what he is now, the oldest). Alas, his flirtations with plagiarism (both in speeches and in a certain college paper that came to light at the time) miraculously rendered Michael Dukakis as the frontrunner for the Democratic party that year. It wouldn’t stop him from having plenty of power on the Senate Judiciary Committee, of the sort that would be ample enough to fuck up Anita Hill’s right to justice as she testified against Clarence Thomas in 1991. By not allowing other women who had reported similar sexual misconduct to testify against Thomas, Hill was left out there to testify alone like a sitting duck for all the intrinsically misogynist judges to take aim at with their lack of empathetic judgment.
Biden’s later apology in 2019 did not alter Hill’s dissatisfaction with the extremely harrowing and humiliating ordeal. But hey, he supports women now, so what do past mistakes matter? It was the 90s [insert shrug here]. It’s also in keeping with the sorry/not sorry statements surrounding the accusations against him, with Biden never actually apologizing for what he did and his spokesperson commenting dichotomously of Tara Reade’s report, “He firmly believes that women have a right to be heard—and heard respectfully… What is clear about this claim: It is untrue. This absolutely did not happen.” How… respectful? To do the usual brushing aside of what a woman is “claiming.” Not saying, claiming. Because all female assertions are subject to the interpretation of men, n’est-ce pas?
Boomer behavior with women aside, one supposes getting in bed with John McCain to advocate for bombing in Yugoslavia (using a code name only the U.S. could come up with: Operation Noble Anvil) was a “90s misjudgment” as well. And after all that, Milošević was neither killed nor ever found guilty of the war crime charges brought against him. It was the 00s could also be used as the shrugging excuse for full support of a war in Afghanistan that found Biden declaring, “Whatever it takes, we should do it.” The Bush-like gusto extended toward the supposed threat to national security that was Saddam Hussein and his “weapons of mass destruction” that were never found because they weren’t there.
Still, Biden’s tendency to speak his mind and “stand up for the American people”–rife with 60s-era boomer implications of “hope” as it is–has proven endearing on more than a few occasions. For instance, his take on pandemic precautions (don’t fly or go into confined spaces) when it was “only” the swine flu back in 2009 would have been more embraced in the present. This led to the Obama administration’s muzzling of the comments, as well as the president of the U.S. Travel Association chastising, “Elected officials must strike a delicate balance of accurately and adequately informing citizens of health concerns without unduly discouraging travel and other important economic activity.” Most people in charge of major corporations that have been affected by COVID-19 still feel the same way: stop panicking people regardless of the risks so that they’ll keep spending dough. It will be interesting to see how that goes up against Biden’s plans for COVID containment.
Unfortunately for his everyman image, in 2015, the numerous photos and reports of Biden placing his hands on women rather “awkwardly”/“paternally” (read: fucking grossly) led to the damage control act of introducing Lady Gaga (his new ultimate fan girl, it would seem) at the Academy Awards in February of 2016 after giving a speech on sexual assault awareness. How conveniently timed. While Woody Allen can’t shake a molestation charge from 1992, Biden has managed to make the nation forget about multiple allegations of inappropriate touching and conduct, with the write-off that he’s a “tactile politician,” and Tara Reade’s voice silenced for the sake of “voting the other fucker out.” The Orange One is a more provable rapist, after all. Women should be able to deal with a little unwanted touching, as opposed to being grabbed by the pussy. Pick your poison.
So yes, it’s great that the Orange One is not president after January 20th. It’s disgusting that it took the oldest white man in history to topple him using the blatant “shtick” of resting on the laurels of a biracial woman as his VP after a year of “OK Boomer” being the eye rolling return to anyone of Biden’s age. And anyone of Harris’ for that matter. But still, the American public is always quick to retool a catch phrase when it suits their ideological about-face, with the more fitting new one being, “You’re A-OK Boomer.” A sentence they would have happily bestowed upon Bernie Sanders as well, because the U.S. is still at war with the idea of patricide–more specifically, killing off its old white dad. To twist the irony knife a bit further on that, the first documented use of the word “A-OK” was in the boomer-centric year of 1952, when it was placed in the Midvac Steels (a Joe B Pennsylvania connection for you) slogan, “A-OK for tomorrow’s missile demands.” For just because America evicted its resident autocrat, doesn’t mean tensions won’t remain nuclear within a country so patently divided.
