Biden gets an endorsement for the ages
Endorsing Joe Biden should be easier than endorsing clean air.
For the last four years, America and the world have choked on the pollution of Donald Trump, a human smokestack belching acrid plumes of lies and poison into the body politic. Watching this guy try to be president is like watching a firefighter try to douse a blaze with a hose of kerosene.
Stand back, everyone! This inferno is getting worse!
The truth is, a three-legged donkey running against Trump would now be way up in the polls. This reality show presidency got T-boned by the reality of a global pandemic. And upon impact, a Trump in sad clown makeup crashed headfirst through a windshield of incompetence.
With the possible exception of actually mailing the coronavirus to every American, it’s hard to imagine how he could have done a worse job. Trump is anti-mask and pro-injecting Clorox.
He’s anti-testing, which means he’s pro-death. He seems to think contact tracing is communist doodling.
He is to epidemiology as The Rock is to scrawny. COVID-19 put TRUMP 20162020 under a microscope, as both a leader and a human being. And it’s not pretty. Slide after slide reveals festering bacterial cultures of narcissism and fits of folly.
Or as Jon Stewart put it: “I think Biden’s slogan should just be, ‘It’s enough already.’ ”
The former “Daily Show” host is making the media rounds to promote his new film, “Irresistible.” And during a recent interview on “The Late Show” with his old friend Stephen Colbert, Stewart endorsed Biden in what may well be the most measured and poignant celebrity PSA ever.
The genius was in the way Stewart backed in to his praise by recasting the upcoming election as a referendum on decency. Biden was never Stewart’s “guy,” as he told Colbert. Biden wasn’t even in his top four or five. He was rooting for a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren nomination.
Biden was a relic with no obvious calling card for the future.
Stewart then explains why he’s not a fan of the “Uncle Joey shtick,” the old-timey persona of a guy who darns his socks and stands up to switchblade bullies before retiring to the porch swing with a root beer float. Then he pivots as only he can.
“But I feel like that’s not the core of who that guy really is. And I’ve recently been thinking about something and that is that we are a country in terrible anguish right now. We are in pain …
“When I see Biden past the shtick, I see a guy who knows what loss is.”
“That’s it,” interjects a sombre Colbert, who has also experienced loss.
The comedian lost his father and two brothers in a plane crash when he was a boy. Meanwhile, Biden’s first wife and daughter were killed in a car crash. Five years ago, his son Beau died from brain cancer.
Biden has peered into the darkness. And that’s why Stewart now sees the light.
“There’s a humility to the randomness of tragedy that brings about a caring that can’t be faked,” he told Colbert. “And it can’t be contrived. And what I think in this moment this country needs is a leader of humility. That understands that he doesn’t understand, that understands the humanity of this experiment and the difficulty that it is in maintaining it.”
That Trump is now imploding in real time, as even Fox News polls are forced to track, presents an ironic challenge for Biden supporters. The easiest way to endorse is to point out that Biden is not Trump. Biden actually believes in government and knows how to get things done. He won’t spend his days rage-tweeting, golfing and watching TV while trying to gin up culture wars.
Biden has devoted his life to public service. Trump has devoted his life to Trump.
The difference couldn’t be more crystal clear. But to merely put faith in this obvious character dichotomy is, for Biden supporters, fraught with the perils of complacency.
And that’s why every Democratic strategist should pay heed to what Stewart said next.
“I’m not just making the negative case for Biden anymore. It’s not just the, ‘Well, we gotta get rid of that (bleep) guy.’ I actually believe something in his life experience can benefit this country at a moment when it desperately needs it.”
And: “Maybe he is the man of the moment.”
This is a winning message, Democrats. Run with it. I check in with the pro-Trump media asylum every morning and the unhinged frothing is now something to behold. They got nothing. All they can do is double down on Biden’s alleged cognitive decline or slowing motor skills, even as their hero struggles to sip a glass of water or descend a ramp. It’s like being a Leafs fan in the ’80s.
In a way, I almost feel sorry for the Trump Cult. They spent five years slaving over their propaganda sewing machines only to brutally discover their emperor never even planned to wear clothes.
In politics, in the long view, it is never wise to put all your chips on a race-baiting, uninformed, petty, vindictive, lazy, greedy charlatan who only reads the back of cereal boxes.
This guy drove casinos into bankruptcy. With Trump, the House always loses.
But Stewart’s endorsement also reframes the upcoming election in a way that transcends ideology. It’s not about conservative versus liberal. It’s not about tax reforms or judicial nominations. It’s about humility. It’s about reality. It’s about unity over division, stability over chaos. It’s about healing and rebuilding instead of burning alive for four more years.
Joe Biden wants to lead. Donald Trump wants to be followed.
Joe Biden understands pain. Donald Trump inflicts it.