My Joe Biden Double Fantasy

By JOHN YOUNG

I’m no front-runner, band-wagoner, Johnny-come-lately. I backed Joe Biden from the start.

Or at least from Aug. 30, 2018.

About that date in a moment.

I didn’t write about my support of Biden back then, because I didn’t want to throw shade on any of the great Democrats seeking to end the days of Trump.

From my progressive friends, I heard a lot about Biden’s supposed deficits – too old, too moderate, gaffe machine – all that.

Yeah. Did you notice that the man just ran successfully for president of the United States, and the Trump Destruction Machine was left with absolutely nothing (that it couldn’t falsify online) to depict Biden as too feeble, too prone to falling over his tongue?

One whole presidential campaign: no gaffes! Guy mastered every ramp before him.

I have to admit, I worried about those very things, even after Aug. 30, 2018. That’s when I knew Biden was the man for me – and for the country.

That was the day he flicked a tear from his eye as a featured eulogist, and said, “I’m a Democrat. And I loved John McCain.”

A Democrat memorializing a Republican, inserting words like “dignity,” “honor” and “respect” in a memorial masterwork about what binds us as a human race.

Meanwhile the chief Republican in the White House, uninvited to McCain’s service, had to be arm-wrestled to lower the White House flag.

I was sold on Biden with all else he offered: his career, his character, his electability – but that funeral cinched it.

So, Joe Biden Fantasy No. 1. Call it an Arizona fantasy: that sufficient numbers of voters there would be sufficiently offended by Trump’s behavior, and impressed by Biden’s, to help take the incumbent down.

I imagined Arizona being the state on Election Night that awarded the presidency to John McCain’s friend: Joe Biden.

My next Joe Biden fantasy was spawned last fall.

That’s when it was revealed that Trump had used the purse and power of the United States to pressure Ukraine to help sabotage Biden’s candidacy by going after Biden’s family.

So doing, Trump signaled that Biden was the last Democrat he wanted to face in 2020.

Extorting Ukraine should have been the last corrupt thing Trump did as president. Being caught in the act should have resulted in his ouster. Of course, Republicans in the Senate looked away – all but Mitt Romney. Had brain cancer not taken McCain, we can be certain he would not have looked away.

With Trump’s political neck having been spared by spineless GOP senators, my second Joe Biden fantasy was that my man would get the Democratic nomination and the two would meet on a debate stage.

Biden would say to Trump, “You came after my son to take me out. Well, here I am, pal. You are a con and a coward. Now, let’s talk about your children.”

I told you they were fantasies. Neither No. 1 nor No. 2 came to pass.

In the debates, Biden did not do what I imagined. He didn’t take the poison bait when Trump tried to make Hunter Biden an issue.

Puny, pitiful try, Donnie.

And Arizona wasn’t the state that awarded the presidency to Biden. It was Pennsylvania.

When Arizona flipped — stunning, earth-shaking — the talk mostly was about how long Trump and a raft of attorneys would stave off reality.

It’s over. Biden has scored the same “landslide” Trump trumpeted in 2016: 306 electoral votes. Biden looks certain to have six million more votes than the Great Con Man, who will continue to convince his supporters it never happened.

They are entitled to their fantasies. Thanks to American voters and a great candidate, mine came a lot closer to reality.

John Young is a longtime Texas newspaperman who now lives in Fort Collins, Colo. Email jyoungcolumn@gmail.com. See johnyoungcolumn.com.

From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2020

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