A "regular Joe."

     

"That wealthy man had complete disregard for the fundamental dignity of his employees. He had no respect for them. All while calling himself 'the working man's friend.'"

         Joe Biden, telling a story of his father's boss

The e-mail I got from Joe Biden makes me like and respect him more than before.

In New Hampshire, talking about his father

This blog has discussed Biden's flaws. He is somewhat old and frail for his age, just enough to worry me. He is unusually inarticulate for a professional politician. He doesn't have charisma or star power. In the current media environment he is not "clickable." He has been wrong on some important policies and behind the curve on others. It makes sense that polls show that even people who support Biden are not particularly enthusiastic about him. He doesn't have the magic grace that Obama had. He is not the flamboyant center of attention the way Trump is.

Biden has compensations. I witnessed one this week, in the unusual place of a e-mailed solicitation for money. 

The story is an elaboration of the picture of himself that Biden displayed repeatedly in Town Hall events in New Hampshire and Iowa. He was a boy, with parents who struggled with money, and who fell on hard times. Sometimes the focus of his story is on the fear in a boy's heart, but more commonly Biden speaks empathetically from the point of view of the father. Biden describes the pain and shame felt by a parent who needs to tell children they have to uproot, to move into their grandparents' home, because the breadwinner lost his job. A breadwinner has a role and a duty, and when he or she fails at it there is shame.

This is his story: 

This story is about my dad’s boss -- the owner of the car dealership where he worked. He was a big guy in every sense -- over six feet tall, with a sizable bank account and political connections all around the state. His billboards around town advertised him as “the working man’s friend.” His trademark was the silver dollar. He’d hand them out to all his good customers. My parents went out one evening to attend the dealership’s annual Christmas party. They’d cleared out the showroom for the night to make room for a big band and dancing. My dad loved swing music, and he loved to dance. My parents were just sitting down to dinner when suddenly, the owner of the dealership took one of those buckets of silver dollars he was known for and threw them down on the dance floor. Then, he stood and watched from above, with amusement, as the salesmen, secretaries, and mechanics all scrambled around the dance floor, picking up the coins. Dad stood frozen for a second. Then he stood up, took my mom’s hand, and walked out of the party. He would go on to quit his job because of it. Looking back, I realize why this man’s behavior offended my father -- and why it offends me so much today. That wealthy man had a complete disregard for the fundamental dignity of his employees. He had no respect for them. All while calling himself “the working man’s friend.” Does that person sound familiar to you? Because he sure sounds familiar to me. He sounds a lot like Donald Trump. A rich guy with no respect for the dignity of working Americans. His time in office has been spent quietly making people like him richer and richer, while leaving most Americans left scrambling for the coins he has tossed on the floor. I say: Enough with that malarkey. Enough with these bullies. I know a bully when I see one -- because I’ve stood up to them before. I know how to fix our economy because I helped pull us out of one of the worst economic downturns of our time. I know the value of a dollar because I was raised in a working-class family that didn’t take that kind of money for granted.

My purpose here is to focus on Biden's story. The pain of failure that is so big a part of Biden's history starts with a premise, one of self worth and dignity. A working person can be proud. "Regular Americans" are OK. They have dignity. They work and need to be paid and deserve being paid and being treated with respect.

The demographics of "working Americans" have changed since Biden was a boy. The "workingman" is more often than not a woman. Hillary Clinton lost big among those people, especially men. She communicated that she was part of the "professional class." They hire, fire, and supervise working people, but aren't one of them. They look at them, talk about them, evaluate them, incentivize them. Biden communicates a whole different vibe. Biden grew up as one of them and the memory of that origin still animates him. He knows the bitter taste of disrespect when it comes from a boss.

Within the political left, there are visible spokespeople for righteous shaming and scolding of the "deplorables" with their unacceptable behaviors and attitudes. They will complicate Biden's campaign, in part because they say interesting, extreme, angry things, and they are Democrats. Trump and Fox and Republicans generally will try to associate Biden with with the finger-pointers. See! Democrats have contempt for you!

It will damage Biden, but it won't fully stick. The story of the working man's dignity is too much a part of the Biden story. Indeed, I have posted here that he is tiresome talking about his childhood, going on and on, when he "should" be talking about the future. However, there is value to Biden reminding people of his origin even as it reminds people of his age. The story is his inoculation against being folded into leftist self-righteous cancel culture. More American hate it than like the left's version of Moral Majority. Indeed, Biden is a victim of it.

For better or worse, Joe Biden is who he is,  a "regular Joe." He loved and respected his parents. He hasn't forgotten his roots.