• About Us
    • Fact Checking Policy
    • Ownership & funding information
    • Volunteer
  • Subscribe
  • Letter submission
    • Submissions Policy
  • Contact Us
The Online Citizen Asia
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Commentaries
    • Letters
    • Comments
  • Current Affairs
    • Singapore
    • Malaysia
    • Indonesia
    • China
    • ASEAN
    • Asia
    • International
  • Finance
    • Economics
    • Labour
    • Property
    • Business
  • Community
    • Arts & Culture
    • Consumer Watch
    • NGO
    • Lifestyle
    • Travel
  • Politics
    • Civil Society
    • Parliament
    • Transport
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Housing
  • Law & Order
    • Legislation
    • Court Cases
No Result
View All Result
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Commentaries
    • Letters
    • Comments
  • Current Affairs
    • Singapore
    • Malaysia
    • Indonesia
    • China
    • ASEAN
    • Asia
    • International
  • Finance
    • Economics
    • Labour
    • Property
    • Business
  • Community
    • Arts & Culture
    • Consumer Watch
    • NGO
    • Lifestyle
    • Travel
  • Politics
    • Civil Society
    • Parliament
    • Transport
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Housing
  • Law & Order
    • Legislation
    • Court Cases
No Result
View All Result
The Online Citizen Asia
No Result
View All Result

Joe Biden: From tragedy to verge of triumph in storied political career

by The Online Citizen
29/10/2020
in International, Politics
Reading Time: 7 mins read
14

by Michael Mathes

He has suffered profound personal tragedy and seen his earlier political ambitions thwarted, but veteran Democrat Joe Biden hopes his pledge to unify Americans will deliver him the presidency after nearly half a century in Washington.

Rarely has the profile of opposing presidential nominees differed so sharply as in the 2020 race, which pits the empathetic Biden, with decades of leadership and a blue-collar upbringing, against brawling President Donald Trump, the billionaire businessman who insists he remains the outsider.

But in his decades-long White House quest — Biden has run twice before — the optimist from Delaware maintains he can shift the tone in America from anger and suspicion to dignity and respect.

“The divisions in our nation are getting wider… and our wounds are getting deeper,” Biden said in a Tuesday speech in Georgia.

“Have we passed the point of no return? Has the heart of this nation turned to stone?” he asked. “I don’t think so, I refuse to believe it. I know this country, I know our people, and I know we can unite and heal this nation.”

At 77 and leading in the polls just days ahead of the November 3 vote, Biden is on the cusp of becoming America’s oldest ever president.

He would inherit a coronavirus pandemic that shows no signs of abating and an office he believes has had its credibility shattered by the “liar” Trump.

A loss to the unpopular president, the challenger said in a candid moment recently, would mean Biden is a “lousy” candidate — and would certainly lower the curtain on a prolific if ultimately unfulfilling political career.

But Biden is no shrinking violet. He has relentlessly hammered away at Trump’s handling of the pandemic and, in 2018, told students at a Florida university that he would “beat the hell out of him” if the two men were in high school.

Enduring compassion

Biden hit the national stage at just 29, with a surprise US Senate win in Delaware in 1972.

But just one month later, tragedy struck: his wife Neilia and their one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in a car crash as they were Christmas shopping.

Biden’s two sons were severely injured but survived, only for the eldest, Beau, to succumb to cancer in 2015. The tragedies help nourish the empathy that shines through in Biden’s interactions with everyday Americans.

His retail politicking skills are peerless: he can flash his million-watt smile at college students, commiserate with unemployed Rust Belt machinists, or deliver a fiery admonishment of rivals.

That personable, gregarious propensity has been curtailed by the coronavirus pandemic, which brought in-person campaigning to a halt in March and has prompted a more cautious Biden on the trail.

He no longer cuts the same figure he did during his eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president. Though the dazzling smile remains, Biden’s gait is more delicate and his fine white hair thinned.

Opponents, and even some Democrats, wondered whether Biden, garrulous and gaffe-prone, would stumble in his long campaign against Trump.

The 74-year-old president regularly calls him “Sleepy Joe” and accuses him of diminished mental acuity.

But Biden has shrugged off the attacks, and in a flash of frustration with the relentlessly interrupting Trump during their first debate, at one point told the president to “shut up.”

Elected one of the youngest senators ever, he spent more than three decades in the upper chamber before serving eight years a Barack Obama’s deputy.

Biden’s message is built largely on his association with the still-popular Obama and on his ability to do business with the many world leaders that his former boss sent him to meet (“I know these guys,” he often reminds people).

He offers moderate politics in a divisive time, but he has pledged to take progressive action as president, on climate change, racial injustice and student debt relief.

Historic comeback

Biden almost did not make it this far. Despite being the favorite of the Democratic establishment, he was deemed by some to be too old or too centrist.

His campaign looked like it was headed for disaster after disappointing primary losses to the fiery Bernie Sanders early this year.

But Biden came roaring back in South Carolina’s primary on the strength of overwhelming backing from African-American voters, a crucial base of Democratic support.

Clinching the nomination marked a sharp contrast to his 1988 flameout, when he quit in disgrace after being caught plagiarizing a speech by British politician Neil Kinnock.

In 2008 he hardly fared better, dropping out after mustering less than one percent of the vote in Iowa’s caucuses.

That year he was ultimately picked as running mate by Obama, who dubbed him “America’s happy warrior.”

After their victory Obama quickly assigned Biden to oversee the economic recovery during the last recession.

The two men differed over Afghanistan at the front end of Obama’s first term, with Biden opposing a 30,000-troop “surge.”

As a senator for more than 30 years, Biden was known to forge unlikely alliances — and, like Trump, he developed a lack of fidelity to script.

He faced a reckoning among Democrats — including Kamala Harris, who would become his running mate — for associating with known segregationists in the Senate and, in the midst of 1970s desegregation, for opposing “busing” policies aimed at transporting Black children to predominantly white schools.

He also caught flak for helping draft a 1994 crime bill which many Democrats believe drove up incarcerations, disproportionately affecting African Americans. Biden recently called the push a “mistake.”

Other Senate episodes also threatened to spoil his presidential campaign: his 2003 vote for the Iraq war, and his chairmanship of controversial hearings in 1991 in which Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.

Last year he faced a storm over his own notoriously tactile approach with female voters that could suggest a man out of step with his modernizing party.

He apologized, and promised to be more “mindful” of women’s personal space.

Biden relays the heart-wrenching details of his family stories so often that, despite his obvious grief, they have become part of a political brand.

The 1972 accident left his sons Beau, four, and Hunter, two, badly injured, and the 30-year-old Biden was sworn in beside their hospital beds.

Biden met his second wife, teacher Jill Jacobs, in 1975 and they married two years later. They have a daughter, Ashley.

Both boys recovered from their injuries and Beau followed his father into politics, becoming attorney general of Delaware, but the Democratic rising star died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46.

‘Get back up’

Lawyer and lobbyist Hunter Biden has had a different trajectory.

He received a lucrative salary serving on the board of a Ukrainian gas company accused of corruption while his father was vice president.

Trump’s push for Ukraine to investigate the Bidens led to the president’s impeachment last December by the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives, but he was acquitted by the Republican-led Senate.

Hunter was not personally accused of any criminal wrongdoing, but Trump hasn’t let the issue die.

He repeatedly insists the Bidens are a “crime family” getting rich off of corruption, but the accusations are of dubious origin and polling suggests they have not stuck with American voters.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr was born November 20, 1942 and raised in the Rust Belt town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, in an Irish-Catholic family.

His father was a car salesman, but when the city went through tough times in the 1950s and he lost his job, he moved the family to neighboring Delaware when Joe Biden was 10.

“My dad always said, ‘Champ, when you get knocked down, you get back up,'” Biden says.

He made Delaware his political domain. As a young man he served as a lifeguard in a majority-Black neighborhood, an experience he said sharpened his awareness of systemic inequalities and strengthened his political interest.

Biden studied at the University of Delaware and the Syracuse University law school, and has expressed pride that he is not a product of the elite Ivy League.

He touts his working-class roots and recalls being hampered as a child by a stutter so bad he was cruelly nicknamed “Dash.”

But he overcame the condition, and on the campaign trail has spoken about how he still counsels youngsters who stutter.

Biden often points to Jill, 69, as a powerful asset for his campaign, and recalled recently how she took over as mother to her husband’s two boys.

“She put us back together,” Biden has said.

‘Proud of me?’

“It never goes away,” Biden said of the pain that lives within him since losing Beau. The tragedy prevented him from launching a presidential bid in 2016.

Even today, he often stops to greet firefighters, recalling that it was they who saved his boys.

They saved Biden too. In 1988 firefighters rushed him to hospital after an aneurysm.

Biden’s condition was so dire that a priest was called to give him last rites.

Nearly every Sunday Biden prays at St. Joseph on the Brandywine, a Catholic church in his affluent Wilmington neighborhood.

There in the cemetery rest his parents, his first wife and daughter — and his son Beau, under a tombstone decorated with small American flags.

In January Biden confided about Beau and his undeniable influence: “Every morning I get up… and I think to myself, ‘Is he proud of me?'”

– AFP

For just US$7.50 a month, sign up as a subscriber on The Online Citizen Asia (and enjoy ads-free experience on our site) to support our mission to transform TOC into an alternative mainstream press.
Source: AFP
Tags: AFP

Related Posts

WHO panel in talks on COVID emergency status
AFP

WHO panel in talks on COVID emergency status

27/01/2023
Chinese property giant Evergrande under ‘tremendous pressure’
China

Chinese property giant Evergrande under ‘tremendous pressure’

14/09/2021
Australia’s capital Canberra to enter virus lockdown
Health

Virus lockdown extended for Australia’s capital

14/09/2021
Messenger RNA COVID vaccines 66% effective against Delta: US study
Health

UK to vaccinate over 12s against COVID

14/09/2021
Politics

Facebook shields VIPs from some of its rules: report

14/09/2021
Malaysian PM, opposition in deal to boost stability
Malaysia

Malaysian PM, opposition in deal to boost stability

14/09/2021
Subscribe
Connect withD
Login
I allow to create an account
When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
DisagreeAgree
Notify of
Connect withD
I allow to create an account
When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
DisagreeAgree
14 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Latest posts

Adani’s brother runs SG company and registers as director with local ID

Adani’s brother runs SG company and registers as director with local ID

03/02/2023
Minister Tan See Leng only reveals 500 intra-corporate transferees from India for last year – a Covid year

Increasing number of working Permanent Residents in Singapore but with a stable PR population

03/02/2023

A multi-party parliament is the only way to make sure that Singapore continues to not condone or tolerate corruption

03/02/2023
Anwar criticised over appointing own daughter as his senior advisor

Anwar criticised over appointing own daughter as his senior advisor

03/02/2023
Level of unemployment in Indonesia shows failure in the Job Creation Law, says KSPI

Level of unemployment in Indonesia shows failure in the Job Creation Law, says KSPI

02/02/2023

The Keppel bribery scandal tests Singapore’s zero-tolerance policy towards corruption

02/02/2023
Singapore Law Watch removes commentary on CPIB’s decision to not prosecute former Keppel executives

Singapore Law Watch removes commentary on CPIB’s decision to not prosecute former Keppel executives

02/02/2023
US businesses ‘fear internet curbs in Hong Kong’

Hong Kong offers free flights after COVID isolation

02/02/2023

Trending posts

Former Singaporean shares change of life in Australia with annual pay of S$80,000 as a plumber

Former Singaporean shares change of life in Australia with annual pay of S$80,000 as a plumber

by Yee Loon
30/01/2023
25

...

Earning only S$400 a month, delivery-rider turned hawker threw in the towel after two years of running a rojak stall

Earning only S$400 a month, delivery-rider turned hawker threw in the towel after two years of running a rojak stall

by Yee Loon
26/01/2023
24

...

They have done a fine job of confusing us about the jobs situation

They have done a fine job of confusing us about the jobs situation

by Augustine Low
01/02/2023
36

...

Two Indian nationals paid about S$330 and S$730 respectively for forged certificates submitted in their S-Pass application

MOM found issuing EPs meant for foreign PMETs to PRC waitress and general worker

by Correspondent
26/01/2023
41

...

Singapore warns slower economic growth in 2023

Less than 1 in 10 jobs created in first three quarters of 2022 went to Singaporeans?

by Leong Szehian
28/01/2023
69

...

Excessively charging for an essential need, and calling it affordable because people still can pay for it?

by Terry Xu
31/01/2023
39

...

October 2020
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Sep   Nov »

The Online Citizen is a regional online publication based in Taiwan and formerly Singapore’s longest-running independent online media platform.

Navigation

  • Editorial
  • Commentaries
  • Opinion
  • Politics
  • Community

Support

  • Contact Us
  • Letter submission
  • Membership subscription

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Fact Checking Policy
  • Privacy Policy

© 2022 - 2023 The Online Citizen Asia

No Result
View All Result
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Commentaries
    • Comments
  • Current Affairs
    • Malaysia
    • Indonesia
    • China
    • ASEAN
    • Asia
    • International
  • Finance
    • Economics
    • Labour
    • Property
    • Business
  • Community
    • Civil Society
    • Arts & Culture
    • Consumer Watch
    • NGO
  • Politics
    • Parliament
    • Transport
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Housing
  • Law & Order
    • Legislation
    • Court Cases
  • Lifestyle
    • Travel
  • Subscribers login

© 2022 - 2023 The Online Citizen Asia

wpDiscuz