According to the Rasmussen Report, Joe Biden holds a dramatic lead (33% of Likely Democrat Voters) over rivals Elizabeth Warren (19% of LDV) and Bernie Sanders (16% of LDV) in the mad dash to the Democrat nomination. This convention will gavel itself into existence on July 13th, about ten months from now.
Biden as the Democrat presidential standard-bearer could be very good news for conservative House candidates, if only because Biden – long thought to be a “moderate” Democrat – is now espousing some remarkably far-left positions. By allowing himself to be led by the nose by fringe candidates on the Socialist/Progressive extreme left wing of his party, Biden is contributing to the polarizing of the 2020 electorate. Doing so, Biden could find himself pushing moderate democrats and independents in the direction of conservatives.
Here are a few examples.
First and foremost, Joe Biden has a real problem saying things in public that he either made up or never meant to say where voters could hear him. Nothing new here – former Vice President Biden has always seemed to lack a “governor” between his brain and his mouth. That means Joe Biden exhibits all the flaws the liberals keep trying to pin on President Trump, who admittedly has a quick trigger finger when it comes to posting snappy Tweets. In the 2020 election, this could mean that Biden’s frequent “gaffes” (as the media likes to call them – when it’s Trump, they call them “lies”) – will tend to neutralize what may be Trump’s most significant potential election problem.
If both men are quick to speak without thinking things through clearly, if both men tend to exaggerate for effect, and if both men seem to make things up, as they occasionally do, then Biden’s gaffes will balance out charges against Trump. This will make it hard, even for the left-leaning mainstream media, to blame one while giving the other a free pass.
However, Joe Biden brings other baggage to the election – baggage that will slow down any campaign he dreams of running.
For instance, just last week, Joe Biden called for a mandatory gun buyback program, modeled on the one enacted by New Zealand and Australia. He claims this isn’t actually gun confiscation. However, this is only even remotely accurate because, under his plan, the government – which will force gun owners to surrender their firearms, under penalty of law – will then compensate the owners, whether those owners want to sell their guns or not. Of course, the government would also set the buyback price, leaving freedom-loving Americans with no choice but to surrender their firearms, regardless of what they get back in return.
When he’s a bit more in control of his runaway mouth, Biden claims to only want to ban “assault weapons.” However, what he intends – and has admitted – is a ban on all semi-automatic firearms, as well as all “magazines that can hold multiple bullets in them,” according to the Washington Post. This bold, misguided stance against the right of self-defense as enshrined in the Second Amendment will tend to bring otherwise apathetic voters to the polls in record numbers – not to support gun confiscation, but to support our right to keep and bear arms. That’s got to be a plus for any conservative running for a hotly-contested House seat.
Beyond his blatantly unconstitutional plan to confiscate guns – though he insists on calling it something else – Joe Biden has also come out in favor of the Green New Deal. This is another unconstitutional plan, originally put forth by Democrat Socialist Congressional Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), one that would, AOC and her fellow advocates proclaim, “eliminate fossil fuels within ten years.” Boldly asserting, without a shred of evidence, that this move would be a net gain for America, AOC’s plan to ban the sale of gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, fuel oil and even plastics – which are largely petroleum-based – will, Biden confidently asserts, create millions of new jobs. How that would happen isn’t clear. If Joe Biden has figured that out, he’s not telling anyone. However, this existential threat to tens of millions of current, frequently high-paying jobs is crystal clear.
Also not addressed in his Green New Deal plan is how the Army would operate its main battle tanks using wind power – or how the Air Force would fly its combat-capable aircraft, powered by solar power … especially at night.
In taking up this socialistic plan to nationalize the entire US economy while gutting our military – which will be the ultimate result of Biden’s Green New Deal concept – Biden finds himself advocating a policy that will cost America tens of trillions of dollars that, as a country, we just don’t have. Beyond that, tens of thousands of major employers would be forced under the Green New Deal to shut down, either because they couldn’t obtain the energy needed to run their businesses, or because their currently-legal products would become banned by government fiat.
As the Washington Post reported, “to that end, Biden’s climate plan adopts the rhetoric – and at times, many of the actual policy proposals – of the Green New Deal,” an unworkable plan advocated by the fringe candidate known to her fans and detractors as AOC. Her plan calls for the total elimination of the nation’s “carbon footprint” by 2030, a move that rightly frightens moderate conservative mainstream voters. These are men and women – the bedrock of America – who are now being forced to wonder how they’ll survive in a country saddled by tens of trillions of dollars in new debt while discovering that there’s no gas at the pump, no fuel oil for their home’s furnace and no electricity at all. Let alone no national defense.
Biden’s two new policies – gun confiscation and the Green New Deal – are lightning rods for the extreme far Left, as well as for those conservatives who will oppose the fever dreams of irresponsible socialists who now drive the Democrat Party. However, there’s another way that Joe Biden could inadvertently help America continue a movement toward more conservative values – including electing more conservative members of Congress.
Specifically, Joe Biden is well-known for “shooting from the lip,” coming up with bizarre tales such as last week’s claim that he tried to pin a medal on a Navy Captain’s chest after that man had entered a ravine under hostile fire, attempting to save a fellow soldier, though the man he came to save had died. Then, when offered the medal, Biden claimed this Navy Captain refused the medal. “Do not pin it on me, Sir! Do not do that! He died. He died!”
Then Joe sealed the deal by saying, “This is the God’s honest truth. My word as a Biden.”
Well, what’s that Biden word actually worth? Not much, apparently.
The actual incident which triggered this particular fantasy happened when Biden was a Senator, not the Vice President. The man to be honored was an Army enlisted man, not a Navy Captain. The man did not turn down his medal, and was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Obama, which that soldier did not refuse. Except for the location, the date and the people involved, the medal involved and the rejection of the medal (all of these claims made up), Biden’s “This is the God’s Truth. My word as a Biden” is nothing but yet one more of Joe Biden’s fabrications. The media largely chooses to ignore these, with a “that’s just Joe” or “he captured the spirit of the event, if not the actual facts.”
Joe may not know what’s happening around him, but if he’s nominated, that very lack of a tight grip on sanity could work in 2020 in favor of conservative candidates for the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.