MEDIAWATCH: : The Biden conumdrum

By Diego Fernandez Verga

If nothing extraordinary happens, Joseph R. Biden will be the nominee for the Democratic Party to face Donald Trump in the November elections.

For many, the former senator for the State of Delaware identifies himself with that always smiling character next to Barack Obama , while he was his second in command, so the idea of ​​a presidency led by him, makes us think of times when the first Afro-descendant to lead the United States. A return to recent normality.

A normality that would take us back to a reality where there would be no incompetent authoritarian at the forefront of the response to a global pandemic, which has exposed its ineptitude, obvious to many before this new disease arrived.

However, at 77 and with the nomination basically secured, Joe Biden has a long career in politics for which he will have to answer.

If we learned anything from the previous campaign where Hillary Clinton faced Donald Trump, it is that the current president is very skilled when it comes to the spectacle that sadly represents the political campaign.

Don’t get me wrong, Trump is an opportunist of the worst kind, but his life – from his beginnings in the real estate world in Manhattan, his stint on television, his questionable international deals, and the way the presidential chair uses to favoring people close to their environment, not to mention the fundamentalist characters that make up their cabinet – speaks of an understanding of the most basic instincts of the human condition.

And that wild instinct for power, which put Trump in the presidential chair almost by inertia, is going to be part of the campaign that is just beginning against Joe Biden.

Afro support 
So it is important to remember that Biden, who won the majority of the Afro-descendant vote in the short and recent Democratic primaries, has been one of the intellectual architects of the world’s largest prison system; voted in favor of the Iraq war, becoming a key ally of George W. Bush to persuade his colleagues in the Democratic Party; He has a constant record of lies, which even cost him a presidential campaign in the past; He has been accused of sexual harassment on several occasions, and some consider that his mental prowess is on the decline.

Yes, this is the Joe Biden that Barack Obama chose to be his vice president. And although this selection was widely criticized at the time, it is probably at least one of the factors that put it in the White House.

Biden helped Obama calm the most conservative sectors of the Democratic Party, and perhaps also won him votes with some Republicans tired of the leadership of the second Bush.

In addition, Biden is constantly described as someone charming on a personal level, and proof of this have been his friendships in the Legislative Branch, passing through Republican segregationists to Bernie Sanders , who has described him as his friend, joining to work with him in the face of the general campaign.

In this way, I think it would be important to remember its beginnings, to understand what may be to come.

In reality, Biden ran for the first time as a Democrat from the New Deal stream, and he moved to the right as a reelection strategy, when the Democratic Party was then beginning to abandon that stream, to make way for one that was driving minimize the role of the government and lower taxes, among other things.

Therefore, his story tells us of a politician who, whether we like it or not, has managed to transform himself according to changing political trends.

This is why I am convinced that, if Biden wants to win Donald Trump’s race for the White House in November, he must again resort to these instincts that identified him in his political career.

The election of Donald Trump and the arrival of Bernie Sanders and figures such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to national prominence, make me have no doubt that populist movements on both the right and the American left are surpassing the possibility of representation that the Democratic and Republican parties are capable of offering.

Joe Biden and the people behind his campaign must understand this historic moment in changing political trends, just as he understood it in its early days in Washington DC

Your opportunity to make it clear that you have understood this is in your election as Vice President. Biden has already confirmed that he will choose a woman to accompany him on the presidential ticket.

However, the gender element will not be enough. I personally believe that if Biden and his campaign understand what is at stake, there is only one person who can broaden his coalition enough to bring at least part of the progressive movement to his tent: Elizabeth Warren.

What I wonder is if the Biden that knew how to move so skillfully in its political beginnings is still there.