President Joe Biden talks a lot about his plan to build back a better and healthier nation than the robust one his predecessor created. But what he doesn’t seem to comprehend is that his actions since 1970 have gone egregiously against his present professed philosophy. Oh, the times, they are a-changin’. Can Joe rewrite the past to keep his flailing legacy above water, or will 50 years of being on the wrong side of history sink him?
Bury Them in Jail
The Federal Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, often known simply as the "crime bill," has Joe Biden’s fingerprints all over it, and rightly so. He wrote it, promoted it, and then went on to brag about getting criminals off the streets. The bill was a labor of love for the former senator, who spent years crafting the legislation. Crime had been steadily rising for decades, and Democrats needed a way to best Republicans, known as the law-and-order party.
Biden bloviated that “the liberal wing of the Democratic Party” was now promoting “60 new death penalties” and “70 enhanced penalties.” Mr. Biden can’t help himself any more now than he could in 1994; he still boasts about how his bill added “100,000 cops” and “125,000 new state prison cells.”
What he forgot to include is that the law disproportionately affected non-violent black offenders. Oops. But as late as 2008, on Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign web page, he gassed that the “Biden Crime Bill” encouraged states to build more prisons and lock more folks behind bars. Now how does that stack up with the Biden administration’s policies today? Well, therein lies the rub.
You Ain’t Black, Or Are You?
Joe Biden (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
It was a tumultuous time with a racially charged and changing environment on the Hill. Civil Rights legislation signed in 1964 had spawned a slew of backlash bills to stop an attempt at desegregation in public schools. In 1974, Senator Joe Biden was waffling about, trying to please his overwhelmingly white Delaware constituency and balance his own ideologies. He voted with some racist policies and against others to strike a balance. In 1975, he snubbed his northern liberal colleagues and voted in lockstep with Sen. Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican, against a federal integration busing bill. Helms was notoriously racist. He was also someone of whom Biden often spoke highly.
Biden explained his decision to vote against desegregation and busing, saying he didn’t want his kids to “grow up in a racial jungle.”
By voting record and public comments, Joe Biden is not and has never been a champion of black rights – an unbecoming past that then-candidate for president Kamala Harris exploited during the 2020 campaign. The Rev. Jesse Jackson gave Harris kudos for bringing up the past and excoriated Biden’s old busing record: “My judgment is it was the wrong side of history … Kamala Harris, she was on point.”
During the presidential election run-up, candidate Biden made a crack at fence-sitting black voters on the Breakfast Club syndicated radio show. He challenged listeners: “Well, I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” The embarrassing and confusing statement had folks who follow national politics or are of a certain age scratching their collective heads.
A reminder of Joe’s unfortunate past and now indelible statements is hard to excuse. How many people refer to the presidential candidate of 2008 as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean?” Then Mr. Biden dropped this comment not too long ago: “unlike the African-American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different things.”
The man also seems to believe that only Hindu Indians own convenience stores. So how does the 46th president plan to combat the mistakes he made freely with what the world will remember of him?
Public Defender Number One
Mr. Biden spent a tiny portion of his career as a public defender. So naturally, he has turned that span of a year or so into a virtue-signaling talking point. He used it deftly against then-Sen. Kamala Harris during the 2020 presidential primary debates, saying, “I was a public defender. I didn’t become a prosecutor.” Ah, yes, focus on the little guy you once aided before you put thousands into federal prison. Good plan.
Earlier this week, the president showed his hand in the game of how to leave a legacy: He pardoned three individuals and commuted more than 75 federal sentences. And a cursory glance says it all: most had been convicted of drug charges under the Biden Crime Act, resulting in mass incarcerations. Somehow, Biden either plans to turn back time or just hopes folks only focus on the good deeds. Too bad his timing is off: Crime has skyrocketed in cities across the nation since the current administration took office.
The Man. The Myth. The Legend in His Own Mind
Since the first addicting taste of politics in 1970, Joe Biden has said whatever the climate demanded. From public defender to tough on crime, to trying to convince the nation he could save its soul, the current president is more of a willow bending with the fickle political winds than the oak tree he tries to emulate.
It wasn’t long ago that Mr. Biden tried to own, and claimed to own, the crime bill that filled prisons to the brim. And that cloak doesn’t fit the Democratic Party du jour. When one has a public, documented past on every issue – sometimes even creating the issue – that Democrats and progressives fight against today, it becomes clear that Mr. Biden, with his folksy veneer, is just a classic example of trying on the mantle of Noblesse Oblige. But eventually, the president is going to have to live up to a promise or two. And that is not a legacy that will translate well in the history books.
