Is it an act? Is he really this quick to anger?
Who knows?!
All we know for sure is that former Vice President Joe Biden keeps escalating confrontations with voters, turning already tense moments on the 2020 campaign trail into ultrapersonal and childish spectacles of name-calling and threats. If Biden keeps this up, it won’t do him any favors in the general election when it comes time to draw a decency and character contrast between himself and President Trump.
On Tuesday, the 2020 Democratic candidate threatened to slap a pro-gun construction worker who accused him of trying to “end our Second Amendment right.”
“You’re full of shit,” said Biden before sticking his finger in the man’s face.
The worker said of the former vice president’s announced efforts to further regulate firearms, “This is not OK, alright?”
“Don’t tell me that, pal,” said Biden, getting right up in the man’s face, “or I’m going to go out and slap you in the face.”
The man said, “You’re working for me, man!”
“I’m not working for you,” Biden spat back. “Don’t be such a horse’s ass.”
If you think this is bad, consider the fact that this is at least the third such incident for Biden on the 2020 campaign trail. Earlier, in January, he created a confrontation with former Iowa state Rep. Ed Fallon, telling the man to vote for someone else while also accusing him of being a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The moment started when Fallon told Biden during a campaign event in Iowa that he would support the former vice president “if he wins the nomination.”
“But what are we going to do about climate change?” Fallon asked. “We’ve got to stop building and replacing these pipelines.”
Biden then got uncomfortably close to Fallon, placed his hand on the Iowa man’s chest, and said, “Go vote for somebody else.”
He continued, growing increasingly hostile. “I’m running for a primary, a caucus. That’s what I’m running for, OK? Now, you believe that Bernie can do something? And by 2030?”
Fallon corrected the former vice president, who was tugging on his lapels at this point, noting that he was supporting billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer.
Earlier than even that, Biden called a man in Iowa a “damn liar,” “fat,” and “too old to vote for me” after the man suggested the Democratic candidate used his influence as vice president to land his son, Hunter Biden, a plush gig with a Ukrainian gas company.
“[You] sent your son over there to get a job and work for a gas company that he had no experience with gas or nothing in order to get access for the president,” said the man. “You’re selling access to the president just like [Trump] does.”
“You’re a damn liar, man!” said Biden. “No one has said my son has done anything wrong, and I did not on any occasion.”
The man claimed he heard about the Biden-Ukraine deal on MSNBC, to which Biden responded by saying, “You don’t hear that on MSNBC. … Look, OK, I’m not going to get into an argument with you, man.”
The man said later, “Yeah, all right. I’m not voting for you.”
“I knew you weren’t, man,” Biden replied. “You’re too old to vote for me.”
What is the former vice president’s play? Is he trying to look tough, like he is just the right amount of cranky and mean to take on Trump in the fall? If that is the strategy, it is a remarkably stupid one. By being unnecessarily nasty and confrontational with private citizens, Biden looks petty and small. He is supposed to rise above that sort of thing, especially if he hopes to offer voters an alternative to Trump.
Then again, maybe Biden really is this quick to childish, snot-nosed anger, in which case, he is making a better case against his own candidacy than the GOP ever could.
