The kindest interpretation, and I think rather accurate, of what was going on in the back of Vice President Biden’s head when he made his recent controversial comments, is this, IMHO:
“For some historical perspective, let us remember this. There are members of today’s Senate that are old enough to remember working in the same chamber as ardent segregationists, older Senators left over from the days before the Kennedy-Johnson civil rights legislation. Senators who argued in their prime that Americans should be separated by skin color in every area of life from the use of a water fountain or bathroom to the school they attend or the job they can have. This is important because in other areas of legislation, there was more cooperation between Democrats and Republicans in those days than now. It is as though modern day Republican partisanship is deeper than any form of partisanship has ever been, with almost no good reason to exist from the point of view of politics or governance. It is nothing more than an intractable power grab by Mitch McConnel and his ilk who have, unfortunately, taken almost every elected seat their party holds in the US Congress and every state’s legislature.”
Instead he said “Yeah, cool, I once hung out with segregationists and we worked together OK and it was cool.”
The problem with Joe Biden making the broader and more accurate point I suggest above is that it would remind people of two things:
1) Joe is as old as the hills; and
2) Joe’s point that he can work across the aisle is outdated by decades, and untenable.
I saw this coming. Joe Biden has a history of gaffing his way into lower and lower poll numbers, and never quite getting that he is doing it, until he loses. I will support whatever nominee the Democratic Party yadayadayada. But I do hope the Descent of Biden happens now during the primary season rather than after the nomination is handed to him. Right now he is the most unbeatable of all the declared candidates according to head to head match-up polling. But he is, in fact, the most beatable of the major candidates, based on everything we know about him.
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In other words, those senators from the past weren’t shy about saying what they wanted. Today’s Republican party wants to return to those things, but they don’t have the guts to speak it out loud (yet).
We need to support whoever comes out as the one to run in opposition to Trump. We also need to hope they don’t stupid themselves into the loss column before the big game.
Yes, that is another layer of all this. We have shifted away from the fiery speech to the not so subtle dog whistle.
Re: “2) Joe’s point that he can work across the aisle is outdated by decades, and untenable.”
It’s hard to imagine how he could even make that statement after being VP and watching the across-the-board obstructionism of the Republican members of Congress. This especially includes the vigorous objection to “Obamacare” which originally came out of a conservative think tank, if I remember correctly. (No wonder they can’t replace it.)
It was a modification of the plan Romney put in place as governor, which was itself essentially the plan the folks at the Heritage Foundation put together in the 90s when the right feared HRC and her committee would put together working out of the White House. It would have been the counter-proposal by the Republicans.
Of course the right doesn’t speak about that (and the Heritage Foundation no longer employs anyone who even tries to present a rational point of view.)
“Of course the right doesn’t speak about that …”
Which, apparently, to them means whatever they don’t acknowledge doesn’t/didn’t exist or happen.