Hey there! Tool checking in from the fighting 14th, home of DSA, AOC, and now a new NBC drama called “Sunnyside”! Last night I had the opportunity to watch the democratic debate at Sanger Hall in Sunnyside. The little bar I attended was half filled with Bernie supports and half with Warren supporters! They had a drinking game for every time Biden invoked President Obama as his personal buddy (needless to say the crowd got tipsy)!
The hall was packed, respectful and mostly only offered jeers and leers only when Biden flubbed, looked confused, forgot what he said a minute ago, or just generally rambled. Safe to say that the room filled with 19-50 year olds from Queens was not Biden’s crowd.
The most shocking point of the evening though came at the very end of the debate. It had become clear that it was past Biden’s bed time when for his final answer he devolved into some sort of incoherent rambling that stunned the room and elicited gasps of “oh no, wtf, did he just say, what does that mean, and please go away.”
Mr. Vice president, I want to come to you and talk to you about inequality in schools and race. In a conversation about how to deal with segregation in schools back in 1975, you told a reporter, "I don't feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather, I feel responsible for what the situation is today, for the sins of my own generation, and I'll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago."
You said that some 40 years ago. But as you stand here tonight, what responsibility do you think that Americans need to take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country?
BIDEN: Well, they have to deal with the -- look, there's institutional segregation in this country. And from the time I got involved, I started dealing with that. Red-lining banks, making sure that we are in a position where -- look, you talk about education. I propose that what we take is those very poor schools, the Title I schools, triple the amount of money we spend from 15 to $45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise, the equal raise to getting out -- the $60,000 level.
Number two, make sure that we bring in to help the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home, we need -- we have one school psychologist for every 1,500 kids in America today. It's crazy.
The teachers are -- I'm married to a teacher. My deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them. We have -- make sure that every single child does, in fact, have 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds go to school. School. Not daycare. School. We bring social workers in to homes and parents to help them deal with how to raise their children.
It's not want they don't want to help. They don't -- they don't know quite what to do. Play the radio, make sure the television -- excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the -- the -- make sure that kids hear words. A kid coming from a very poor school -- a very poor background will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time they get there.
DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.
BIDEN: There's so much we -- no, I'm going to go like the rest of them do, twice over, OK?
(APPLAUSE)
Because here's the deal. The deal is that we've got this a little backwards. And by the way, in Venezuela, we should be allowing people to come here from Venezuela. I know Maduro. I've confronted Maduro.
Number two, you talk about the need to do something in Latin America. I'm the guy that came up with $740 million to see to it those three countries, in fact, changed their system so people don't have to chance to leave. You're all acting like we just discovered this yesterday. Thank you very much.
DAVIS: Thank you very much.
Secretary Castro?
CASTRO: Thank you very much. Well, that's -- that's quite a lot.
I’m not sure I can fully articulate how much this statement from Biden can be used against him. Castro followed up Biden’s rambling with a very diplomatic answer but this type of answer is not a gaffe. A gaffe is when a politician unintentionally says something that is true or “politically incorrect” — not the behavior that Biden expressed last night.
Many of the articles are talking about the ageist swipe that Castro made concerning Biden’s memory yet have not focused on this exchange.
I’m not an unbiased writer. I fully support Warren or Bernie for the nomination since I think their ideas are the biggest, boldest, and will meaningfully impact my life and perhaps save the planet from being uninhabitable for the grandchildren I one day hope to have.
I was terrified of the outcomes for our planet if Joe Biden is once again given the reins of power. I don’t think he is the most electable candidate nor do I think he is positioned to beat Trump. In my opinion he was the weakest of all the candidates on stage (in terms of being a fighter) and clearly if he is going to go on the attack of saying Warren has too many plans...then what does that say about his ideas or lack of them?
Biden was the only candidate to directly leave a climate debate (opps I mean forum) and go directly to an oil industry fund raiser. That might have been possible in the 1980s when social media was not a thing and politicians could count on reporters not reporting that type of stuff — but in this day and age — we saw how Hillary Clinton was defamed and attacked for engaging in the same type of behavior. Behavior that 45% of our party no longer finds acceptable as President Obama, Senator Sanders, and now the field of candidates we have has shown small donor bases to be just as good as raising money from bundlers and industries the government is supposed to be regulating.
Biden’s performance was scary last night — at least to the room full of millennial, gen x, and boomers attended.
Did any of you have similar reactions when you watched that closing?