The Final Act of 'Sleepy Joe' Biden
From Plagiarism to Presidency: The Unremarkable Journey of Joe Biden
Last night was bad for Joe Biden. His candidacy is now defined by his aging decline. "Sleepy Joe" is no longer a dismissive label; it's now a real thing. Nicknames last because they're fitting, and in Biden's case, this moniker has stuck. Lost on almost everyone is that Biden has always been that guy: one of the least respected perennial politicians and arguably one of the least qualified individuals to ascend to the presidency. Joe Biden’s entire career is a testament to the persistence of mediocrity.
It took Biden three tries over the span of three decades to receive his first presidential delegate in 2019. His previous campaigns were met with resounding rejection and, apart from several notable gaffes that still circulate on YouTube, are largely forgotten.
Biden's first presidential campaign in 1987 ended in humiliation when it was revealed he had plagiarized an entire speech from a British politician. This scandal was compounded by reports of plagiarism during his time in law school. His second attempt in 2008 was similarly unimpressive; he garnered attention only for his controversial comment describing Barack Obama as the first "mainstream African-American who is articulate, bright, clean, and a nice-looking guy" to run for president. Biden withdrew from the race shortly thereafter, finishing with less than one percent of the vote in the Iowa caucus.
In 2019, his campaign was on life support by February until Obama, James Clyburn, and the DNC apparatchiks dragged him across the finish line in South Carolina, like an old, tired horse. This tactical move leveraged Bernie Sanders' lack of appeal among Super Tuesday states, excluding California, and propelled Biden to the nomination.
Understanding what they were working with and understanding his limitations far better than he ever could, his handlers and overseers hatched an amazing plan for the 2020 election. They’d keep him off the campaign trail as much as possible. The COVID pandemic provided the perfect cover. During any rare virtual or even rarer in-person interview, he had handlers ready to pull him out before he could derail the gift they had been given by the very peculiar circumstances—fortification, as Time Magazine braggingly referred to it—that was the 2020 election. Even still, Biden barely defeated Donald Trump, but he got what he so desperately wanted for his entire lifetime.
The Democrat Party and their media allies congratulated themselves for what they saw as erasing the aberration of the Trump presidency. However, what followed was not a glorious ending but the beginning of a disastrous term with Joe Biden finally in charge. Last night’s debate was the culmination of Biden’s entire political career—a glaring spotlight on what has always been evident: an unremarkable and unaccomplished man that only a profession such as his could ever reward. Losing to the same man he beat in 2020 is something that could only happen in a career like Biden’s. It is a fitting and poetic finish to his political spectacle.