I also get the sneaking suspicion, though, that Republicans will be taking their revenge on the next Dem president no matter who it is. So even if he does nothing to stoke the fire, it's still going to burn.
Agree - but I think it's harder for it to be convincing. It's easy to turn Obama into an "other" and Trump into a sociopath. It's harder to really demonize 'ol grandpa Joe. I'm sure they'll find a way, but I don't think it resonates quite as much as it would with most of the other candidates.
Especially considering the worst thing they have to say about Biden is that his nepotism got Hunter a job. That argument isn't a strong one to begin with and even weaker coming from Trump supporters.
OH NO JOE Biden fat shamed a porcine (angry?) white guy!!! The disrespect!! You don't mess with Sacred Cows! They hard working and mooo collar REAL™️ Americans!
Its a total nothing burger....but ask Hillary about nothing burgers (I.e. emails). Just because something is baseless and false doesn’t mean it will be recognized as such. “A lie repeated 1,000 times becomes truth”. If he becomes the nominee, and especially throughout the impeachment process, this issue about Ukraine and his son’s involvement will continue to drip-drip. So much to the point where Trump supporters will believe it’s all true. Nuance and details don’t matter in today’s political age. All Trump supporters see and hear are: lifetime politician that people say is corrupt running against their guy. It’s the same anti-Hillary script they ran with in 2016. Only this one will strike a nerve with the Bernie wing too, since inevitably that will be one of the arguments they pivot to if/when it becomes a Biden/Bernie contest for the nomination.
Except Hillary has been demonized by the right for 25 years - it wasn't really a huge leap for anything new to play into that narrative. This would be more like the left trying to demonize Mitt Romney or John McCain or Bob Dole. Or the right trying to do it with John Kerry. The crazies will of course believe anything, but generally those things don't stick nearly as well to people who don't have that kind of history.
I really, truly hope you’re right about that. Baseless nonsense should be treated as such, but like I said: I have a serious fear this Ukraine situation with his son is going to haunt him. Republicans, along with their proxies and media have the ability to drag something like this out the same way they made something out of nothing with Hillary’s emails. And truth be told: the optics are horrible. Dude made $50,000 or 80,000 or whatever it was on a monthly basis in field he had no experience in. That’s difficult for even Democrats to defend when it’s blatant nepotism on that level. Complicate that with the VP’s involvement in leveraging to get that corrupt prosecutor fired, it definitely muddies the waters with everything that’s happening in the impeachment world. Overall, it’s stupid....but getting to the bottom of it requires some reading and critical thinking. Most people are too lazy to do that and will simply default to whatever politicians on their side of the aisle are saying is true.
I agree it looks weird and one of the Bidens does need to come clean about how he got that job. But in terms of the prosecutor, the whole world was trying to get him removed. The Obama administration, Republicans in Congress, the UK, the EU, etc. It was because he was corrupt - and the GOP has plenty of quotes on their side affirming that. But that said, I agree the GOP would try to use it against him. But they could find crazy things in Bernie's past (he and his family have their own nepotism issues), or Warren's corporate lawyer days, etc. I just think Biden is best insulated from it because he's largely the most universially not-disliked.
I agree with all of this except the nepotism claim, there is nothing pointing to Joe having anything to do with Hunter getting that job.
I don’t want to debate semantics. He didn’t get him the job, but it’s safe to assume his son only got that absurdly lucrative job at Burisma because of who his father is. That distinction won’t inspire any sympathy, anyway. We’re talking about a guy who was born on third base getting a cushy job making bonkers money because his dad is the VP. Like I said, from an optics perspective - not good. I realize many others do the exact same thing and it’s not illegal. But skirting the line between legal and right is not a good place to be. Not when your dad plans on running for President and the anti-corruption narrative is going to be so prevalent.
It's not a semantics argument it's the definition. Nepotism the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs. Like I said it looks bad but don't feed into the false narrative that it was Nepotism.
