By Edwin Cooney
"Old" Joe Biden really ruffled a lot of progressive feathers recently when he asserted that even some Southern segregationists were really human beings deserving of both political and even social respect.
Merely mentioning the names of late Southern segregationist senators appears to have sent his opponents for the Democratic presidential nomination to the proverbial political barricades! Southern personages such as Washington, Jefferson, and even Robert E. Lee may still pluck heartstrings above and beyond "dear Old Dixie," but names Biden got along with including James O. Eastland, Herman Talmadge, Jesse Helms and, most of all, that of Strom (his first name was James!) Thurmond are practically fighting words even to Northern moderates.
What "Joe the Good" appears to be overlooking, perhaps at his own political peril, is that we live in a new political era. Unfortunately, successful office seekers aren't elected to compromise, they are elected to rule the opposition. They are elected to discredit historical achievements that make their current constituents the least uncomfortable. Nor in the 21st Century is legislating and lawgiving about essential improvement. It is about tearing down and starting over. For instance, President Trump didn't campaign on improving President Obama's healthcare achievement, something practically everyone (including Obama himself) agreed needed some improvement, Mr. Trump insisted that "Obamacare" needed and deserved not merely destruction, but both social and political obliteration. Had President Trump merely sought improvements to Obamacare, rather than its destruction, he just might have gotten his way in the Senate. However, John McCain knew the difference between legislating and bullying and decided to challenge the presidential bully.
What many of Mr. Biden's competitors get but he apparently is too old-fashioned to grasp is what it is that appears to work in 2019 and 2020 politics. American politics has always been akin to downright incivility. Today, however, political incivility has become more vital to the national body politic in comparison to the old congressional rule that "in order to get along, one must go along." Historically, a lack of civility in politics has ruined longstanding friendships such as those between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, Franklin Roosevelt and Al Smith, Franklin Roosevelt and James A. Farley (who was his former campaign manager and Postmaster General), Richard Nixon and young Jack Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy, Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern, to name only a few. Yet, up until recently, many healthy relationships have flourished despite the reality of political opposition.
President John Kennedy and wife Jacqueline’s first presidential social call was to the home of Republican Senator John Sherman Cooper and his multi-lingual and cultured wife Lorraine on Saturday, January 28th, 1961. (Kennedy and Cooper had been members of the House Labor Committee along with Richard Nixon in 1947 and ’48.) Lyndon B. Johnson and GOP Senate Leader Everett Dirksen jawed at one another during the day but enjoyed cocktails together during many late afternoon White House convivialities. President Ronald Reagan and Democratic Speaker of the House Thomas (Tip) O'Neill frequently shared their Irish heritage after political hours between January 1981 and January 1987.
I endorse Joe Biden's candidacy because of his wide experience in national government and, despite one or two “screw-ups," because he's demonstrated a high capacity for political equity.
It's almost impossible to dare to show equity in President Donald Trump's America because policy positions generally require either knowledge of or tolerance for the political opposition. President Trump's assertion that he was treated unfairly without the respect he deserved from the outset of his presidency is more than countered by the fact that he never ceased to both attack and degrade the "loyal opposition” even during the traditional honeymoon period which most presidents seek to enjoy between election, inauguration and for a period of time thereafter. A president's behavior, or the president's mood or outlook, has an historical tendency to become the socio/political modus operandi throughout each presidency. Thus, the Kennedys were charming, so the nation was charmed. LBJ was about progressivism as was the public during his term. Nixon was serious and determined, so we were, too. The Reagans were both personable and dogmatic. Hence, our national dogmatism was tinged with a dash of Hollywood. The Bush’s were internationalists, so we too loved Gorbachev and hated Hussein just as George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara did.. The Clintons, being policy wonks, unintentionally goaded us into Newt Gingrich's conservative wonkishness. George W. Bush awkwardly led us into Iraqi nation-building against our will, so we elected our first black president who thus appointed our second female Secretary of State -- guess who? Except for "Obamacare" and his pursuit of Osama bin Laden, President Obama was both cautious and calculating. Hence the public, in its appraisal of his administration, calculated that it needed Donald Trump, the non-politician outsider. Accordingly, President Trump has set the tone for his present and his future. His pathway to success has been to appeal to the “lesser angels of our nature." So, I believe he'll be judged as far less than any known angel!
For the present, fellow Democratic presidential nomination-seekers are likely to stress policy over national style or purpose, thereby publicly suggesting that Joe Biden is all "old style" and ultimately purposeless.
Whatever they call him, “old Joe," or even "Slow Joe," Biden may well turn out to be "cool," or even "Hip Joe" and, if he's sufficiently hip or cool, he may well become "President Joe!"
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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