Trouble for Biden?

It recently came to my attention that former vice president Joe Biden, one of the Democratic presidential candidates, called a female college student a “lying dog-faced pony soldier” at one of his rallies in New Hampshire. When I heard that, I was floored. No matter what party you support, it should never be appropriate for a candidate to treat someone like that.

I know that there is always something in the news every day with President Trump posting a questionable Tweet or saying something disparaging about a foreign government official’s wife, but Biden needs to be the opposite of that if he wants to win the primary and then the election. The more I’ve read, the more I’ve honestly wondered why I haven’t been hearing this in the media as much as I should have.

This was a big issue with Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2018. Several women came forward saying that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted or mistreated them, and the nomination came to a standstill. The same thing could happen to Biden. There have already been several women who interned, worked or met with Biden who have described how uncomfortable they felt at times in interactions with him.

Currently, there are only three candidates in the race for the Democratic primary: Biden, Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard has not done well in the polls, so it is likely she will drop out of the primary in the coming months; maybe even weeks. So far, it looks like the two Democratic candidates most likely to run against Trump in November will be Sanders and Biden.

The Democratic National Convention (DNC) cannot support candidates who have a questionable past concerning their behavior toward women, especially if they are doing things now on the campaign trail.

While the DNC wants a strong candidate to run against Trump, there are several issues with its two frontrunners. Some Democrats are making the argument that Sanders’ socialist policies could provide Trump with a useful weapon to use against him on the campaign trail. At the same time, Biden is currently having issues with new information coming to light about his son, Hunter, and his, potentially illegal, interactions with Ukraine.

I also don’t think it’s right to prematurely judge Biden. As someone from Gen Z, I can definitively say that most of my generation looks at things very differently than Baby Boomers and Gen X. Biden is used to an era where it was considered commonplace for women to be harassed in the workplace. While this doesn’t give Biden a free pass to do as he wishes, society should never vilify someone because society’s standards have changed.

Looking back, I’ve had to relook at how I should react to hearing about things like this. It’s easy to blame an individual for something they say, did or even something from the past. However, it’s not always right to do so. Just remember, it’s easy for society to change, but it’s more difficult for people to.