Debunking Five Attacks Against Joe Biden From The Sanders Campaign
Now that Senator Sanders has dropped out, Joe Biden is the only Democrat running for President and as such is the nomination. However, this doesn’t mean Bernie supporters are willing to admit defeat.
Cenk Uygur, host of the progressive internet news show The Young Turks, warned of “at least 4 years of darkness.”Matt Christman, host of the popular left-wing podcast Chapo Trap House, said he officially no longer cares who wins in 2020 because they’re all the same anyway. Kyle Kulinski, host of the popular left-wing YouTube channel Secular Talk, said he’s voting Green in 2020 assuming he’s voting at all.
All of these people have many reasons to be against Joe Biden, however, most of those reasons are total nonsense. As such, I’ve decided to debunk five smears against Former Vice President Joe Biden that Senator Sanders and his supporters have pushed.
#1. Biden Supported The Iraq War
I already said most of what I wanted to say about this claim in a previous article, so I’d recommend reading that if you haven’t already before moving forward:
The only other thing to note is that Senator Sanders is actually much closer to Biden on this than most realize.
Remember the resolution Biden sponsored that said Bush could only invade after all diplomatic efforts fail? Well Sanders voted for a very similar resolution with the goal of restraining — although not necessarily stopping — President Bush’s chances of going to war against Saddam.
In fact, Sanders voted for the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. Which stated:
It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq
This act was commonly cited by Bush and his supporters as evidence that the people wanted us to go into Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. Sanders voted for it, as did Biden and the entire United States Senate.
Sanders also voted for the Authorization For Use Of Military Force Against Terrorists Resolution back in 2001, as did every member of congress except Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA). As such, while the attacks on Biden may be misleading by themselves, one cannot ignore that they are also somewhat hypocritical.
#2. Biden Is Against Social Security
If this is the case, someone should really consider telling the Alliance For Retired People, who have given Biden an 89%! Biden was also a key figure in stopping George W. Bush from privatizing Social Security back in 2005, which seems odd for someone who is against it.
Here is a quote that was in many attack ads on Biden, from 1/31/1995:
When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well. I meant Medicare and Medicaid. I meant veterans benefits. I meant every single solitary thing in the government. And I not only tried it once, I tried it twice. I tried it a third time, and I tried it a fourth time. Somebody has to tell me in here how we are going to do this hard work without dealing with any of those sacred cows, some deserving more protection than others. I am not quite sure how you get from here to there. I am sure that we should tell the American people straight up that such an amendment is going to require some big changes.
The freeze Biden was talking about happened back in 1984, when he and various other members of the Senate (including Senator Chuck Grassley) promised to freeze federal spending for one year as a way to decrease the then growing budget deficit.
However, here is the part that Bernie always leaves out. The freeze would not have cut social security, it would have simply eliminated the cost-of-living increase for that year. Really, what Biden voted for was not expanding the program, not cutting it.
And that freeze, by the way, would have only happened for the fiscal year of 1985. So maybe, someone, somewhere, about thirty five years ago who was on social security would have been made slightly worse off because of Biden’s actions — except even then they weren’t because the budget freeze failed.
The fiscal year of 1985 saw us spending over $90 million more than we did in 1984, including on the increased cost of living for Social Security.
#3: Biden Has A Track Record Of Opposing Abortion
Ever since Roe v. Wade in 1973, our country has evolved massively regarding the issue of abortion. Really, the only thing we’ve changed our tone more on is race, and trust me I’ll get to Biden and that in a minute.
According to Jamal Brown, Biden’s press secretary at the time, Biden said in 1973 that he thought Roe v. Wade was wrongfully decided. While many use this as evidence for his secret pro-life agenda, that was a popular belief among many pro-choice circles at the time. In fact, some pro-choice people still believe that. Most notably the late Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
In 1981, Biden voted for a constitutional amendment that allowed states to repeal Roe v. Wade if they so choose. However, this shows he considers it a state issue, not that he’s against abortion. Was Bernie Sanders against gun control when he said that should be left up to the states back in 2007? Either way, it doesn’t matter because the following year, 1982, Biden voted against the same failed constitutional amendment.
In truth, Biden has always been dead center on the issue of abortion. He supported the Hyde Amendment (for thirty forty three years) back when it was seen as the only compromise between pro-life and pro-choice. Now that less Americans believe in compromise on abortion, he’s against it. Same with Reagan’s Mexico City policy. Basically, Biden represents the middle of the country, it just so happens he always represents the middle on an issue that we have changed greatly on.
#4: Biden Is Responsible For Mass Incarceration
Speaking of issues we’ve evolved on, let’s talk about Biden’s infamous 1994 Crime Bill. And, for the sake of argument, we won’t talk about how the explosion in the prison population commonly attributed to this legislation also coincided with a massive decrease in crime.
Let’s get the obvious thing out of the way, Senator Sanders also voted for Biden’s crime bill. In an interview from 1994, Sanders said he supported a “two prong” approach to crime and agreed with Former Vice President Biden that more jails were needed.
Now, fair is fair, and in early 2020 Sanders said criminal justice was the issue he evolved the most on. However, so has Biden, and yet the Sanders campaign and his supporters seem to believe that the evolution the guy they support went through is just impossible for anyone else to go through.
However, what is also ignored is just how moderate Biden’s crime bill was compared to everything else that was being proposed. Take for example what President Trump proposed in his own book The America We Deserve:
Criminals are often returned to society because of forgiving judges. This has to stop. We need to hold judges more accountable… The rest of us need to rethink prisons and punishment. The next time you hear someone saying there are too many people in prison, ask them how many thugs they’re willing to relocate to their neighborhood. The answer: None.
Or how about former House Speak Newt Gingrich? His failed Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996 would have required courts to give anyone convicted of selling drugs multiple times to be sentenced to the death plenty.
And who could forget former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani? The man who believed you should get a jail sentence for everything from jaywalking to owning a ferret.
For that matter, the evidence that this bill “led to mass incarceration” is nonexistent. In 1970, 100 people out of every 100,000 were in prison, by 1993 that number was already 400 per 100,000. While the prison rate did go up after the crime bill, that was to 500 per 100,000, meaning it grew at a much slower rate than before hand.
While Biden’s crime bill is not perfect, it is not nearly the cause of some Orwellian criminal justice system progressives keep claiming. It was a compromise between progressive crime policies and the tough on crime legislation being supported by Republicans.
#5: Biden Is A Racist
This is the big one, one that was brought up by Senator Harris in the first Democratic Debate. The idea that Biden has previously been a racist.
Biden did work with segregationist Democrats early on in his career, however, that was when a good amount of the Democratic party were segregationists. And even back then, he had a very strict line. In 1975, he said he’d sooner vote for President Ford than Alabama Governor George Wallace if he got the Democratic nomination for President.
However, if Biden is a racist, someone should really consider telling African-Americans. Almost the entire Congressional Black Caucus has endorsed Biden for President over Bernie Sanders, odd that someone who is a racist would get the support of so many minorities.
During the South Carolina primaries, Biden was the most popular candidate among African-Americans, and it wasn’t even close. So claiming Biden is a racist means that minorities must just be too stupid to realize it — and if you believe that, you’re pretty racist.
