Joe Biden 2020 campaign megathread v3 (pg 45 - mass-dropout aftermath)

[SInNYC]

Biden's yelling jag the other day was an embarrassment. It'd have been one thing if he'd said, "You're a damned liar," followed by a convincing explanation of why his son was on the board of a company he had no qualifications for. But getting mad without backing it up just proves it's a criticism that hurts... likely because it's true. The same with the pushup nonsense about his age. Biden is a walking disaster.

How many times does it need to be explained to you people that his son was qualified to be on the board?

How many times are Biden and his supporters expected to explain and re-explain and re-explain it before we're allowed to just say "shut up you Fox News zombie"

He qualified by being Hunter Biden, just as he qualified as a senior executive at Delaware based MBNA making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, as his first job out of law school. People know how the system works, and it stinks. Biden didn't show genuine emotion because he was being unfairly attacked. He showed genuine emotion because he knows the criticism is true and therefore it worries him that it'll be an effective liability against him. Biden's nepotism represents everything wrong with the system today and why people have long lost faith in the system.

Dude, he graduated from Yale Law.  That's as prestigious as it gets.

Hillary Rodham graduated from Yale Law and her first job was impeaching Nixon.  I suppose she got that job because she was a member of the famous Rodham family?

Smart people get good jobs.  This appears to be the scandal-of-the-week pattern this election cycle.  Joe Biden's son got good jobs.  Pete Buttigieg got good jobs.  Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer had such good jobs that they became billionaires.  If Deval Patrick was relevant people would be attacking him for his good jobs.

Is this the party we want?  Only knuckle-dragging morons and grocery-store clerks allowed?

You are confusing status with intellect. (Something far too common in America. For a prominent example, see: Trump, Donald.) Economic diversity and student outcomes at Yale University

The median family income of a student from Yale is $192,600, and 69% come from the top 20 percent. About 2.1% of students at Yale came from a poor family but became a rich adult.

With rare exceptions, prestigiously-credentialed and well-connected people get (very) good careers. Yes, Hunter Biden was qualified to be on the board of Burisma, by the standards on which the United States and Western international elite operate. But the underlying criticism revolves around a reasonably widespread perception that those standards are unjust, corrupt, and ultimately damaging to the general public. The "this was technically legal" defense is actively damaging in terms of its impact on the perceptions of much of the electorate.

I do not believe the Clinton family has broken any major laws related to charities, fundraising, etc regarding their wealth accumulation since the end of Bill Clinton's term. But that does not mean that what they, and many other prominent American politicians have done is not corrupt, it means we have terrible laws and very low standards regarding corruption by our political leaders. Americans can see what's going on. It's not like it isn't obvious! What people want is positive change, less corruption. In that context the, "this was technically legal" defense is rightfully seen in the public mind as an indictment, not exoneration.

(I'm not saying Biden cannot get elected because of this, or that Trump isn't himself crooked as hell. But I'm getting sick and tired of the idea that "technically legal" is a good defense. It isn't. It's a criticism of the system.)

You have to be smart to graduate from Yale Law.  Or at least to get good grades, which is a prerequisite for getting the kind of elite jobs we're talking about.  Trump isn't a counterexample as he didn't even get an MBA, probably because he wouldn't have been able to complete it.

Umm, nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, Yale Law doesnt give grades so there is no GPA, and they also dont rank students. Second, grade inflation is rampant with something like 2/3 of all grades at Yale (non-law) being A- or above (this is also true at Harvard and other comparable schools). Now you can make a decent case that you have to be smart to get into Yale, though even that is tempered by legacies.

[SInNYC]

Everybody has scandals, and one will be made for you if you dont have one. The issue is how you address it and whether you are likable enough for people to accept it.

Hillary had her hobnobbing with Wall Street (among others) and failed on both counts. Obama had Jeremiah Wright, but he succeeded on both counts. Kerry and Dukakis had made up scandals (Swiftboat, Willie Horton), and neither really addressed it. Bill Clinton had zipper problems but he was likable (though I suspect most voters didnt really buy his attempts to address them). I guess Gore was the exception since I dont recall a scandal then. For Biden, he is likable but we will see after the impeachment "trial" whether or not he addresses it.

This pattern doesn't hold if you have god on your side, as R voters think they do in recent years.