Joe Biden may have identified the critical issue he needs to give his gaffe-prone campaign a jolt. Speaking at a multi-candidate forum in Iowa last week, the former vice president came out in favor of allowing transgender prisoners to be housed with inmates of their preferred gender identity, rather than their biological sex.
“In prison, the determination should be that your sexual identity is defined by what you say it is, not what, in fact, the prison says it is,” the 76-year-old Washington veteran said on Friday.
Desperate pandering from Biden
For what it’s worth, Biden supported same-sex marriage before Barack Obama did — but that didn’t stop moderator Lyz Lenz from holding back on Friday on unsavory parts of Biden’s record, like his support of the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 (which he later voted to repeal — alas, too late) and his characterization of Mike Pence as “decent.”
“In 1994, you did vote for ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ and in 1996, you voted for the Defense of Marriage Act,” Lenz lamented, according to Reuters. “You did vote to repeal both of those, but you have also praised Vice President Mike Pence as a ‘decent guy.'”
When Lenz pressed Biden about the impact of the 1994 crime bill he supported — which progressives say contributed to the mass incarceration of blacks — Biden responded by desperately asserting his “woke” credentials. In a moment that went viral, Biden, clearly not believing a word he was saying, said that transgender prisoners should be able to identify with their preferred gender — not their biological sex.
And there is NO way this will go badly. No way at all. If one thing is certain in this life, you can trust criminals to be honest. #JoeBiden #LGBTQ pic.twitter.com/03UaggHw2m
— Ian G Haworth (@ighaworth) September 21, 2019
But not everyone spectating was convinced by Biden’s performance. “I think that he thinks he doesn’t need to [change], but he does, he can’t just ride [his political history] without having to get with the times,” college student Emmett Cory told Reuters.
Biden goes woke, but the mob isn’t swayed
Biden has long faced attacks from the left on his decades-old record — particularly over his stances on criminal justice and the war on drugs, but even on deportations that occurred under President Obama.
Against this pressure, Biden has publicly flip-flopped on major issues, reversing his stances on the Hyde Amendment, which blocks federal funding for abortions, and even coming out in support of health care for illegal immigrants. Last month in Iowa, Biden said there were “at least” — at least three — genders, the New York Post reports.
His pained efforts to speak the woke jargon of academic leftism show a clear unfamiliarity with the new generation of progressives and their extreme ideas. While that hasn’t stopped Biden from trying to sound like a 25-year-old Vox writer from Brooklyn, it’s clear that the former VP is struggling.
Biden again showed how out of step with the times he was when he called Lenz “sweetheart” backstage, a comment the journalist found “condescending.”
Needless to say, not many progressives are convinced by Biden’s sudden regret for his support of the 1994 crime bill or his transformation into a transgender rights advocate. At this point, though, the 2020 hopeful doesn’t have much of a choice but to grovel.
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