On our candidate, Joe Biden

Joe Biden thoughts. Briefly, edited excerpts from an article by George Dillard  Medium  July 6/7


Our convention is a month away, so anything could happen, but in today’s context, this:


    You’ll be voting for “Joe Biden,” not Joe Biden.  “Joe Biden” is a team.
The American president is a remarkably important figure. The Trump years showed that the quirks and personality traits of the president can matter quite a bit. But it’s useful to remember that you’re not really voting for one person when you elect a president, you’re voting for the team of people that the president will hire.


Joe Biden does not run the government all by himself.  Biden is the face of an organization that’s made up of thousands of individuals who help guide decision-making. For sure Biden knows a fair amount about most issues that cross his desk, from his five decades of public service.


But even a president as experienced as Biden is utterly reliant on his aides to tell him what he needs to know. When it’s time to discuss tariff policy or NATO expansion or student loan cancellation, Biden is briefed by a team of experts who provide him with a range of options. He can and probably does push back against these options from time to time, but he’s generally going to choose from the menu with which he has been presented. 


And we are familiar with many in the top tier of the Biden team, as we hear them from one platform or another.   I think most people would rate these people more than equal to people Trump has surrounded himself with and who could form a Trump team. Trump’s likely team would consist of people who are, in democratic speak “deplorables”.




If it were 1884 rather than 2024, Biden’s stage performance wouldn’t matter at all. Newspaper readers would receive one set of second or third-hand reports or another.  Progress:  now we all can see and hear.  The medium beats the mortals, in many respects.  Over the course of the 20th century, the presidency moved more and more into the public eye—an entertainment product, largely due to the evolution of radio and television. The media evolved to cover it as such. It’s easier and safer for the media to do theater criticism around the campaign than to wade into the issues.


We have always contrasted the different parties on issues.  How are issues doing vs spectacle today?


Anyway, remember it’s the whole team.