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Text: Eat noodles and don't eat chicken
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At the beginning of 2024, the first documents of the "Loli Island" incident released by the U.S. federal court set off waves on the Internet. More than 180 Western celebrities are involved in the nearly 1,000-page document, including not only former US Democratic Presidents Clinton and Obama, but also current President Joe Biden.
The four-year election is approaching, and Biden did not take advantage of the previous election campaign, and this sex scandal broke out, which gave him another blow to the head.
But until the election results are known, nothing is known. As an old fritter who has been in the American political arena for more than 50 years, Biden has experienced the destruction of his family and the exposure of scandals, but none of these have ended his career. It's not an easy thing to bring him down.
Today, we might as well review Biden's path to politics and see how dangerous American politics is by the way.
30 years as a parliamentarian
To be honest, Biden's background is not at the bottom of American society. But since his father's generation, the family has begun to slide from the middle class to the bottom.
In order to make ends meet, Biden's father moved his family from Pennsylvania to Delaware, where he worked in sales, which later became the starting point for Biden's education and politics.
Biden has shown a strong interest in politics since he was a child, and he often listens to his elders talk about politics, and from their mouths he learned about American figures in the fifties and sixties, such as Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
However, Biden was introverted at that time, his academic performance was not outstanding, and what was worse was that he had a serious stutter, and his classmates nicknamed him "Dash" to mock little Biden's intermittent speech. If nothing else, Biden will not be able to get on the podium for the rest of his life, and can only be a spectator of the times.
In order to correct the habit of stuttering, Biden showed his tenacity for the first time, and he often stood in front of the mirror to Emerson's poetry.
Over time, he stopped stuttering and became more confident, and although his grades were still mediocre, he had already attracted the attention of his teachers and classmates with his excellent athletic skills and leadership skills.
After graduating from high school, Biden attended the University of Delaware to study history and politics. In his junior year, Biden went on vacation to the Bahamas, where he met his first wife, Naria Hunt. After graduating from undergrad, Biden followed Hunter into Syracuse University, where she was studying.
It is conceivable that Biden, who "runs for love", did not have much interest in the Syracuse University course itself, and there was a plagiarism storm in his first year of enrollment, and he copied 5 pages of a 15-page law review article.
But Biden himself has something to say about it, he thinks that he is not plagiarism, he just doesn't know the rules of citation, and he accidentally cites too much. In the end, Biden only got a retake punishment, and the plagiarism incident had no impact on his studies.
Studying law, being good at fraud, and being able to find reasons to quibble after things are revealed, Biden has mastered the essence of being a politician at a young age.
Later, Biden did not fail to live up to his "talent", after receiving a doctorate in law, he first worked for a time in a Democrat-owned company, and later co-founded an asset management company, which he worked for only one year, and in 1970 he won a seat in the Newcastle County Council election.
Serving as a member of parliament at the age of 27 is already a remarkable achievement, but even more exaggerated is yet to come. In 1972, at the age of 29, Biden won the position of a federal senator with no connections and no funds, relying on the concerted efforts of his whole family to defeat Caleb Boggs, who had been re-elected for 25 years.
Throughout the 200-year history of the United States, the number of senators has been in the thousands, but the senators younger than Biden have only appeared five times.
Biden's first 30 years were smooth sailing, but no one expected that fate would soon deliver the first fatal blow to the smug would-be senator.
Just a month after Biden's election, Hunter excitedly took his three children out shopping for Christmas supplies, but this outing separated the loving couple, and Hunter was in a car accident while driving, she and her daughter died on the spot, and their two sons were also seriously injured.
After the car accident, Biden was depressed, not only lost interest in continuing to enter politics, but also wanted to follow his wife for a while.
But the two children in the hospital bed eventually woke him up to the fact that he was not only the husband of his deceased wife, but also the father of the two children, and that he had to take on the responsibility of fatherhood.
In early 1973, he was sworn in in his child's hospital room, beginning his 36-year career as a parliamentarian.
During his first decade in office, Biden devoted himself to diplomacy and rose to prominence in the U.S.-Soviet disarmament talks. In 1979, he made a name for himself after a brilliant performance with Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko.
In the 80s, Biden's focus shifted to the judicial field, and the 1984 "Comprehensive Control of Crime Act" is one of his masterpieces, and the "Violent Crime Control and Enforcement Act" of 1994 is directly called the "Biden Crime Act".
After 1997, Biden returned to the diplomatic field as a king, taking an aggressive attitude on a series of issues such as NATO's eastward expansion, lifting the arms embargo on Bosnia and Herzegovina, sanctions against Iran, sanctions against North Korea, and the formulation of an intermediate-range nuclear power treaty.
At that time, even Republican President George W. Bush had great respect for him, and after the 911 incident, Bush immediately called him and asked, "What should I do?"
But Biden's career as a lawmaker was not flawless, and his speeches were notoriously empty and lengthy, drawing the backlash of many, including his later political ally, Barack Obama.
Obama, who was also a congressman at the time, was so distressed when he listened to his speech in the audience that he wrote a note to his aides: "Shoot, hit me, right now!"
Robert Gates, another political evergreen and the only one in U.S. history to have served as secretary of defense in both party administrations, also has a profound assessment of Biden. In his view, Biden is a man of integrity, but he also "misjudged almost every major foreign and national security matter."
As a Republican, Gates's evaluation of Biden may be a little exaggerated, but judging from Biden's many years as a congressman, he is indeed such a politician: he considers reality, but does not respect it, and behaves perversely, but without losing his character.
Biden's presidential dream
In fact, at the beginning of his tenure as a senator, Biden had ambitions for the presidency.
In 1986, he lashed out at then-Secretary of State George Scholz on apartheid in South Africa, giving him a loyal following among young people and Jews, who both believed the time was ripe for president.
In 1987, Biden ran for the party's first nomination, raising second only to Michael Dukakis in campaign funding. Seeing that he was close to victory, Biden's black material was turned out again.
Initially, the New York Times accused his speech of plagiarizing the speech of the leader of the British Labour Party in the same year, but after various media outlets, Biden has more and more records of plagiarizing others over the years, and the academic plagiarism incident at Syracuse University has also been mentioned again.
Years later, the Washington Post pointed out that these news were deliberately spread by Dukakis, but flies do not bite seamless eggs, and Biden did do these plagiarisms.
In the face of media accusations, Biden was so angry that he suddenly ruptured an intracranial aneurysm, and after emergency treatment, he finally picked up a life, but his first presidential campaign could only end in such a dramatic way.
In the 1988 election, neither Biden nor Dukakis had the last laugh, and the presidency was won by Republican George H.W. Bush. In the following two decades, Clinton and George W. Bush won two terms as presidents.
During George W. Bush's second term, Biden once again came up with the idea of running for president.
It stands to reason that decades of political experience are enough to make him a strong presidential candidate, but unfortunately times have changed, and at that time, American politics had begun to pursue "political correctness", and Obama, who was born black, and Hillary Clinton, a female candidate, had an advantage over Biden, an old white man.
Even in the nomination election within the Democratic Party, Biden did not take advantage of it.
In the presidential election against the backdrop of this economic crisis, Obama won a series of victories and won the championship.
Judging from his later experience in office, Obama failed to lead the Americans to a new world, some said he was ambitious and talented, some said he was tied hand and foot, in short, he failed to show the qualities of a superpower leader.
But he has an advantage that others can't match: knowing people and being good at their jobs.
After Obama took office, the previous administration's Secretary of Defense Robert Gates remained in office, rival Hillary Clinton was appointed secretary of state, and Biden was invited to serve as vice president after he left the election.
As for why he invited Biden, one of the reasons Obama gave was that his vice president was "ready to be president," which is exactly what Biden dreamed of.
Unlike previous vice presidents who sat on the bench, Biden played as much of a role as other senior government officials in his vice presidency. Then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a lukewarm relationship with Obama, but through Biden's maneuvering, the U.S. government brokered a deal to normalize relations between Israel's two allies, Turkey. In 2012, Biden avoided a fiscal cliff with his personal relationship with Senator Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
Biden has not only compensated for Obama's lack of experience, but has also acted as a lubricant in this complex government. At that time, Hillary Clinton was still in a frustrated mood of losing the election and had a grudge against Obama, and Biden would invite Hillary Clinton to dinner every Tuesday to talk to the two of them.
Over time, the rift between Clinton and Obama gradually dissolved, and Obama at least managed to keep pace within the administration, if the constraints of the subsequent parliament were not taken into account.
But to Biden's surprise, this action to promote reconciliation turned out to be a big failure for him in the future. During Biden's dealings with Hillary, many of Biden's aides were able to get close to the opposing team.
After Obama's re-election, the Democratic Party began to search for the next presidential candidate, and Hillary Clinton and Biden were naturally the favorites, and Biden even asked his think tank Klein to draft a 2016 campaign plan a few years in advance.
However, it was only then that Biden suddenly realized that Obama was gradually marginalizing him, and his aides were turning to Hillary. Obviously, the Democratic Party favors Hillary Clinton more, but for Biden, who is not dead in ambition, this is a humiliation of betrayal.
During this period, Biden's eldest son, Beau Biden, suffered from brain cancer and died two years later. The death of his son has added to Biden's pain, and he has become pessimistic and withdrawn, believing only that the few people closest to him will no longer eliminate the suspicion of others as he did a few years ago.
At that time, the chairman of the Democratic Party's "super political action committee" Masina publicly stated to the media that he would fully support Hillary Clinton once she ran for election. Later, Messina hoped to meet Biden and resolve the conflict, but Biden didn't even give him a chance to meet.
Despite Biden's repeated efforts, he was the first to be kicked out of that presidential nomination, and Hillary Clinton lost a duel against Trump.
Afterwards, the Democrats repeatedly lamented that if Hillary Clinton was replaced by Biden, the Democratic Party would not be defeated in any way.
But they seem to have forgotten that Hillary's party poll approval rating was as high as 73%, while Biden's was only a pitiful 12%, which was the result of their own sowing.
In the twilight, there was an endless fight
In the aftermath of Hillary Clinton's fiasco, the Democrats finally realized that they were facing a crisis, and that they needed to compete not only for votes from Trump's supporters, but also for balancing the left wing of the party.
What's more, after the defeat of Obama and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party is in dire need of a candidate who lives up to the traditional presidential image.
And these articles seem to have been put forward specifically for Biden.
On April 25, 2019, Biden officially started his third presidential campaign and has maintained his lead over Trump ever since. This time, though, he had to face a problem: he was too old.
When asked about his strengths in 2016, he replied, "I think I am qualified to be president based on my performance over the years, my experience, my knowledge of foreign policy and dignitaries in various countries, and my grasp of domestic policy." ”
At that time, age and experience were his greatest assets.
In 2019, he said, "If we (Biden and Trump) were high school students, I would absolutely call Trump into a corner and beat him up until he was in the middle of the ball." ”
Consciously or unconsciously, he began to emphasize in his words that he still had energy and could "fight".
In that 2020 election, Biden won the election and became the incumbent president. But in the eyes of American voters, there were no bright spots in the election, and people simply voted for a not-so-poor candidate.
And Biden's policies after taking office are also very intriguing. As a veteran senator who has focused on diplomacy for decades, Biden has naturally changed the isolationist policies of the Trump era, but has not fundamentally eliminated other countries' dissatisfaction with the United States. On issues such as reviving industry and the trade war with China, the two presidents have done the same.
On the surface, Biden has clear views on topics such as immigration, sexual minorities, and race, and even does not hesitate to cause social turmoil in the United States, but in fact, his statecraft is lackluster, and he is just searching for potential supporters over and over again.
In just two years, Americans are tired of the older president. In the midterm elections at the end of 2022, the Democratic Party lost its majority in the House of Representatives, which is not only a constraint on the Biden administration, but also a failing evaluation of the Biden administration by voters.
On the other hand, the Republican camp not only constrains the Biden administration with its majority in the House of Representatives, but also the popularity of former President Trump is increasing day by day.
Trump's supporters are known for being ultra-conservative, but there are also the same swing voters who put Biden in office. Again, to choose a president who is not so bad, and this time they are no longer going to choose Biden.
Since 2022, the confrontation between the two sides has become more intense, and Biden has tried to prevent Trump from participating in the presidential race through judicial charges, and even thrown the other party in prison, which is unique in American history.
The Republican Party has also dug up a lot of Biden's black material, his son has been accused of tax evasion, sex scandals and power-for-money transactions, and he himself is involved in scandals such as marijuana and private documents in the White House, coupled with all kinds of old black materials for decades, the Lori Island incident is just one of the many black materials, and any of these troubles are not handled well.
With less than a year to go before the 2024 U.S. election, the results will soon be revealed whether Biden will be a complete defeat or continue his glory.
Resources
Cui Wen Joe Biden's "House of Cards" is more exciting[J].Leadership Literature,2016,(18):75-78.
World Knowledge,2020,(20):35-37.
Zhang Tengjun.Biden with the name of "deputy" and "real"[J].Together in the boat,2019,(11):37-39.