Over the last few decades, there has been a precipitous decline in standards in American politics. Fueling much of this has been the left’s politicization of everything and increasingly open authoritarianism. Leftists are increasingly reluctant to agree with patriots on anything, especially when one of their own is being criticized.
At the same time, the left’s increasing obsession with race and gender has created protected classes that cannot be questioned no matter what they do. The result is that behavior that was unacceptable even to the left not too very long ago now barely raises an eyebrow.
The most glaring example of this is the phenomenon of drag queens in primary schools and the mainstreaming of transgender madness. It is evident, however, in the comparatively more strait-laced world of electoral politics. Several decades ago, a sharp young senator from Delaware was forced to withdraw from the race for the Democrats’ presidential nomination after he was discovered to have plagiarized some of the most stirring elements of a stem-winding speech he had delivered on the campaign trail.
Back then, such in-your-face dishonesty was unacceptable even for the Democrats. The intervening years, however, brought us Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and worse, and the world has changed. Today the Democrats have a presidential candidate who has likewise been guilty of plagiarism, and no one cares.
In September 1987, Young Joe Biden, hoping to become president before he became a doddering figurehead, delivered a speech that mixed class warfare rhetoric with his own experiences and those of his family. “Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? Why is it that my wife… is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? …Is it because they didn’t work hard? My ancestors, who worked in the coal mines of northeast Pennsylvania and would come after 12 hours and play football for four hours? It’s because they didn’t have a platform on which to stand.”
It was gripping stuff, but Biden was unable to ride his class warfare rhetoric into the White House because as it turned out, it wasn’t his class warfare rhetoric at all. Biden had lifted it all from a speech by British Labour leader Neil Kinnock. Admitting he had made “mistakes,” Biden bowed out of the race while adding ominously, “There will be other presidential campaigns ... and I'll be there."
He was, but only after taking years to work painstakingly to rebuild his reputation, with a significant boost from Barack Obama when he tabbed him as his running mate in 2008. Kamala Harris, however, has likewise faced credible accusations of plagiarism, but no one said she should drop out of the race, and if by some mischance she doesn’t become the 2024 Democrat nominee, it won’t be because she Bidenesquely purloined a story from Martin Luther King, Jr.
In Oct. 2020, Harris told Elle magazine that “she remembers being wheeled through an Oakland, California, civil rights march in a stroller.” The Elle piece said: “‘My mother tells the story about how I’m fussing,’ Harris says, ‘and she’s like, “Baby, what do you want? What do you need?” And I just looked at her and I said, ‘Fweedom.’”
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Yeah, sure. The catch is that in Jan. 1965, MLK said, “I will never forget a moment in Birmingham when a white policeman accosted a little Negro girl, seven or eight years old, who was walking in a demonstration with her mother. ‘What do you want?’ the policeman asked her gruffly, and the little girl looked at him straight in the eye and answered, ‘Fee-dom.'” Did King know young Kamala? No: in Jan. 1965, she was barely three months old. Quite clearly, Harris stole the story and applied it to herself.
The New York Post reported on her theft in Jan. 2021, but aside from that, it made barely a ripple in the news cycle and vanished without a trace. Harris remained unchallenged, never having to account for her “mistakes” as Biden did in 1987.
A small matter, right? All politicians lie, right? Sure, but thirty-seven years ago, lies were still enough to end a presidential campaign. Why aren’t they now? Because Harris is (supposedly) black and undeniably female and because, Old Joe’s 2024 experience notwithstanding, leftists (unlike patriots) tend to stand by their own. The American people just have to settle for politicians who are even less honest than those of previous eras. And that’s exactly what we’ll get.
