What's a sure way for Presidentish Joe Biden to win back black voters? Buy 'em some fried chicken, talk some basketball, and then post the cringeworthy video on YouTube for the whole world to see.
I wish I were making this up but… alas.
You've seen report after report in recent weeks that Biden has lost support — and lots of it — among Democrats' most reliable constituents. PJ Media's own Matt Margolis just reported on a recent poll from USA Today and Suffolk University that found that Biden has the support of just 63% of black voters.
Maybe that's why enough people at the White House decided this video seemed like a good idea to make it happen. Before watching all 71 seconds, please remember to call your doctor if you experience a cringe that lasts for more than four hours.
That's just the preview. You can see the full nine-minute video on YouTube, including the part — just two seconds in! — where you can see Biden checking his watch.
Before we proceed any further, a quick shoutout to Eric and his sons Christian and Carter. Those boys look like they're growing up to be fine young men — and I'm sure that when Eric got the call from the White House, he had no way to even imagine how cringey the results would be.
With that out of the way, I do have a couple of thoughts.
The first is that Biden comes across as warm and engaged. Electorally, do you think maybe this will work? People's reactions are so hard to predict. The second is that whatever else the White House's intentions were, Monday's video doubles down on the perception that Biden is, at best, a kindly grandfather figure who means well but is undeniably past his prime.
He looks and sounds weak.
That's the part that reminds me most of those basement videos the Biden campaign kept releasing in 2020 instead of subjecting their candidate to the rigors of an actual campaign. Here's a sampling courtesy of our Australian friends at The Sun.
I wrote more than once during the 2020 campaign that the videos the Biden campaign posted were assembled from the best takes they could get — and marveled at what must have been left on the virtual editing room floor.
It's enough to make you wonder if one of those many, many outtakes includes Biden assuring his new pals, "If you don't like fried chicken, you ain't black." Don't hate me — I'm just adapting Biden's own words to a setting his own people put him in.
It doesn't even seem like two years ago [It wasn't even two years ago, Steve —editor] that DOCTOR Jill Biden found herself in hot water for comparing Hispanic voters to breakfast tacos at the Latinx IncluXion Luncheon in San Antonio, which was apparently a thing.
"The diversity of this community," DOCTOR Biden told the huddled luncheoning masses, "— as distinct as the bodegas [pronounced BO-geh-das by DOCTOR Biden] of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami, and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio — is your strength.”
“We are not tacos” is an actual thing that the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) felt the need to remind people.
What is it with the Bidens? I tell them again and again that it’s impossible to condescend and pander at the same time, but they never listen.
The question is whether voters will.
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