At this point, Joe Biden’s biggest opponent might be Joe Biden.
The former vice president might be leading the ungainly pack racing for the Democratic nomination in 2020 at the moment, but his own long record of public comments could be catching up to him before too long.
And when it comes to illegal immigration, many of those comments show Biden’s positions — until not too long ago — were pretty much the opposite of where his party stands today.
When he was still a United States senator, before becoming Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008 and his vice president for the next eight years, Biden was on record railing against corruption in Mexico. He was favoring building up security on the southern border, taking a hard line on stopping illegal drugs from crossing into the United States, and cracking down on employers who hire illegals aliens.
In other words, he wasn’t all that different from President Donald Trump.
Or, as CNN put it in a report on Friday, “his past comments on a border barrier and sanctuary cities are similar to positions Trump has taken as President — stances that many Democratic candidates have attacked during the campaign.”
CNN included a YouTube video of Biden speaking at a rotary club in Columbia, South Carolina, in 2006 where the then-Delaware senator bragged about voting for 700 miles of new fencing between the U.S. and Mexico.
(He wasn’t alone in that. Then-Sens.-Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton also voted for the fence. Much like John Kerry’s flip-flopping support for the war in Iraq, Democrats were for border security before they were against it.)
But it’s Biden who’s running for the 2020 nomination. And it’s Biden who will have to face the Democrats’ increasingly leftist base to defend words like this:
“Folks, I voted for a fence, I voted, unlike most Democrats — and some of you won’t like it — I voted for 700 miles of fence. But, let me tell you, we can build a fence 40 stories high — unless you change the dynamic in Mexico and — and you will not like this, and — punish American employers who knowingly violate the law when, in fact, they hire illegals. Unless you do those two things, all the rest is window dressing.
“Now, I know I’m not supposed to say it that bluntly, but they’re the facts, they’re the facts. And so everything else we do is in between here. Everything else we do is at the margins. And the reason why I add that parenthetically, why I believe the fence is needed does not have anything to do with immigration but drugs. …
“And let me tell you something folks, people are driving across that border with tons, tons, hear me, tons of everything from byproducts for methamphetamine to cocaine to heroin and it’s all coming up through corrupt Mexico.”
Check out the video here:
Now, for a Democrat, that almost sounds sensible, especially considering the illegal immigration situation of 2006 wasn’t anywhere near the crisis it is today.
But “sensible” doesn’t win the Democratic nomination in 2020.
At a campaign stop in Los Angeles last week, as Fox News reported, Biden fielded a question about whether illegal aliens should “be entitled to federal benefits like Medicare, Medicaid.”
“Look, I think that anyone who is in a situation where they are in need of health care, regardless of whether they are documented or undocumented, we have an obligation to see that they are cared for,” Biden said.
“That’s why I think we need more clinics around the country.”
Biden then pivoted to a largely irrelevant point that “a significant portion of undocumented folks in this country are there because they overstayed their visas.”
“It’s not people breaking down gates coming across the border, so the biggest thing we’ve got to do on this thing is tone down the rhetoric,” he said. “We know why it’s happening. It’s to create fear and concern.”
Check it out here:
Biden says we're obligated to give health care to all if "they are documented or undocumented” youtu.be/YS5-MOXJAAA
The astute observer will note Biden of 2006 wasn’t all that worried about illegal aliens overstaying visas.
In fact, the Biden of 2006 was worried about illegals crossing the border — that’s why he voted for a fence. He was worried about the drugs and crime flowing across an unsecured southern border. He was clearly worried about illegal aliens taking the jobs of American workers — that’s why he wanted a crackdown on employers.
But for the Biden seeking the 2020 nomination, worries about illegal immigration are just “rhetoric” that needs to be toned down because it’s being done purposely to “create fear and concern.”
It’s the polar opposite of where he stood before.
While it might play well to the Democratic base to demand “free” health care – compliments of the American taxpayer — for literally anyone in the world who can make it across the Rio Grande and demand asylum from overworked Border Patrol agents, the majority of voters that elected Trump in 2016 won’t be won over by it.
Biden is riding so high in the polls right now largely because Democrats think he’s “moderate” enough to appeal to enough sane voters that he can actually defeat Trump in 2020.
But with Biden already demonstrating a flip-flop like this on illegal immigration — arguably the issue that won Trump the GOP nomination in 2016, if not the presidency — Biden is showing the American electorate as a whole that he’s no different from the rest of the lunatic left in the Democratic field.
His own words prove he can’t be trusted — not by his party’s primary voters, and not by the rest of America.
Forget Trump for the moment. Forget even the horde of Democrats not named Biden who are seeking the party’s nomination.
Joe Biden’s biggest opponent right now is Joe Biden.
No comments:
Post a Comment