Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination on April 8, making former Vice President Joe Biden and 1968 Syracuse University law school alumnus the presumptive nominee. Though Biden represents our university, I do not believe he represents its values. His conduct does not represent me as a student of SU, and his political positions do not represent me as a progressive.

I am disappointed that the party has chosen Biden to win its nomination for the most important election in modern American history.

Biden is no stranger to scandal. He has falsely claimed that he reversed his initial support for the Iraq War soon after voting in favor of it, though he continued to rhetorically support war throughout 2003 and 2004. Recently, on three separate occasions, Biden claimed that he was arrested on his trip to visit then-incarcerated Nelson Mandela — his campaign eventually admitted the claim was false. The Washington Post’s Neena Satija assembled a comprehensive timeline of Biden’s blatant misstatements and fallacious claims.

Biden’s penchant for misleading statements is not his only vice. In 1991, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden sat idle while his Republican colleagues attacked Anita Hill and made a mockery of her allegations of sexual harassment against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

Tara Reade, Biden’s former employee, recently accused Biden of sexually assaulting her while she worked for him in 1993. While the veracity of Reade’s claims against Biden has yet to be vetted, the fact that there’s an accusation shouldn’t be ignored.

Last year, before he had even announced his campaign, multiple women accused Biden of inappropriate touching. Biden’s campaign has denied the allegation, but his legacy of deceitful claims, conservative stances and dubious interactions with women have impeached his own credibility.

It is important to keep in mind that Biden will be running against President Donald Trump, who has made over 16,000 false or misleading claims so far in his tenure as president. Trump has also been accused of callous, inappropriate behavior towards women. Twenty-five women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Compared to Trump, Biden looks like a saint.

Should that be the only measure by which we judge our nominee? Do accusations of sexual misconduct cease to matter because the other guy has more allegations? The answer is no. We should expect more out of the person that we are choosing to represent our values and vision for the future of the nation.

Margaret Susan Thompson, an associate professor of history and political science at SU, agreed that it is not enough to simply be better than Trump.

“He shouldn’t just try to clear the really low bar of ‘I’m not lying as much as Trump’ or ‘not sexually harassing as much as him.’” Thompson said. “That isn’t, I hope, the standard that we want a presidential candidate to live up to.”

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand best personifies the moral complacency of centrist Democrats. Gillibrand infamously led the charge in 2018 to force then-Minnesota Sen. Al Franken to resign after he was accused of sexual harassment. Gillibrand said of the Franken scandal, “Given eight allegations, two since he was senator, and the eighth one being a congressional staffer, I couldn’t stay silent.”

The allegations against Franken, including unwanted touching and forcible kissing, are reprehensible and distasteful — and are almost identical to the allegations against Biden, with the exception that Biden has also been accused of sexual assault.

Yet on March 19, Gillibrand endorsed Biden, praising the former vice president as, “A champion for women and families.” Clearly Gillibrand’s commitment to “zero tolerance” toward allegations of sexual misconduct boils down to nothing but words.

Biden himself has condemned sexual misconduct, despite being an accused perpetrator. During the Brett Kavanaugh scandal of 2018, when the now-Supreme Court associate justice was nominated to the bench, Christine Blasey Ford accused him of sexual assault. Biden told reporters at the time, “For a woman to come forward in the glaring light of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real.”

The Democrats’ refusal to acknowledge the allegations against Biden is bold-faced hypocrisy. Centrist Democrats can’t have it both ways. Either they are committed to listening to accusers, no matter how inconvenient, or they are committed to electing Biden. Either they condemn Trump’s lack of morality, or they accept the same kind of morality in their own candidate as a necessary evil.

The Democrats’ brilliant answer to an elderly allege rapist prone to misleading statements is another elderly alleged rapist prone to misleading statements. How inspiring. I don’t have a single, solitary shred of faith in the former vice president. We can, and should, do better than Biden.

Published on April 26, 2020 at 4:23 pm