Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo
Former Vice President Joe Biden stops his motorcade to talk to firefighters and rescue personnel after participating in a CNN town hall in Moosic, Pennsylvania, last week.
If you watched Joe Biden at the recent town hall, you may have noticed that he related well, and authentically, to all the losses that Americans are suffering in the pandemic. Those include the loss of jobs; of health insurance; the loss of the ability to sort out work time from family time; the loss of small pleasures, from dining out to going to the movies to quality time with friends and lovers; and in some cases, the loss of loved ones to COVID deaths.
We are so busy trying to figure out how to keep safe, and keep the country safe, that we tend to forget that the overarching COVID story is a story of loss; and of the private unmarked daily heroism that so often accompanies loss.
It’s no accident that Biden connects on this level, because he has suffered more personal losses than anyone in public life. On December 18, 1972, having just been elected to the Senate at not quite 30 years old, Biden lost his wife, Neilia, and their infant daughter, Naomi, when their car was hit by a tractor trailer. Their sons, Hunter and Beau, were seriously injured.
And then Beau died of cancer at just 46.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine what mix of deep sorrow and tenacity it took for Biden to stay in public life, to carry on at all? Yes, he sometimes stumbles, but there is a core authenticity to the man.
In political life, you can fake a lot. You can’t fake compassion. And Donald Trump, who suffers from malignant narcissism, could not plausibly do compassion if it was scripted.
I think people are noticing. Once in a great while, basic human decency turns out to be winning politics.
