Talk:Joe Biden

A reminder from one of the mods: This wiki is about tropes, not politics.

... I remind people that politics is off-topic for All The Tropes.

I also point out that I am neither a citizen nor a resident of the United States of America, and thus have no direct stake in the politics of that country. For this purpose, I am the closest to a neutral party on the wiki's Moderation Team. (Of course I have opinions, I'm human. But I have no reason to act on those opinions here.)

I suggest the following tropes to add to the page, plus a trope for Joe Biden's strong American accent (I'm not sure which trope that would fall under);

• Badass Grandpa: Biden is the oldest person to successfully run for US President, and did so despite suffering health problems.
• Knight Templar Parent (due to Biden's responses and aggression towards investigations of the criminal activities of his son Hunter; or Papa Wolf since criticism or scrutiny towards his sons is one of the few times Biden has shown genuine anger on camera).
• Word Salad. Biden has been known to do this, which can reveal his ignorance of the subject at hand or indicate his distractedness at the time (as seen here and here)

Badass Grandpa: Certainly.

Knight Templar Parent: The page is protected in order to keep the Trumpist conspiracy theories off the page... so, no. (C'mon, the New York Post? That rag was a laughingstock as far back as when Dr. Strangelove was made, and it's never gotten any better at getting anything right.)

Word Salad: Let me or another mod get back to you on that...

I think a better trope would be one for speech impediments. Wikipedia does note Biden does have a self-admitted stuttering problem, and that has garbled or otherwise caused him to fumble some of his spoken remarks.

I suspect there's been some word salad from Biden as well, but you're right about the speech impediment. There is a Speech Impediment trope on this wiki, so how about that one?

On that note, will Biden's entire political career be troped or just his term as President?

I'd say his entire life is tropable, just like Trump's is. For both men's pages, the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment applies, of course.

There is precedent for troping the general career and life of presidents, insofar as the information can be verified, not just their presidential tenures.There is some truth to the Word Salad claims, even Wikipedia notes he tends to go off script and it can be confusing at times.

Speech Impediment is a good addition too.

Credit where credit is due, hence the Badass Grandpa trope (I also think Biden's literally a grandfather, so I recommend adding that too).

Biden's definitely made a few gaffes and the videos in those links clearly show Biden stumbling over his words (yes, he's president now but he wasn't at the time of those videos), so I await the verdict on the Word Salad trope.

Correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like you're making a couple of assumptions in your response to my suggestion of the "Knight Templar Parent" trope. I never mentioned the New York Post; most of my information comes from a variety of sources including the famously even-handed news outlet (a rarity these days) Reuters, as seen here here and here. And what about the part where I said criticism of his sons is one of the few times Biden's shown anger on camera?

True, you never mentioned the New York Post. My research indicates that this is where the story initially came from, though, and my BS detector went off... maybe prematurely.

Papa Wolf would probably be enough, that's not exactly Templar-like by any stretch.

Good timing on your comment lol

Maybe a description like this;

• Papa Wolf: While the investigation into his son Hunter Biden is ongoing, Joe has responded both aggressively and defensively to criticism of Hunter. In fact, reacting to scrutiny or criticism of his sons is one of the rare situations where Biden has publicly expressed anger.

(not saying President Biden because while's he's President now, he wasn't during most of those moments).

Not seeing any problems here. What about you, Rob?

Only that the investigation ended years ago, so that part should be past tense.

There was a more recent one concerning the contents of his laptop and ties to important people in Ukraine, though I don't know if any of Joe's responses were towards those specific allegations.

Metaphorgotten: The Corn Pop Story.

Well, in light of the response to today's news, might have a few more to add...

Well, there was a town hall yesterday, and on top of quite a few Unfortunate Implications for the YMMV page (one such instance here, yet another here, and a third and particularly bizarre one here), there's also apparently a Blatant Lie or two to be noted.

In addition to the $2k check messaging failure (and that's with me describing it generously), there's now the dismissal of a Democratic plan to forgive $50k worth of student debt. The reasoning? He "doesn't want to forgive debts of borrowers from elite schools" - which is transparently absurd IMHO upon considering the idea for more than five minutes. He also claims that the money would be better spent on childhood education... which in America can already run on the expensive side, never mind the repeated pressures of getting into good (read: elite) colleges that aren't yet a generation or two old ON TOP of not being mutually exclusive at all from the former.

And it's official now, if ever there was any doubt - fact checks reveal "at least" four different lies and falsehoods (or "statistical false claims" if you're CNN) from the Town Hall.

Looks like there's something to add to the page, yes. Which trope do you want it listed under?

Blatant Lies as indicated in my comments - the sentiment in 'audience' response to said Town Hall and other Biden-related news is that he's walking back all of his campaign promises, and it's hard to argue against that (not that I'm very inclined to).

You also mentioned Unfortunate Implications, so I thought it best to make sure. :)

EDIT: Added.

Yes, I did, as a YMMV trope.

Had a look. Sources are legit, no argument here. I'm fine with adding the Blatant Lies point.

I suggest we add the point Volleying Insults regarding the first and third 2020 Presidential debates. Biden was as bad as Trump in the first one and there was a bit of snipping both ways in the third one. This is the text I have in mind;

• Volleying Insults: The first 2020 presidential debate ended up like this, for the most part (with constant interruptions, not helped by the inability of the moderator, Chris Wallace, to maintain order). The third debate had this to a lesser degree.

Can we add this?

Does anybody have a video of the debates that can be reviewed? If not, then I'll have to go with media reports, and the reports that made it here only show one person doing the interrupting and insulting. I'd hardly call that "Volleying".

First debate: C-SPAN, PBS, and WaPo - take your pick.

Third debate: CNN, CBS Network, and PBS - in both cases they're of varying lengths, so pick according to your convenience.

Since Umbire provided the evidence, I'll just say that the trope Volleying Insults means both sides are doing it; if Biden wasn't doing it too, it wouldn't be volleying.

This article at the least indicates it was mutual during the September 29 date, and I distinctly remember at least one of the three debates, perhaps that one, being a poorly-moderated spectacle all around (even for the standard).

On the note of other Blatant Lies, let's also get the "obvious" ones out of the way - the old Mandela story is here for one. As for the other one...

It turns out I'd forgotten that there was a rabbit hole in that regard leading back to his very first presidential campaign in 1988 - from plaigarism in schools to his supposed involvement in civil rights and anti-war protests (the former of which prompted that search).

Many of these and more were compiled by Shaun King - I have a very low personal opinion of Shaun, but that has no bearing on the facts, and his sources are well-cited and plentiful besides. That said, I can gladly hunt down alternatives if that turns out to be an issue.

Caring about who says something instead of what's said is a logical fallacy - specifically, Ad Hominem. (Although a track record of getting things wrong does raise a red flag...) No need to find other sources.

But I need to find time to look at the sources that I asked for, both here and on the Donald Trump talk page.

Oh I know, trust me. But that track record's why I have the opinion of Shaun that I do - but he's at least done due diligence on these particular points.

I'm guessing you need time to review the other Blatant Lies candidates I've listed here as well?

Unfortunately, I have yet another one: the reopening of a Trump-era migrant detention facility that breaks a promise regarding one of the most highlighted issues of the 2020 election.

While I will do more research to confirm this, iirc Biden was silent on migration issues when he was Obama's VP, and regarding those "children in cages" criticisms leveled at Trump...Obama built those cages and Biden didn't oppose it.

Also, is there a trope for "third time's the charm" or would Rule of Three work better? Biden ran for President twice before 2020 (in 1988 and in 2008).

Quite aware that was he VP during 2015 when they were first built, yes (I've had to remind other people of that myself).

There is in fact Third Time's the Charm, so yeah. (BTW, I found it simply by typing "Third T" in the search box at the top right of the page; the progressive search feature found it for me. So you can always try to find a specific page that way.)

Is it case sensitive? I think that's thrown me off in previous searches for other tropes.

It is, yes. It didn't used to be, but something changed during one of the MediaWiki updates a couple years back and it's been that way ever since.

Yeah, it's been case sensitive for as long as I can remember, so I likely first signed up here post-update.

Any progress on this?

I've been busy, sorry.

If you could write the exact words that you want to see, then I could copy-and-paste them into the article.

I suggest adding the trope No True Scotsman to the page with the following text, due to this interview on The Breakfast Club and discussion on MSNBC:

• No True Scotsman: Invoked. In an interview on "The Breakfast Club", Biden insinuated that black Trump supporters aren't actually black, saying, quote; "If you can't decide whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black."

Yeah, that's pretty unarguable he did say that one.

Seconding the above.

And here is further proof (if any more be needed) that the "kids in cages" refrain from Biden supporters (and Biden himself, as was stated during a September 2019 Democrat primary debate which he was also called out for) very much qualifies for Blatant Lies.

Honestly the worst part of me posting this is the fact that I had to severely prune my DDG results for spin from conservative news outlets, and finally had to give up and use Google.