Can you feel the hate?

 I just finished reading Nell Irvin Painter's learned yet immensely entertaining The History of White People, so I was probably the least surprised person in the country to learn that Republicans are having a hard time smearing Joe Biden the way they did Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and every other Democrat who isn't a straight white man.  That's why Fox News interrupts its interminable culture wars coverage every time he forgets somebody's name.  Is he senile?  Has he lost his marbles?  Well, he's eight years older than I am, and if it wasn't for IMDB I wouldn't know who I was watching or sometimes the title of the movie.  They tell me it's not uncommon.  I can't even remember the names of people I used to work with, never mind met in school.

It's all they have because their old white base doesn't respond to attacks on old white men, even Catholic ones.  As Professor Painter explains, there was white and then there was white, which definitely did not cover everyone who happened to come here from Europe.  At the top end were the Anglo-Saxons like Thomas Jefferson and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and even the Celts couldn't compete for genetic superiority (see any Thomas Nast cartoon of the ape-like Irish).  Germans were reluctantly admitted to this company, but the arrival of Italians, Slavs and Jews lit a fire under the early nineteenth century nativists, leading to the American Party ("Know Nothings"), anti-Masonic violence and eventually a rebirth of the Klan.  (Why Freemasons?  Nobody quite knows.  Many of the Founders were Masons, including George Washington.)  As recently as 1928 Al Smith was attacked from Protestant pulpits for being Irish and a Catholic.  Sadly for the Republicans, those days are gone.  

So when they aren't running the Grandpa Joe playbook, the Republicans avoid attacking Biden directly and try to pick off the women in his administration, particularly women of color like Deb Haaland, Neera Tanden, Vanita Gupta and especially Kamala Harris.  Did you know she got on the phone and talked with the Norwegian prime minister all by herself?  Who does she think she is?  We still aren't allowed to know what Trump and Putin chatted about because the translator was required to turn over her notes, but we know Trump went ballistic (in front of Prime Minister Theresa May, no disrespect there) when a call from The Boss wasn't put straight through to him.  

Biden, the oldest, whitest candidate the Democrats could come up with last year, has so far been -- dare I say it?  Teflon.  His bitey dog and his refusal to do Jen Psaki's job, too, are about all they can latch onto.  The Tara Reade "scandal" fizzled like a wet match.  Outrage over Dr. Jill Biden calling herself Dr. Jill Biden lasted about five minutes.  The Congressclowns don't have the power to order a half-dozen Hunter Biden "investigations," and it's driving them crazier than Marjorie Taylor Greene.  Unlike his predecessor Biden doesn't tweet fifteen times a day about Dr. Seuss or Meghan Markle; he just passed a covid stimulus bill that an overwhelming majority of Americans support.  And it helps that there's a tempting target called Andrew Cuomo just now.  Susan Rice burning sage in her office to cast out the essence of Stephen Miller is just good fun.

Anybody calls Joe Biden "senile," just remind them of this Republican holiday coming up in April:  

  

Reagan once addressed his Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, "How are things in your city, Mr. Mayor?"