Joe Biden, Hipster

 by Michael C. Dorf

"It's not [that poor parents] don't want to help. They don't — they don't know quite what to do. Play the radio, make sure the television — excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the — the — make sure that kids hear words. A kid coming from a very poor school — a very poor background will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time they get there." -- former Vice President Joe Biden at the Sep 12, 2019 Houston Democratic Presidential Debate in response to the question "what responsibility do you think that Americans need to take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country?".

Hey America, it's me, Joe Biden, Uncle Joe as a lot of the young folks call me. So listen, I've been reading where people say I'm out of touch, but the truth is I'm only a hair older than Bernie and uhm, the Senator from, uhm, the woman from, my friend . . . Elizabeth! . . . and of course Donald B. Trump.

What a bunch of malarkey. I'd beat any of them in a foot race, a game of darts, or one of those electronic measuring fitness thingies on that what is it called? Wii consoles.

So anyway, I read somewhere they're saying that no one uses record players anymore and this means that I'm not ready to lead America into the 25th century. That's double malarkey. Hippies, excuse me, hip stars, hip stirs, yes hipsters have record players. Or as we called them when I was growing up as a white working class boy in Scranton, phonographs.

I didn't have a phonograph growing up, mind you, not like Donald F. Trump, who was born with a silver phonograph in each ear. We didn't have a lot of things when I was a boy in Scranton.

But to answer your question, I've learned over the years that lots of people had it worse. People from all walks of life. People of color. Women. Women of color. People of women. LGBT people of LGBT. It really doesn't matter whether you're poor or white or gay or binary or whatever your background, or which bathroom you use. When I'm president, just like my good friend Barack was, I should say, I mean Mr. President Barack . . . [pause] . . . [pause] . . . Obama, President Obama, when I'm president just like when he was president, I want everyone to be able to achieve the American dream using record players, and phonographs, and all the other hippie, uhm hipster affectations.

You know film cameras are popular with hipsters too. I wonder if that's a coincidence. Phonographs and photographs. They're practically the same word. You would get that if you listened to those extra 4 million words on the phonograph.

Film cameras take good photos, that's for sure. You know they used to make cameras that used film right in Rochester, New York, which is a lot like Scranton, Pennsylvania, except maybe a little colder and farther north. Good hard-working people in Scranton and Rochester and the rest of the parts of the country that I can win. They work hard and they used to be in unions but not socialist like Bernie or like Senator, the woman, the what's-her-name, my friend from, from MASSACHUSETTS, that's it. She says she wants to save capitalism, which is great, but it doesn't need saving. You know what does is Venezuela, which I did when I confronted Maduro and the guy who was there before him, Chavez Ravine. They don't use iPhones or smartphones or camera phones to take pictures in Venezuela, because socialism doesn't work.

Kodak used to make great film cameras. Right there in Scranton . . . uhm, Rochester. We used to call them Kodak moments.

Let me tell you about a Kodak moment I recently had with Mrs. Barbara Gonzalez of Sioux City, Iowa. God love her, Barbara, or Babs as her friends call her, was saying how when her son Felix returned from the war in Afghanistan he lost his health insurance because this was before Obamacare and he was  honorably discharged from the army but he had a pre-existing condition, although he should have been eligible to see a doctor at the VA, so that shouldn't have been a problem even then, but you know what? We passed Obamacare when I was right next to President Barack, I mean Obama Barack, Barack Obama, the president, and so now Babs's son Oscar has the health insurance he needs. God love him.

You know what else the hipsters love? Avocado toast. That's another thing they're eating in the hipster communities, whether they're gay or poor or white or women of colored women, they can't get enough of that avocado toast. But you know why not? Because avocados come from Mexico, not rapists and murderers, but avocados and hard-working people, and we shouldn't be putting children in cages, and if President Obama did that, God love him, I was against it, just like the surge in Afghanistan.

Avocados and not children in cages. That's why we passed NAFTA when I was a Senator from Amtrak, but not the Acela, the regular train, because I'm a regular guy. Bernie calls it Nafter for some reason. Now Trump wants to replace NAFTA, it's tuh, by the way, not ter, Bernie, Trump wants to replace NAFTA with this new agreement which is the same as the old one but with a new name. Give me a break!

Okay, so I'm out of time. Good night and God bless.