There’s a different way to view this. Its not so much an issue of Biden losing over stands he took forty years ago, but rather Harris emerging as a particularly effective debater. It is easy to see her background as a prosecutor. I’ve talked to two people whose reaction to the debate was that they would love to see Kamala Harris in a debate with Donald Trump; she would bring a focused aggression that Biden seems constitutionally incapable of.
It is not hard to believe that Trump would struggle when facing an attractive who is smart, well-prepared and quite willing to deflate his ego. Her attractiveness would pose a quandary to Turmp because he likes to surround himself with attractive women but he clearly but Kamala Harris no Hope Hicks who is looking to have a job based on stroking Trump’s ego.
Joe handled this whole interaction in a deeply stupid way. It’s ok to just say “i handled this wrong and i’ve learned since that etc”. A crucial moment that really would have made both candidates shine if he had simply apologized for being wrong in the past, instead of doubling down on “states rights”, which was the meat and potatoes of racist segregation laws in the first place.
He ■■■■■■ it up. I doubt it “costs him the nomination” necessarily but it’s not a great sign of things to come for him.
I think his stand back then was principled, his reason to oppose busing was that it was racist to think that the only way a black kid could get a good education was by sitting next to a white kid, and he was right. It was better to fix schools where kids lived.
Plus, they were busing white kids to predominantly poor and black High Schools, which really irritated the parents of those kids. They were paying property taxes for a nice school and getting one that had troubles.
These days over 80 percent of Americans disagree with busing, Biden is on the right side of history here, even if he had to side with Republicans and racist Democrats.
I find it insulting to think that Kamala Harris believes she would not have succeeded had she not been bused to a white school. I think she is a brilliant woman and would have succeeded no matter where she was taught.
And that is what Biden should have said.
He shouldn’t apologize for being right. Yes, black schools were underfunded and the level of education those students had there was inadequate, but instead of fixing that problem they created new ones that spurred moves to private education for white families to avoid busing issues and further separating us by racial divides.
