Young Voters Aren’t Convinced Joe Biden Is The Right Man For The Job

By Christianna Silva


Young people don’t think Joe Biden is funny.


On March 29, Lucy Flores, a former candidate for lieutenant governor in Nevada, accused him of inappropriately invading her space at a rally in 2014. Other females came forward with similar uncomfortable experiences of the former Vice President crossing boundaries. Just several a day or two later, Biden issued an order kind of non-apology in a video on Twitter, blaming changing societal attitudes without ever explicitly apologizing to any of his multiple accusers. Then, on Friday, April 5, he took his non-apology to the next level any time as soon as he told an audience of union members that he “had permission” to hug Lonnie Stephenson, the President of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, any time whenever he joined him on stage.


Having permission to hug someone is beneficial practice. Although encouraging an audience to laugh at the idea of acquiring such permission is exactly the sort of attitude that could lose Biden voters if he does determine to run for president in 2020. Before Flores’s accusations, Biden was the frontrunner for young voters, according to multiple polls. Immediately after Flores’s accusations, polls show that Biden stayed the preference for every age categorize except 18-to-34-year-olds, who currently favor Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.


Selena Barrientos, a 24-year-old from New York, told MTV News that her suggestion of Biden changed once Flores came forward with her story. Barrientos loved Biden’s prominent relationship with former President Barack Obama (remember the pointing?) Although explained that the #MeToo movement founded by Tarana Burke in 2006 has “put people at a standard” for conduct that extends behind sexual assault. (In her essay, Flores clearly noted difference the virtue of her discomfort, which she says was not against the law however made her feel “uneasy and gross.”)


“I think we have to bring each person up to that common, without consideration of parties or political agenda,” Barrientos added. “It may hurt [Biden], yet I think it’s for the better.”


According to a NPR-Ipsos poll from October 2018, young voters are much less likely than older generations to mention that they would ever imagine voting for a political candidate accused of sexual assault, and that same poll showed that young folks are more confident about what counts as sexual misconduct than older generations. They also re far less likely than older generations to mention they believe that #MeToo has gone also far.


What Biden is now in hot water for is far less along the lines of sexual assault is more accurately described as inappropriate behavior. It’s that distinction that appears to be dividing older pundits and political surrogates alike; the actress Alyssa Milano defended Biden on Twitter, saying, “Just as we must believe girls that determine to come forward, we cannot assume all women’s experiences are the same.” She was promptly called out for her comments, including by activists who are frustrated with her response.


It was only soon following the most recent of at least seven accusations from females who mention he made them uncomfortable that Biden determined to release a statement on Twitter, promising to "be more thoughtful about respecting personalized space in the future. That's my responsibility and I am going to meet it." He did not apologize to any of his accusers — including Flores; or The Hill’s Amie Marnes, who mentioned Biden groped her waist in 2013, or the female biker to whom he nuzzled up at a 2012 campaign stop in Ohio — in his video.


In his video, Biden went concentrate on how “societal norms are changing,” however the young people MTV News talked with pointed out that a lot of the ways he invaded space – kissing girls on the back of the head and sniffing their hair – were routinely pretty inappropriate.


“When has it ever been OK to sniff someone’s hair? Any time was that culturally normal?” Allison Sardinas, a 28-year-old Floridian told MTV News.


“[The video] just wasn't enough,” Kelsey Denny, the President of the College Democrats at Pennsylvania State University, told MTV News. “It wasn't sufficient for me. And I hope that it's not sufficient for a lot of Democrats.”


That’s not the only aspect of Biden’s political life that insinuates he might not directly be the perfect politician to stand up for the accused: He rejected to let other girls to speak at Anita Hill’s 1991 Senate hearings, whenever an audience of white, male Congress members as an alternative attacked her character and discredited her accusation against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. (Four girls who'd travelled to Washington D.C. For the hearing in support of Hill could have corroborated her accounts yet were never called to the stand.) He recently released a non-apology about the hearing, saying he wishes there was something he might have done; notably, he was one of the only people who could have done anything.


While several young voters primarily remember Biden as President Obama’s BFF and second-in-command, the politician’s track record is also far from the progressive positioning young Democrats are so likely to flock to. Biden was the main Senate author of the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act, which encouraged states to incarcerate more people, according to MSNBC; he voted for the Iraq war; and in 2008, he mentioned he believes life starts at conception, per ABC News. And in 2007, according to CNN, he called then-Senator Barack Obama “the first mainstream African-American [politician] who is articulate and bright tidy along with a nice-looking guy.”


“Probably my biggest thing about Biden running before all this happened was, he’s simply disconnected,” Denny noted. “He doesn't understand what the young folks are asking for right now.” She pointed to other candidates, like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, as two voices that seem more attuned to what young voters actually want, and are allocating tangible policy proposals in contrast to the question looming over Biden: whether he is running at all.


and it also was finally as soon as Biden joked about having permission to hug someone on stage on Friday, April 5, that several young people just couldn’t stand supporting him any longer.


“It’s insincere, and it’s not necessary,” Sardinas added, pointing first to the “non-apology apology,” and later his jokes as “the icing on the best of the cake.”


“Joe Biden needs to learn about consent immediately and also you should identify that any unwarranted touch, no matter the level or the severity of it, is invading someone's personalized space,” Denny mentioned. “And then you also need to notice that if a woman feels uncomfortable, that is valid.”