That's the real difference here. Biden is blowing up on random voters who aren't even being hostile to him, just voicing political disagreements. Look at that Warren supporter he attacked even after he said he likes Joe, he just preferred Warren. Joe looked like he was ready to slug him. Its a hair trigger and he's getting pugilistic with people just for not being on his side. Meanwhile Trump went through his campaign and spent 3 years in office just being a counterpuncher who always fires back at someone who fires at him first. Given how often stones are slung at Trump and how often he's lobbing them back, its actually remarkable how few times he's blown up on someone who didn't start it first- its happened a few times though I think. But with Biden, its the rule not the exception.
I don't think Biden is doing this by design as some poor emulation of Trump, I think he's just genuinely losing his cool. For the man who's absorbed more hatred than anyone else in the world, Trump is unflappable. He can still joke with reporters and give them benefit of the doubt. I watched that press conference the other week where he gets interviewed by a new guy, he gets a warm welcome and smiles and says he hopes he gets asked a nice question to follow it up instead of a hit job. And of course the guy segues into a hit job and Trump just looks disappointed. If it was Biden, he'd rip off his shirt and drag him outside and beat him with a pipe

do you have ANY idea how hypocritical that sounds coming from a trumpapologist like yourself? apparently not...

political disagreements is a pretty odd way to describe uninformed strawman attacks. Biden has the least gun grabby reputation and platform of anyone on the DNC stage past or present from the 2020 candidates.

it would be like someone going up to trump and saying "i heard you're going to starve poor people", based on nothing but a vague misrepresentation of standard GOP welfare spending cuts.

and it was during an event that was basically PR unrelated to guns at all. it was a clear disruption.

let's be honest, if it was 2016 and this happened to trump we'd be talking about how that guy was paid off by soros to disrupt a pr event.

I never denied that a lot of Trump's behavior is rude and inappropriate. His voters just dont care, and neither do I.

Btw: I also dont care too much about Biden's behavior in this instance being inappropriate.




On the last page, I edited in an (imho) good point about what differentiates Trump's and Biden's gaffes, I'll repeat it for visibility:

It makes a huge differnce whether the gaffes and scandals of a candidate are consistent with their brand or contradicting it.

Trump's rude and boorish behavior in 2016 was consistent with his pitch as the assertive, bare-knuckle fighter (as opposed to the RINO pushovers) and the anti-establishment outsider promising to stir up the posh, self-righteous Washington bubble.
On the other hand, Biden being a mean asshole to anyone who dares to challenge him counteracts his pitch as the sane, moderate "unity candidate" who can heal the country.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 10 2020 02:43pm

I would guess no one is arguing that the Biden snaps we have seen so far have been overly dramatic or will affect his chances in fall. The point is rather that there is a clear pattern emerging, and if this pattern continues to show, then it will eventually become a problem for him.

Sort of cuts against his message of decency and unity.

It's kind of endearing though... like a grandfather who's a sweet guy but gets a little cranky/salty at times. We've seen great, humanizing moments from Biden on the trail. Contrasted with Trump's inability to feel or show empathy, it could show through in the town hall presidential debate.

This post was edited by IceMage on Mar 10 2020 02:55pm

Just because Biden has been centrist on gun control in the past doesn't mean its unfair to call him out now that he's pandering to the anti-gun liberals during a primary.
He adopted bans on "assault weapons" as his formal policy platform and lists it right on his website, and he got Beto O'Rourke's endorsement and promised to make him his anti-gun czar;
https://joebiden.com/gunsafety/

I think its the whole Schrodinger pandering problem. Its like how FactCheck.org ran a 'fact check' on the very clip referenced by this voter;
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/orourke-endorsement-triggers-false-posts-on-bidens-gun-policy/



If you fold O'Rourke into your campaign as your promised gun czar and O'Rourke has staked out his career as supporting confiscation, than its absolutely fair to criticize Joe Biden as supporting gun confiscation, even if his platform technically skirts it by saying he'd just ban future gun sales and force registration and then 'voluntarily buyback' old guns rather than confiscate them, a plainly unworkable scenario in which guns are still banned and the slippery slope would instantly lead to confiscation anyway because no American who ever gave two shits about civil liberties would ever pretend that policy would remain status quo indefinitely and not slide down the slope.

You can't simultaneously pander to anti-gun liberals by taking as hard an anti-gun stance as you can while keeping one toe touching the center line, and claim that anyone who criticizes you as a gungrabber is a lying dog faced pony soldier and threaten to slap the shit out of them outisde. You either stake out a political position and own it, or you disavow it. You can't have your cake and eat it too. That's what Joe is trying to do, and he's relying on his surrogates in the media to cover for him. I'm sure once he's past the primaries he'll be more openly chilly towards gun control and distance himself from his rhetoric today, but its simply nonsensical for the media to claim its illegitimate to criticize the policy that Joe is intentionally pandering about.

This post was edited by Goomshill on Mar 10 2020 02:57pm

exactly!



'Grumpy grandpa Joe Biden' would make for some great memes.

Admittedly folding Beto into his campaign makes his gun stance far more complicated than his record. still there's the issue of it being a disruption to his PR event for a completely non gun related topic.

now if this was a town hall event id have far less issue with the disruption, and Biden would be far less credible with his "answer" he provided.

at the end of the day tho most of the "gun grabbing" narratives against the DNC are unfounded, they've grabbed almost literally zero guns. outside of a few local mental health driven initiatives its been all talk. im still surprised that GOP voters take their talk so seriously. gun nut hysteria is one of those things that's so out of step with reality that it doesnt lead anywhere. they should take time to focus on actual plans that have been implemented and clear SCOTUS scrutiny, which is admittedly almost none. they're just whipped into a fervor by the GOP to think the next DNC president will grab all of their guns. same thing happened under Obama and my family made a fortune off of the "this might be the last chance i get to buy an M16 clone" buyers.

hes been a little more gun grabby lately especially with the “150 million people killed in the US by gun violence since 2007” and “AR-14s” so it makes sense he got heckled this way