{"id":1317122,"date":"2019-12-04T22:52:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T05:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/polman-column-snarky-mockery-of-joe-biden-is-sheer-malarkey\/"},"modified":"2019-12-04T22:52:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T05:52:00","slug":"polman-column-snarky-mockery-of-joe-biden-is-sheer-malarkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/polman-column-snarky-mockery-of-joe-biden-is-sheer-malarkey\/","title":{"rendered":"Polman column: Snarky mockery of Joe Biden is sheer malarkey"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I know it\u2019s very uncool \u2014 at least in the precincts of snarky lefty Twitter \u2014 to defend Joe Biden, but I\u2019ll give it a try.<\/p>\n

The Democratic front-runner is currently touring Iowa on a bus that\u2019s newly emblazoned with his favorite Irish-American slang \u2014 \u201cNo Malarkey!\u201d \u2014 which, for those unfamiliar with the word, roughly means \u201cNo BS,\u201d a not-so-implicit swipe at Donald Trump\u2019s serial lying. Biden has virtually branded the word as his own. During his first presidential bid in 1988, he assailed Republican rhetoric: \u201cDon\u2019t buy all this malarkey!\u201d As the veep in 2012, he mocked Paul Ryan for spouting \u201ca bunch of malarkey.\u201d In 2016, he said that Trump\u2019s promises were \u201ca bunch of malarkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young snarky lefties on social media think it\u2019s hysterically funny that Biden loves the adjective enough to put it on his bus. Over the weekend, they tweeted a flood of malarkey mockery: \u201cOmg, your bus says malarkey?!? What is this the \u201950s?\u201d and \u201cMan I can\u2019t even troll this. Could someone from Biden 2020 please start explaining these things to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

On cable TV, Trevor Noah said that nobody knows what malarkey means \u201cunless you\u2019re over the age of 80.\u201d New York magazine weighed in as well, because it\u2019s important to be edgy. Its headline: 77-Year-Old Candidate Hopes \u2018No Malarkey\u2019 Will Excite Voters.<\/p>\n

Granted, this isn\u2019t the biggest issue in the world \u2014 especially now, with a lawless \u201cpresident\u201d finally on the cusp of impeachment \u2014 but it illustrates the chasm that separates the young mockers from current political reality.<\/p>\n

For starters, Twitter (which skews young and liberal Democratic) does not mirror the Democratic primary electorate. The Pew Research Center says that only 22 percent of American adults use Twitter, and the most prolific 10 percent account for roughly 80 percent of all tweets. The disproportionate share of tweeters are typically outspoken young people; the disproportionate share of people who actually vote in Democratic primaries and general elections are older adults and seniors.<\/p>\n

Or put it this way: Young people aged 18 to 29, who make the most noise on Twitter and mock Biden every day, consistently have the lowest turnout rates. Older adults and seniors consistently have the highest turnout rates. One of the earliest Democratic primary states is Nevada, where the youth turnout rate in 2016 was 5 percent. In South Carolina, another early Democratic state, it was 18 percent \u2013 which was actually lower than in 2012.<\/p>\n

Biden doesn\u2019t care right now about younger voters, because if they show up at all in the early primaries, they\u2019ll likely choose Bernie or Warren. But older people vote in the greatest numbers, they don\u2019t pay attention to Twitter or the late-night wiseacres, and they like Biden. They\u2019re his base, and they\u2019ve kept him at the top of the Democratic race. The \u201cNo Malarkey\u201d slogan is designed specifically for them. Young people think the slogan is synonymous with old guy, but, as one Biden precinct captain in Iowa told Politico, \u201cOlder people know what it means, and older people vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

And regardless of whether you support or oppose Biden, you have to admit that the \u201cNo Malarkey\u201d slogan attests to his authenticity. If he seems uncool, using a word that traces back to the Jazz Age and beyond, then so be it. He is who he is, take it or leave it. Voters tend to appreciate it when a politician eschews pretense and behaves like a human.<\/p>\n

Of course, if Biden does win the nomination \u2013 propelled by older voters, and racking up delegates in the most populous states thanks especially to older black voters \u2013 he\u2019ll need to gin up support among the young for the home stretch. But that\u2019s a fight for another day, and if young people were to ultimately decide that their landslide hostility toward Trump is somehow outweighed by Biden\u2019s profile as an old guy, the consequences for this nation could be tragic.<\/p>\n

They would deserve the blame, not Biden. And that\u2019s no malarkey.<\/p>\n

Email Dick Polman at dickpolman7@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know it\u2019s very uncool \u2014 at least in the precincts of snarky lefty Twitter \u2014 to defend Joe Biden, but I\u2019ll give it a try. The Democratic front-runner is currently touring Iowa on a bus that\u2019s newly emblazoned with his favorite Irish-American slang \u2014 \u201cNo Malarkey!\u201d \u2014 which, for those unfamiliar with the word, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1317122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 10:38:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}