Joe Biden’s image throughout his life was that of someone who always bounces back.
Washington:
Anyone who expected Joe Biden to walk away from the US presidential race without a fight had not fully considered the life story of a proud but often stubborn man.
From playground fights to horrific tragedies to multiple bids for the White House, Biden has long viewed his life as a series of comebacks against impossible odds.
And while a Democratic uprising over his debate against Donald Trump appears to fizzle out for now, the 81-year-old appears determined to win the fight of his political life.
Unless a major shift occurs, it will likely be up to U.S. voters to decide whether Biden will stage another turnaround in the books — or whether hubris will doom him and his party to a historic defeat to Trump.
Biden has repeatedly returned to the image of himself as an underdog since the debate, repeating his family mantra that “when you get knocked down, you get back up.”
“What we’ve seen over the last 10 to 12 days is certainly critical to the Joe Biden story,” his spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, said at the White House podium on Tuesday.
“He is someone who has certainly been written off many, many times in his career. People tend to bring him down and you hear him say he will get back up.
“This is the story of him standing up for himself, standing up for millions of Americans.”
‘Punch the guy’
This perspective was shaped by a difficult childhood in the American rust belt, as part of a close-knit Irish Catholic family known for its intense pride.
His mother, Jean, told young Joey and his brothers every day that “nobody was better than Biden,” wrote Ben Cramer in his book “What It Takes,” about the 1988 U.S. election campaign.
He was also known for never backing down.
“Most of the guys who fought, they fought…Joey didn’t do that,” Cramer wrote. “He decided to fight…BANGO – he would punch the guy in the face.”
One affliction Biden had to face was childhood stuttering.
Repeatedly humiliated at school, young Biden eventually taught himself to speak softly out of sheer determination, repeating phrases over and over in the mirror.
But Biden’s biggest test was yet to come.
In 1972, he was just 29 years old and had just been elected Senator for Delaware when his wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in a car accident, while his sons Beau and Hunter were seriously injured.
Tragedy struck again in 2015 when Beau died of brain cancer at age 46.
Biden also had to deal with the agony of Hunter’s severe drug addiction and legal troubles.
“Sometimes I marvel at Joe’s strength. His life was marked by cruel loss,” said first lady Jill Biden, whom Biden married in 1977, in her memoir “Where the Light Enters.”
‘Psychological prison’
With his family around him, Biden also endured a series of political humiliations.
In 1988, he was forced to abandon his first presidential candidacy following a plagiarism scandal.
His next candidacy, in 2008, ended in a heavy defeat in the Democratic primaries, before Barack Obama chose him as his running mate.
However, in the current crisis over Biden’s age and health, the same things that previously brought Biden strength could also bring about his downfall.
It’s common knowledge that he will only really listen to family members and a few aides he has known for decades, but as he ages that bubble has become increasingly insular.
His long-held belief that he has been underestimated and ridiculed by the media means he is even less likely to listen to outside voices.
Furthermore, Biden’s lifelong image as someone who always bounces back means that this time he may not be able to foresee a graceful exit.
Franklin Foer, author of a book about the beginning of Biden’s presidency, recently wrote in The Atlantic magazine that “humiliation – and its transcendence – is Biden’s origin story”.
“Right now it is his psychological prison, a mental habit that could doom American democracy.”
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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