Biden’s Grace and Empathy Reminds Us of America’s Better Angels

Biden listened. He let people finish their questions. He was polite and inquiring. And like any good pol, he reached across the vast distance separating him from his audience to try to establish a connection.

Maybe this shouldn’t be unusual. But after four years of hectoring, bullying, blustering, and a complete empathy vacuum under Trump, the contrast of Biden’s fundamental decency and sincerity could not have been more stark.

Trump was in Philadelphia earlier last week for a town hall put on by ABC News and hosted by anchor George Stephanopoulos.

The defining moment of that event, sure to live in a thousand campaign commercials, came when college professor Ellesia A. Blaque, who lives with a chronic inflammatory disease, had to shut Trump down as he tried to roll over her question about his plans to protect people with pre-existing conditions.

Trump told Blaque that “we are not going to hurt anything having to do with preexisting conditions. We’re not going to hurt preexisting conditions. We’re going to be doing a healthcare plan very strongly and protect people with preexisting conditions.”

That’s nonsense on two counts: Republicans and Trump are in court suing to overturn the Affordable Care Act, and with it, protections for people with preexisting conditions. Second, as my colleague and fellow Cagle Syndicate columnist Dick Polman points out, Trump doesn’t have an alternative.

The 45th president’s prompted some major - and deserved - clap back from Blaque.

“Encountering my question, one that millions of other Americans have, seemed to be a circumstance he had to suffer through to promote his reelection,” Blaque wrote in an op-Ed for CNN. “Rather than seeing a human being asking for his support and help, perhaps all he saw was a fat Black woman - a metaphoric rock in his shoe that, if not for saving face, he would have begrudgingly removed and resentfully thrown into the Schuylkill River on his way back to Air Force One.”

Again, contrast that to Biden’s thoughtful and detailed answers, coupled with the grace and empathy we expect of our leaders at a time of need.

It’s what we expect of presidents. It’s not what we’re getting now.

An award-winning political journalist, John L. Micek is Editor-in-Chief of The Pennsylvania Capital-Star in Harrisburg, Pa. Email him at jmicek@penncapital-star.com and follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek.