Hillary is “Crooked.” Bernie is “Crazy.” Biden is apparently “Sleepy” and “Creepy” all at once.
Ever since former Vice President Joe Biden announced his 2020 candidacy, President Trump has been putting nicknames out as feelers to see what might stick over the next year and a half. First, he coined the phrase “Sleepy Joe,” and after seeing that fail to take hold, he’s moved onto his latest: “SleepyCreepy Joe” — an upgrade of sorts.
“Looks to me like it’s going to be SleepyCreepy Joe over Crazy Bernie [Sanders],” Trump tweeted on Friday. “Everyone else is fading fast!”
Time will tell if the moniker sticks, but Trump has no doubt been playing the troll game against Joe Biden ever since the spate of allegations from various women that he touched them inappropriately by getting into their personal space. For that, Biden has only expressed sorrow for not understanding more.
“I’m sorry I didn’t understand more,” said Biden. “I’m not sorry for any of my intentions. I’m not sorry for anything that I have ever done. I have never been disrespectful intentionally to a man or a woman. So that’s not the reputation I’ve had since I was in high school, for God’s sakes … The fact of the matter is I made it clear that if I made anyone feel [uncomfortable], I feel badly about that. It was never my intention. Ever.”
Biden’s first accuser, Lucy Flores, hammered Biden in a New York Times op-ed for his lack of apology.
“The act of atoning may be difficult and complicated, but the concept is simple enough: You did something bad and it caused harm,” wrote Flores. “A basic sense of decency urges you to take measures to, at worst, express how sorry you are, and at best, do something to right the wrong.”
“Not a villain. Not an unlikable person. Not a sexual harasser or assaulter. But also, as Anita Hill recently found out, not exactly sorry, either,” she wrote.
Flores also criticized Biden in April for not taking the allegations seriously by joking about them in public forums.
“The basis of the behavior that I talked about was something much more serious than just a hug,” Flores said on Fox News. “That is unprofessional, inappropriate behavior, no matter who does it.”
“We’re talking about the fact that, as women, we have had to endure this kind of inappropriate behavior on behalf of powerful men certainly for as long as I’ve been alive — you know, forever,” Flores continued.
Trump’s attacking Joe Biden this early on with nicknames while he still battles out in a primary is a tactical political maneuver that could force the former vice president into fighting on two fronts. Currently, he enjoys an impressive lead over his opponents — a full 32 points ahead of Bernie Sanders. He now holds a commanding lead of 42% to Bernie Sanders’ 14%, which perhaps partially stems from the latter’s having expressed his support for incarcerated felons (including the Boston Marathon bomber) voting in elections. The third contender in one recent poll, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, trails at just 7%.
