Is It Sexist to Blame Jill Biden?
Suddenly, likeable Jill is under attack for encouraging Joe to stay in the race. Is she in it for power or just a stand-by-your-man gal?
My friends snapped at me when I told them that I hold Jill Biden responsible for Joe Biden’s reckless refusal to drop out of the presidential race.
“Now we are blaming his wife?” quipped one of my friends. “Give me a break.”
“Why the focus on Jill, all of a sudden?” chimed another friend. “It seems like we’re looking for someone to blame, and it’s always the wife.”
Throw the little woman under the bus!
I get it. It feels sexist to single out the wife when things go south for her husband. It’s generally not a good look to throw the little woman under the bus, though it seems quite popular these days. Just a few weeks ago, Justice Samuel Alito blamed his wife Martha Ann for flying those controversial flags on their properties, and Sen. Robert Menendez (D.-N.J.) blamed his wife Nadine’s insatiable taste for luxury for the legal pickle he’s in.
Yet, I don’t think we should let Jill Biden off the hook in this situation. I mean, isn’t it also sexist to deny the sway that a wife (or spouse) has over a partner, especially one who’s apparently frail and confused?
Jill Biden is in a position to give it to Biden straight—that he’s making a fool out of himself and endangering the future of our nation with his quixotic quest for reelection—but she’s doing the opposite. In fact, she seems to be spoon-feeding Biden the fantasy that he can recover from his disastrous debate against Donald Trump, win reelection, and save democracy.
Biden gets the toddler treatment
Sometimes, it feels like Jill is talking to a toddler who needs encouragement to get back on the tricycle: “Joe, you did such a great job,” she cooed to Biden on stage at a post-debate rally in Atlanta. “You answered every question. You knew all the facts.”
And even when Biden voiced doubts about his debate performance, she brushed it away: “And I said, ‘Look, Joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you’ve been president,’” recounted Jill at a fundraiser in New York. (She said the same thing to Vogue magazine for its August issue.)
As for the suggestion that Biden sit out the race, Jill is nipping it in the bud: “Joe isn’t just the right person for the job,” she told the crowd at another fundraiser. “He’s the only person for the job!”
Of all people, Jill Biden knows this is complete nonsense. While his sad performance at the debate shocked the nation, she’s been a steady witness to his decline. Doesn’t she have the responsibility to stop the lies and tell her husband to quit?
“I think Biden has a lot of enablers, and I don’t love the blaming of Jill,” says one of my friends. “His most trusted non-family advisors are men. And his ego is a big part of it.”
Enabler-in-chief?
Indeed, we’re all hostage to Biden’s ego, and like all people in power, he’s surrounded by enablers who are stroking that ego. But the enabler-in-chief, in my opinion, is Jill. She wields the power to stop this trainwreck. Though Biden told George Stephanopoulos only the Lord Almighty can get him to leave the race, my hunch is that Jill carries similar weight. Let me put it this way: If Jill told her husband that she will no longer support his run, is there any doubt he would drop out of the race immediately?
“If Mr. Biden were to seriously consider departing the race, allowing a younger candidate to replace him, the first lady would be the most important figure—other than the president himself—in reaching that decision,” reports the New York Times. (Biden reportedly relies heavily on the advice of family members at this juncture, including that of his sister Valerie, who’s managed some of his campaigns, and—God help us—his son Hunter.)
Though Biden might be the ultimate decider, Jill is the one who controls the keys. The only intriguing question is why she insists on carrying on this unseemly spectacle?
Some, particularly those on the right, are claiming that Jill is motivated by power, calling her a modern Lady Macbeth or Lady MacBiden. She’s also been accused of elder abuse for trotting out her diminished husband.
It’s a bit over the top, but who’s to say that anyone is immune to the trappings of power? On the other hand, it’s also possible that Jill is simply a stand-by-your-man gal who’ll fight for her man’s dreams, come hell or high water. I can’t begin to parse her motivations. But anyway you look at it, Jill has got the power and she’s using it. It’s just a pity that we’ll be paying the price for this folly.
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