The Unironic Case for Hunter Biden
It's easy to laugh off Hunter Biden as an unserious political candidate, but he is the right man for the moment in more ways than one.
Hunter Biden has become an overnight social media phenomenon. As someone who has argued in the past that people are sleeping on him, I feel deeply vindicated. The man is very obviously a top-tier shitposter, though my stance was always that he could be a lot more. When I posted about “Biden 2028” last year, people laughed, but there was always a nugget of seriousness to my statements. Hunter is, simply put, uniquely perfect for the political context in which we are now in.
Political Spectacle
We live in a time when people put a massive amount of weight on spectacle, even in politics. I will be the first to admit it shouldn’t be this way, but no amount of those sorts of discussions will make it so it isn’t this way. In the age of Mr. Beast and UFC fights at the White House, being able to grab attention matters, and Hunter has proven remarkably adept at this skill.
In contrast with Trump, whose narcissism largely gets in the way of him being humorously self-deprecating, Hunter is comfortable poking fun of himself in service of this goal, a time honored tradition of the most skilled comedians. He even humorously suggested that, if he ran for president, his slogan would be, “Let’s take another crack with a Biden.”
When clicks, likes, and reposts determine who has an edge in the attention economy, those who can come across as authentic, interesting, and most of all funny have a superpower. On some level, it is parasocial, but to reject these tactics means to bring a knife to a gun fight.
Liberal Masculinity
One thing I readily admit as a liberal myself is that liberalism is seen as effete and feminine by many. We should not compromise our principles in service of trying to correct this, but it is a problem we should try to correct nonetheless. Over the past few years, there was much social media discourse about the “left-wing Joe Rogan.” Many people flocked to Graham Platner, despite a series of controversies, because he was seen as someone who could pitch progressive values with a sense of rugged masculinity.
The important question is how do we find people who, despite being undeniably manly men, have strong moral compasses and have a resistance to crankery. One person Hunter himself has cited on social media recently is Johnny Cash, whose own experiences with addiction and legal battles left him sympathetic and caring towards people’s struggles, all while being undeniably masculine and strong.
To put it another way: you want people who could easily win a bar fight but aren’t the type to go around picking fights for the sake of picking fights — the warrior as a protector rather than the warrior as a bully. You want Hunter Biden.
Comeback Stories
People, particularly Americans, love redemption stories — the based on a true story film about the underdog, the sports team that comes back from a weak season to win the championship. They inspire us and give us hope that we, too, can overcome our problems and see our best days yet in the face of lives that are, for most people, full of setbacks and failures.
In The Idiot, Dostoevsky famously posited, “Beauty will save the world.” Such a statement might sound trite and shallow on the surface, but what he is getting at is a sense of transcendence, and how its effects ripple out and inspire all of those around us. To live is to struggle, to feel pain, but seeing someone else rise above their demons gives us the drive to do the same for ourselves.
In this sense, the fact Hunter was addicted to crack but overcame it in middle age is, paradoxically, a beautiful thing. It’s never too late to triumph over your problems and become the person you were always meant to be. Much of his addiction seems driven by trauma early in his life. His mother and sister were both killed in a terrible car accident that also seriously injured him.
Yet he’s here. He’s thriving. He’s in his element. And dammit, that’s inspiring. Those who have delved into the darkest depths of human experience but come out the other side are, as Nietzsche argued, stronger for it. Steel is annealed by the fire, rubber is vulcanized by the flame.
Outsider Mind, Insider Connections
In the words of CGP Grey’s video about The Dictator’s Handbook, an exploration about how political power dynamics work, “No man rules alone.” One reason we see so many political dynasties is how the sorts of social connections that support power are, to at least some degree, memetically heritable — the father’s connections become the son’s.
Simply attaining office is not enough, you must have the influence and sway to get all the people who make up the government on the same page, which is often easier said than done, which is easier when you’re on a first name basis with key players.
That said, there is a justifiable perception of there being so much stagnation in politics, with career politicians simply focused on re-election and not rocking the boat too much that has left people yearning for someone with the vibe of an outsider. Despite Obama and Trump being very different politicians in nearly every imaginable way, both were propelled into their positions in large part by being seen as a departure from the normal rank-and-file party politics.
Hunter represents a unique balance of these needs, someone who can sway the right people due to the traditional political career of his father but with a story of his own that is so far outside of mainstream politics.
Biden 2028
Maybe Hunter will run. Maybe he won’t. But one thing is clear: he has the right balance of a lot seemingly conflicting and contradictory elements in one package. At the very least, people should not discount his potential. It’s easy to shout “crackhead!” as if the man in the White House right now is not a serial felon. He rises above himself in a way Trump never has and seems to genuinely want to be a force for goodness and prosperity in a way Trump has shown time and time again he hasn’t.