“Run, Joe, run!”
Thoughts on Joe Biden and Forrest Gump
People sometimes joke that Joe Biden is like Forrest Gump because he’s been around for a long time and, consequently, has witnessed or been actively involved in a lot of major political developments. But a look beneath the surface reveals that Joe Biden is similar to Forrest Gump in a much deeper and more interesting way. Joe Biden’s biography and public persona embody some of the same, quintessentially American, values and character traits as Forrest Gump. I think this partly explains his appeal in 2020/21.
Roots in Tragedy and America’s Racist Past
Joe Biden’s life, much like Forrest Gump’s, can be seen as symbolising the evolution of America’s identity and values.
Forrest Gump’s story begins in the Deep South, steeped in the legacy of slavery, the American Civil War, and segregation. Forrest is named after the founder of the Ku-Klux Klan and grows up in a white aristocratic manor house.
Joe Biden joined national politics as Senator for Delaware — a state which, despite siding with the Union during the Civil War, has a dark history of slavery and segregation. Biden’s record on race during his time as Senator is controversial.
In addition, Forrest’s and Biden’s lives seem to be characterised by tragedies and a loss of (supposed) innocence — much like America’s history in the second half of the 20th century.
Forrest serves in the Vietnam war, a war that’s widely regarded as having shattered the myth that America is always the good guy. During that war, Forrest loses his best friend Bubba, an African-American with the ambition to lift his family from a condition of imposed serfdom through entrepeneurship. Shortly after Forrest is finally united with the love of his life Jenny and their son Forrest, Jenny dies of aids.
Biden first ran for President in 1988. His defeat on the campaign trail, along with several other political setbacks, signalled that there are limits to what one can achieve in politics if one does not have the necessary experience, expertise or vision. In 1972, Biden’s first wife and daughter died in a car accident. His two sons survived with serious injuries. In 2015, his son Beau died from a brain tumour.
Defying Expectations
At first glance, and especially at the beginning of their respective lives, both Forrest Gump and Joe Biden seem to lack the traits traditionally associated with greatness or a ‘bright future’.
At an early age, neither strikes people as particularly ambitious, talented or intelligent. Forrest’s cognitive capacities are assessed as ‘below average’. While Biden is obviously of above average intelligance, for someone who became a Senator in his early thirties, he was not exactly an academic overachiever. When he graduated from the University of Delaware in 1968, Biden was ranked 76th in a class of 85.
What is more, both men’s early lives are marked by a disability. While Forrest has a curved spine which condemns him to wearing leg braces that prevent him from walking normally or running, Biden used to suffer from a studder which made it difficult for him to express himself verbally.
Each in their own way, Forrest and Biden are unintellectual and unpretentious. Neither of them is famous for using ‘big words’ or formulating complicated sentences. Neither of them appears to presume that they are somehow exalted above others. Indeed, both grew up in households whose motto seems to have been “you’re neither better nor worse than anybody else” rather than “you’re special”.
As a result of these traits, both Forrest and Biden seem to be characterised by a certain single-mindedness. They give the impression that they focus all their energies on the task at hand rather than getting distracted by feelings of entitlement, worries about what others may think of them — or, for that matter, their ego.
Indeed, this seems to be part of what makes both of them so successful. In the end, both of them challenge widespread assumptions about what’s ‘smart’ and what’s ‘stupid’. Forrest tells us that ‘stupid is who stupid does’ and, by this standard, he is a lot smarter than many of his cognitively more gifted contemporaries. He excels as a soldier, becomes a war hero and an exceptional ping pong player, and runs a successful business. All the while, allegedly smarter people are telling him that things are not as simple as he thinks, that one can’t just do things like that.
Biden became Senator at a very young age. He acquired the reputation of being an exceptional ‘deal broker’ in the Senate, working across the aisle to get legislation done that others might have deemed impossible. In the 2020 Democratic Primary, he looked pale and unformidable in comparison to many of his younger competitors. Yet, seemingly through sheer perseverance, he ended up winning and getting more votes in the General Election than any other candidate in history.
This single-minded approach seems to be summed up by one of Biden’s 2020 campaign phrases: “There is nothing that the United States of America can’t do if we do it together”. This phrase seems to echo JFK’s famous words: “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Outrunning the Darkness
Forrest Gump symbolises something like America’s coming of age. Out of the loss of innocence and a cold, hard look at its racist past, America attempts to forge a new identity for itself. Forrest stands for this way of dealing with the past. But his attitude is essentially forward-looking. Even while mourning the love of his life Jenny, he looks to the future, symbolised by his son. He even provokes this kind of outlook in others, most notably in Lieutenant Dan.
Forrest’s single-minded dedication and his urge to run is analogous to America’s self-proclaimed commitment to get away from its dark, racist past. In one iconic scene in the film, Forrest runs away from a group of bullies in a pick-up truck with a confederate-flag plate. The imagery stands for the aspiration, written down in the US constitution, to form “a more perfect union”, guided (as Lincoln put it) “by the better angels of our nature”.
With hindsight, Biden’s biography and public persona can be read in a similar way. Biden’s perseverance through faith and dedication can be seen as a similar attempt to keep the darkness at bay, to learn from the past while looking forward rather than backward, and to heal wounds rather than give in to self-pity.
Finally, like Forrest, Biden really seems to like running (for president).
This essay is partly inspired by The Take’s “Forrest Gump: The Myth of America” and Vox Conversation’s “The Joe Biden experience”.
