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On Biden & "super predators": he arguably used the term once. But he used language uncomfortably close to it and, more importantly, bought into & pushed the underlying logic of the term, and fought for bills viciously harsher on juveniles because of it. A thread:
A brief summary from my book on Biden's career:
Here are some excerpts from one of these pieces of legislation, the 1997-98 Youth Violence, Crime and Drug Abuse Act.
Here's Biden at a 1997 hearing, seeming to make a distinction between non-violent juvenile offenders and "super predators" - whom he insists "are beyond hope and need to be incarcerated for a long time." And it's clear from the context he's talking about juveniles.
Here's a summary of a report credited to Biden that darkly warns of a "teen population surge" in 2005 "with greater increases among minorities," which is "likely to increase violent crime rates and the prevalence of drug abuse among young people."
Here's Biden in 1997, warning that you've "got people breaking into your houses, women being raped in the street" in the hours of "broad daylight," and suggest it's because "you've got all these kids, over 35 million, leaving school at 3 p.m. with no supervision ... until dinner"
Whether or not Biden used the specific term "super predator" is, I think beside the point (though as you can see in Tweet #3, I think he clearly did). Biden absolutely fearmongered about an army of violent, non-white kids killing and raping, and wanted to treat them harshly.
Of course, his opponent in the election isn't much better, given the way he's trying to crush non-violent protesters rebelling against racist police violence, and his attempts to have 5 innocent black kids put to death, among others. These are your bleak choices in 2020, America.
