Biden learned a lot of lessons from the men and women who ran a hoagie shop or candy store, many of whom I knew well as a child there. They would lend an ear and a sandwich to those who came into the store in distress. One candy shop owner in town, Mr. Genova, always used to say, “You have to get up again and go. Always get up again and go.”
For better or for worse, where we come from matters — and often explains a lot about the adults we become.
In the case of politicians, it’s perhaps impossible to understand their worldviews without some knowledge of the families and communities that shaped their identities and set their moral compass.
Biden’s Scranton roots certainly helped shape the Democratic nominee who stands before the American people today. His sympathetic nature, modest demeanor and willingness to fight for those who have less were influenced by his childhood experiences.
And as much as his father shaped his perspective on life, Biden’s mother shaped his views on faith. Biden’s mother was, according to my mother, deeply religious, and her faith made an impression on her son, who remains a devout Catholic, sharing the Christian vision of justice and reconciliation. My favorite high school teacher attended St. Paul’s, the same church as the Biden family, and once told me that “young Joe always leaned forward during the sermon. He was eager to listen. It’s the best thing about him. He listens.”
Biden has taken to heart this vision, as embodied in Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Vision is, in these terms, nothing less than an awareness of God’s role in community — the idea that everyone is part and parcel of a comprehensive vision, and that if the members of a community don’t look out for each other, they will fail.
Despite or because of the ethnic mix in Scranton, people largely worked well together, sharing whatever they had — especially their food. I remember that when a Syrian man on my street died of leukemia, an array of dishes arrived on his front porch — a world-class smorgasbord that included baklava with pistachios and shredded kataifi dough, spicy Italian meatballs, Polish pierogis and Ukrainian pancake rolls filled with mushrooms. My father said to me at this man’s funeral: “Who needs the United Nations? We do it right in Scranton.”
My father, who was a Baptist minister born into an immigrant family of Italians, added: “We don’t make snap judgments about people from different places, with different views. We look for need. And we get it — that helping is what we should do.”
But truly getting it meant treating your neighbors, whatever their ethnic, religious, or racial origins, as you wished to be treated yourself. And Biden, both in his personal and in his political life, has demonstrated just how much he gets it.
Hearing of these proposals, I have no doubt that the man behind the counter at the hoagie shop would have beamed. His own investment in a young customer has paid off.
Biden gets it. He gets us, as a nation, in our brokenness and pain, and in our hopes for equality and justice. He’s a man of principle who knows how to listen and to admit his mistakes.
Biden does not feel an overwhelming need to dominate and humiliate those around him. That behavior would, indeed, have gone down very badly in Scranton — a fact a young Biden certainly knew when he lived on North Washington Avenue.