I’m old enough to remember the image of Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, then the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988, wearing a helmet while taking a ride in an M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank. It was an image that has largely been credited with destroying his chance to win the Oval Office.
(I’m also old enough to know the guy responsible for the Willie Horton ad that was another major factor in destroying Dukakis’ presidential ambitions, but that story is for another day.)
The Abrams photo op is largely credited with what former President Barack Obama once called “Politics 101”: “You don’t put stuff on your head if you’re president.”
“You never look good wearing something on your head,” he said in 2013 when he was given a Navy football helmet at a media event.
Apparently, he never passed that advice on to his vice president, who of course is now President Joe Biden.
Or, heck, maybe he did. What Biden has been told and forgotten or was never told but believes he was told by persons living or dead whom he may or may not ever have met is anyone’s guess, really.
At any rate, the president either didn’t know the rule, forgot it, or just decided he was going to break it during a campaign event Thursday.
Biden was in Wisconsin with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, touting the supposed success of Bidenomics and support for union workers.
Is Biden fit for office?
During the event, he was photographed with the Democratic senator and three of what she called “great union workers” in a post to X.
Three of the people in the photograph were holding partially drunk beers in their hands in the mid-afternoon, which caused some comment on the social media platform, but it was Biden’s headgear that got most of the attention.
“Nothing like having a beer with some great union workers and yes, that would be @JoeBiden in Superior, Wisconsin,” Klobuchar wrote in the post.
Nothing like having a beer with some great union workers and yes, that would be @JoeBiden in Superior, Wisconsin. @AFLCIO pic.twitter.com/caMGiRXjPe
— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) January 25, 2024
Other X users — some well-known and others just folks — took it from there.
The president breaks the funny hat rule, or at least the don’t-wear-any-hat-backwards rule. https://t.co/O3nRGmPKXO
— Byron York (@ByronYork) January 26, 2024
The cadavers’ hard hat is on backwards, but this isn’t surprising.
— Moegreen (@Bill29487414) January 25, 2024
Just like Biden’s failing administration, you failed at staging this photo.
— Carl Lazlo (@roybatty010816) January 26, 2024
Zero is the amount of people you find in a bar with high vis gear and a hard hat
But I do see Joe managed to screw up wearing a hardhat as well 🤷♂️
— Willy Goat 🐐 (@clntgrnhstn) January 26, 2024
Why did you strap his hard hat on backward? Why is management wearing both a monkey suit and a reflective vest? I mean, for a photo op, this is just pure comedy gold.
— Aldous Huxley’s Ghost™ (@AF632) January 26, 2024
And then there’s probably my personal favorite:
Apropos of everything, Biden’s hard hat is on backwards. Also, you need to look into getting Biden one of those reflective safety vests for the campaign trail. Trust me, he needs it.
— Alaskan Tequila (@LTequila4) January 26, 2024
There’s no telling, of course, whether this photo op — in which Biden, like Dukakis in 1988, tried hard to look like something he is not — will hull the ship of Biden’s presidential campaign the way that the tank picture did to Dukakis nine election cycles ago.
But it does indicate something about Biden that should concern every American, including his supporters — the president doesn’t seem able to learn from other people’s mistakes, which means he’s likely to repeat them himself.
