‘Diversity more important than policy in DC’: Former Dem presidential candidate John Delaney baffles with head-scratching tweet

Former Democratic congressman John Delaney has raised eyebrows with a tweet suggesting it’s unimportant which policies the upcoming Joe Biden administration will pursue, as long as it’s diverse identity-wise.

Delaney, who ran for president in 2020 but was a persistent non-presence in polling during the Democratic primary, posted the tweet on Friday morning. 

“It is more important that Biden's cabinet is diverse than if it’s moderate or progressive,” Delaney, an avowed ‘moderate’ himself, tweeted. 

In the former representative’s assessment, “very little” policy actually “gets done” in Washington, and cultural identities that politicians may represent are what is actually significant and important.

“When young people see leaders who look like them, they are inspired – that changes the world,” the 57-year-old multi-millionaire proclaimed. 

© Twitter / @JohnDelaney

His comments appear to be a thinly veiled response to former presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders telling MSNBC that having a cabinet “that stands up and fights for working people” would be “more important” than having a diverse one.

The ex-Maryland congressman’s preference for seemingly more superficial issues was quickly ridiculed on social media. Commenters likened Delaney to parody of a modern Democrat, joking that his tweet could have been written for the satirical Onion magazine. 

“You’re telling us the diverse faces of this administration are just tokens designed to ingratiate young people to the ruling class while ultimately changing nothing?” responded former Sanders’ organizer Jack Califano.

“I look like you and I’m not inspired,” joshed author Moshik Temkin. 

“I'm welling up, thinking about all those young people being inspired to one day be useless & accomplish nothing,” quipped another commenter.

Even those who agreed with Delaney’s assessment that seeing leaders “who look like them” is important still took issue with the tweet’s overall “insulting” premise that a diverse looking cabinet is just “window dressing.”

After drawing political Twitter’s ire, Delaney opted to delete his tweet, replacing it with one saying that Biden’s cabinet being both “diverse” and “highly competent” was more important than it being progressive.

During the Democratic primary, Delaney remained one of the least popular candidates in the field, despite some profile-raising clashes with progressive stars like Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) on the debate stage. 

One such clash in 2019 cemented Delaney’s reputation as a conservative Democrat, when Warren responded to one of his many calls for moderation by saying: “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for.”

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