Presidentish Joe Biden was in Milwaukee on Wednesday, doing that thing he’s always done, which is to use his inexplicably long political career to remind his audience of the connection he’s had with them during his inexplicably long political career.
He also did that thing he increasingly does where he tries to use an expression or idiom that everybody knows but that nobody has heard say it the way Biden just did. Sometimes, the word salad is so thoroughly tossed that you’d swear somebody put his brain on Shuffle.
Speaking to the Wisconsin Black Chamber of Congress, Biden boasted of his long-term connection with black voters. “I come from a state that has the eighth-largest Black population in the country,” he said, referring to Pennsylvania where he never ran for office, “and as they say the saying goes where I come, you dance with the one that brung ya.”
I’m kidding. He didn’t say that. What I just wrote made sense, except for the part where he said, “As they say the saying goes,” and then also the part where Biden somehow forgot to say the “from” in “where I come from.”
Who does that, anyway? Regardless, let’s give Biden credit for mangling the English language just those two times in the 10 words in the middle of the sentence.
But then there’s the thing Biden did to the last third of his mangle-pander…
What Biden actually said was, “I come from a state that has the eighth-largest Black population in the country, and as they say the saying goes where I come, you brung me to the dance early on!“
Emphasis added. In addition to the boldface, I almost decided to make it italic, change the font color to red, and boost the size to 24 points. Because it’s impossible to have too much fun when Biden says something like “You brung me to the dance early on!”
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Here’s the video.
BIDEN: “I come from a state that has the eighth-largest Black population in the country, and as they say the saying goes where I come, you brung me to the dance early on”
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 20, 2023
In an effort to be fair — I promise I won’t try it again for at least the next three columns, OK? — I searched for the phrase “You brung me to the dance early on!” I’m sure there are English expressions I’ve never heard, and maybe this is one of them. You never know until you look, right?
Yeah, at least according to DuckDuckGo and Google, “You brung me to the dance early on!” isn’t a thing. Literally every result — whether using “brung” or “brought” is less than 24 hours old and links to someone’s take on Biden’s mangle-pander.
What Biden was trying to say in his increasingly senescent way, was “You dance with the one who brung ya.” That is, as an inexplicably long-serving Senator from Delaware, he has always relied on the votes of black voters from Pennsylvania. Of course that doesn’t make any sense, either, but at least he would have gotten the expression correct. You know, the expression that figuratively-literally every American who ever lived has said many times without ever mangling it.
But the point, if I must have one, is this: if you can get “You brung me to the dance early on” out of “Dance with the one that brung ya,” then you ain’t trunalimunumaprzure, Jack.
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