If you’ve been following Madonna’s career lately — and I know this probably isn’t all of you, given the fact she was last seen being musically relevant during the early years of the George W. Bush administration — you’ll know that the act she’s built over more than four decades is getting, well, old.
There was the talk of too much plastic surgery at the 2022 Grammys, and on her current tour, there’s been a bit of huffing and puffing, a few accidents and a controversy over whether she was holding onto a pole to buttress herself during a dance routine.
Well, now it’s getting worse: The 65-year-old pop diva is sounding like Joe Biden.
According to the New York Post, Madonna was performing Thursday in Los Angeles when she “scolded” a fan who wasn’t standing up and getting into the groove.
“What are you doing sitting down over there? What are you getting sitting down?” the singer said, walking closer — and drawing the whole crowd’s attention to the moment.
She then noticed that the fan was in a wheelchair.
@jesusalbertosanvicente The “Oh okay” is sending me 😭 #madonna #humor #risas #funnyvideo #naur #lmfao #fyp #foryou #trend ♬ Material Girl – Madonna
“Oh, OK. Politically incorrect. Sorry about that,” Madonna said, before adding she was “glad you are here.”
In other words, she’s crossed over into Joe Biden territory, and some X users noticed.
She pulled a “Biden.”
“Madonna scolded a fan who wasn’t standing among the cheering crowd during her show Thursday in Los Angeles before realizing they were seated in a wheelchair.”https://t.co/6UZeshaObh
— MAGA – American Pitbull 🇺🇸 (@MelissaRNMBA) March 10, 2024
Madonna gets skewered online after asking wheelchair-ridden fan to stand up at concerthttps://t.co/ZwRQNWqyzn
Madonna channels her inner Biden. Where are you. Stand up Chuck.
— TheTruthDamit (@TheTruthDamit) March 11, 2024
Perhaps you remember a similar moment from Joe Biden’s vice presidential campaigning all the way back in 2008.
Biden was campaigning in Columbia, Missouri — where state Sen. Chuck Graham was in attendance. Biden was apparently informed of this and decided to draw the audience’s attention to it.
“Stand up Chuck, let ’em see ya,” Barack Obama’s then-running mate said.
Graham didn’t stand. Now deceased, he was a paraplegic who’d used a wheelchair since being injured in a car accident when he was 16, Time magazine reported at the time.
Speaking of Joe Biden “Chuck” gaffes:
“I’m told Chuck Graham, state senator, is here. Stand up Chuck, let ’em see you. Oh, God love you. What am I talking about?”
Top 10 Joe Biden Gaffes – TIME https://t.co/GA3IBvMfjV https://t.co/hyEEwZmHaC pic.twitter.com/tATm9MS9Wc
— Independent Women’s Voice (@IWV) March 1, 2020
“God love ya, what am I talking about?” Biden said. “You can tell I’m new.”
Graham told Politico that stuff like this didn’t bother him.
“It happens all the time,” he said.
“It still happens to me after 12 years” in Missouri politics, Graham added, calling Biden gracious for his remarks. “It doesn’t bother me a bit.”
Yes, well, a little mistake like that didn’t hurt Joe Biden or Barack Obama in the least, although some who were familiar with the career of the senator from Delaware were wondering whether Joe Biden had perhaps lost a step or three between the start of his elected tenure in 1972 and his 2008 vice presidential run.
Hit fast-forward, of course, and you’ll find moments like this:
Joe Biden’s previous cutting-edge technological expertise: “Play the radio, make sure the television — excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night.” pic.twitter.com/dTWAcCSDHl https://t.co/QnBbBBmtBL
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) April 13, 2023
In case someone never saw it, Joe Biden indeed said “you ain’t black” if you don’t vote for himpic.twitter.com/TmSXGYl0fQ
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) March 10, 2024
“Are you at all concerned, as President Trump said, we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself?”
“We have to take care of the cure that will make the problem worse no matter what”
Um, what? pic.twitter.com/VylTvzO3Tw
— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) March 24, 2020
Is everything okay?
We carried Presdient Biden’s Ukraine remarks live on @FaulknerFocus today. #kleptocracy pic.twitter.com/aINZImChEy
— HARRISFAULKNER (@HARRISFAULKNER) April 29, 2022
September 2022: Biden asked if deceased Rep. Jackie Walorski was in the audience: “Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie?”
She had passed away in a tragic car accident just a month earlier. pic.twitter.com/gx4JLCsPho
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 13, 2024
In retrospect, the Chuck Graham incident was the canary in the coal mine when it came to Joe Biden. He spent eight years as vice president and four more years waiting for the chance to run before finally getting the nomination in 2020.
Because of a socially distanced campaign, we didn’t notice his gaffes in 2020 as much as we do now. As I’m writing this, the media is still congratulating the president from shout-slurring his way through an awkward State of the Union address without a major gaffe or lapse.
Was Trump more respected by international leads than Biden?
That’s how far we’ve fallen: A speech full of errors and anodyne ChatGPT talking points can be delivered with the odd verve of a friend who’s had seven double vodka and Red Bulls trying to tell you he’s all right to drive home, and it gets applauded because he didn’t screw up too badly.
We’re a society that refuses to age gracefully, to listen to our bodies. Biden has made much of being in roughly the same age range as Donald Trump, but he’s a very high mileage 81 and it shows. He and those around them have pretended there isn’t a problem when there is. He’s neither respected or feared internationally and seems adrift — morally and mentally — at home.
Madonna, meanwhile, was someone who has spent most of the 21st century trying to pretend that she’s at least 20 years younger than she actually is. It isn’t working. When you pull a Joe Biden, it’s a sign of what’s to come. Age and moral depravity eventually catch up to you.
She has the money. She has enough hits to secure her place in musical history. We beseech you, Madonna: Stop now, or behold your grim future.
Your act, like Joe Biden’s, is getting old.
