Outrage Grows Over Deepening Scandal Around Joe Biden’s ‘Fancy’ Peloton Exercise Bike

Tommy ChristopherJan 20th, 2021, 8:21 am
 

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The New York Times sparked an intense online conversation by reporting that President-elect Joe Biden’s Peloton exercise bike is a betrayal of his hardscrabble Scranton roots, and a potential cybersecurity risk as well.

Martin Sheen famously began his television presidency with a crisis involving a bicycle and a sudden arboreal stop, but it seems President Biden won’t even have to move an inch to get into bicycular trouble. On Tuesday, the Times reported that Biden’s Peloton not only “doesn’t exactly comport with his ‘regular Joe from Scranton’ persona,” it also “could present cybersecurity risks.”

Apparently, the bikes have built-in microphones and cameras that will need to be removed, a task which shouldn’t flummox the United States Secret Service, and if it did, the flummoxing might be a genuine scandal.

The Times also devoted a big chunk of the article to the notion that ownership of the bike “clashes with Working Class Joe,” a new wrinkle in a story whose security implications were already well-worn by yesterday, and one which was highlighted by the article’s author, Sheryl Gay Stoltenberg, in a tweet.

“After a year of Covid deaths, racial unrest, a crushing recession, and a right-wing mob attacking my favorite building in America, it’s nice to write a fun story. Here’s one about ‘Joe from Scranton’ and his fancy exercise bike,” she wrote.

Reaction to the story among media, political, and other Twitter figures was a mixture of Peloton fans joining in the fun and double-standard-weary news consumers who saw the elitist angle as a shift from Trump-era media numbness back to Obama-era scandals like Dijon mustard, tan suits, and arugula.

With Trump out of the White House, people are going to have to find something to write about, which could make for a very long 4 to 8 years.

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