An interesting question to ask about a career politician who’s been in Washington, D.C., for 50 years. A 78-year-old guy who was first sworn into office in the U.S. Senate on January 3, 1973 — when he was 30 years old. Yet, in an op-ed on Monday morning, New York Post columnist and Fox News contributor Michael Goodwin asked exactly that question.

“Who the hell is this guy?”

“The old Biden was a windbag who wouldn’t shut up, the new Biden is a silent Sam, especially when it comes to answering press questions.

“He ducks, dodges, hides, and mumbles.”

To properly paraphrase the intent of William Shakespeare’s Juliet, “Wherefore art thou, Joe?” To properly paraphrase me, “What the hell happened to you, dude?”

Who’s in charge & running this theatric production? Dementia Joe? “Who the hell is this guy? The old Biden was windbag who wouldn’t shut up & new Biden is silent Sam especially when it comes to answering press questions He ducks, dodges, hides & mumbles.” https://t.co/KDugAjSJzr

— Joe Schmo (@onlnsurfer) April 26, 2021

Goodwin began the op-ed, titled Old Biden vs. New Biden – here’s why the president is such a changed man, with a reference to national political reporter Salena Zito, who, in 2016, properly observed Donald Trump and the media vs. Donald Trump and his supporters:

“The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”

Now comes another presidential dilemma, Goodwin wrote:

“What to make of the new and radical Joe Biden?” “The new Biden, the President Biden, doesn’t sound and act like the former senator and vice president.”

Goodwin was not only correct, his observation was an understatement.

Senator Biden was a member of the now-extinct species referred to as “moderate Democrats” — who long ago went the way of the Dodo and Passenger Pigeon. Today’s “moderate” Democrat is just shy of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Bernie Sanders, and Maxine Waters — if that.

“In fact,” mused Goodwin, “this new Biden is is so dramatically different that it’s not clear if we should take him either seriously or literally. Who the hell is this guy?”

Goodwin then ran through several “then vs. now” comparisons of Biden 1.0 and Biden 2.0:

The old Biden was a windbag who wouldn’t shut up, the new Biden is a silent Sam, especially when it comes to answering press questions. He ducks, dodges, hides, and mumbles.

The old Biden was proud about his friendship with Southern segregationists and called Sen. Robert Byrd, a former member of the KKK, a mentor. The new Biden declares all America guilty of “systemic racism” and says it’s “a stain on the nation’s soul.”

The old Biden defended the Senate filibuster and opposed packing the Supreme Court. The new Biden calls the filibuster a relic of Jim Crow and forms a commission to study court changes.

The old Biden pushed back against the Green New Deal during the campaign, but the new Biden wants to upend industries and alter daily life by imposing draconian cuts on fossil fuels.

The old Biden claimed credit for writing the 1994 crime bill, which funded 100,000 local police officers and 125,000 new prison cells and toughened mandatory penalties.

The new Biden marked the guilty verdict against former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin for killing George Floyd by saying the case “ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see the systemic racism. The knee on the neck of justice for black Americans.”

We change as we age. That’s what people do. But as Goodwin suggested, “the new Biden is not the result of evolution.”

Rather, his radical views on race, government institutions, climate change and criminal justice represent such sudden, wholesale reversals that they invite skepticism about his sincerity and whether he is fully in charge of his faculties.

Does he really believe these things, or are they convenient lurches as he tries to keep up with the “woke” wingnuts who dominate his party in Washington?

Does he recognize the implications of his sweeping condemnations of law enforcement and White Americans?

Wait— gimme a sec. Yes. Definitely. No. Yes. No — but the “new Biden” doesn’t care.

Or should I say his handlers not only don’t care; they know exactly what they’re doing and why they’re doing it? In reality, Biden is little more than a placeholder for the radical left.

And “Joe from Scranton”? Where’d that guy go?

Biden has always been proud of the carefully crafted blue-collar, “lunch pail Joe” schtick he incredibly continues to espouse, in an effort to show rank-and-file, unioned workers how much he understands and cares about them.

Yet? On the first day of his occupation of the Oval Office, with the stroke of his trusty executive order pen, he snuffed out 11,000 good-paying union jobs by blocking the Keystone XL Pipeline Project.

Let’s be honest: Biden no longer knows what he believes, once believed, or might believe in the future. It matters not — given his “organ grinder monkey of the left” status.

And the following, as noted by Goodwin:

While Biden’s entire big-ticket, big-cost agenda is roiling the nation, his approach on race is explosive and polarizing.

Already his Department of Education is proposing grants to incentivize schools to teach critical race theory and push The New York Times’s error-ridden 1619 Project.

Purveyors of this propaganda aim to destroy pride in American history and cast every aspect of modern life as evidence of White supremacy. You can bet a push for reparations is coming.

It is one thing for crackpot academics and racialized newspapers to indoctrinate students with anti-American trash. It is scandalously awful when the president of the United States joins the amen chorus.

In closing, Goodwin correctly torched Biden for all but donning a Black Lives Matter cheerleading uniform, grabbing a couple of pom-poms, and throwing the entirety of (conservative) White America under the bus in the process.

The national surge of criminal violence is a direct result of politicians handcuffing cops and preventing them from making arrests because of the ideology and/or race of perpetrators.

With nonwhite Americans making up the vast bulk of both crime victims and suspects, restricting cops will mean more victims among the very people Biden says he wants to help.

Help? Really, Joe?

You’ve got to be kidding, President “Time to Heal.” Hell, in your first 100 days in office, you’ve made Barack “If I Had a Son He’d Look Like Trayvon” Obama look like a piker.

For all of these reasons and more, “new Joe,” I fully intend to sit out your whole disingenuous “unity” charade for the next four years. Nice chat.

More RedState fun, today:

WATCH: Cop Makes Hilarious Video Just Roasting LeBron James

Hey, Democrats — McDonald’s Pays People $50 Just to Show up for Job Interviews

‘Ideologically Deluded’? Voters Across Political Spectrum Are Driven by ‘Confirmation Bias’