One of Joe Biden’s selling points is that he’s “good old Joe,” the affable, ordinary guy from hardscrabble Scranton, Pennsylvania, who, gee-whiz, found himself in the seat of global power and stayed there for five decades. He’s a “liberal everyman” who still has the common touch and will win back the working class with his “blue-collar roots.” It’s the basis for the hilarious series of Onion articles from the Obama years that portrayed Biden as a kind of aging Dukes of Hazzard character.

In fact, Biden’s portrayal by much of the media has a lot in common with the Onion’s “Diamond Joe” character in that neither is actually real. Biden’s blue-collar roots are genuine enough, but it’s been a long time since he was anything close to blue collar, even if his net worth pales in comparison to the ludicrous levels of wealth accrued by most other politicians.

More pertinently, during his career, Biden’s political work and the business ventures of his family have intersected more times than anyone who watched Hillary Clinton’s candidacy flame out over similar accusations should feel comfortable with. And for all his working-class affectations, Biden is exactly the kind of transactional, Third Way centrist the Clintons faced withering attacks for being, spending years attacking progressive “special interests” while crossing the aisle to vote with Republicans in major instances that were decidedly unhelpful to the working class.