CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA — “Tough as nails.”

“I’ll beat him like a drum.”

“Physical courage on the battlefield ... Warriors.”

Attend a Joe Biden rally in Iowa this weekend, and you may find yourself wondering whether he’s running for president of the United States or to be a gang leader.

Biden has always liked talking tough. As his campaign has elevated his electability above all else, he’s moved the notion of toughness front and center.

He swung through the Cedar Rapids area on Saturday with the firefighters’ union in tow, offering Biden and his surrogates plenty of opportunities to invoke physical toughness. Iowa congresswoman Abby Finkenauer, who grew up in the state, subtly painted the partisan picture when she told of sitting around a table with her grandfather “a Democrat and firefighter,” one uncle “a Democrat and a small businessman,” and another uncle “a Republican and a lawyer.”

It was a great laugh line before the Democratic crowd. Of course, Biden is a lawyer from Delaware. But Finkenauer’s point was that Biden is of a sort with her father “and folks like my dad who worked 16-hour shifts and would literally, literally, ring the sweat out of their belt at the end of the day.”

Harold Schaitburger (who praised Finkenauer as "tough"), president of the International Association of Firefighters, praised Biden by invoking “people who come home from a shift and have to take a shower and wash their hands.”

Biden spoke that way too: “My mom used to say you're defined by your courage, and you're redeemed by your loyalty.”

The video Biden played at his rallies in North Liberty and Cedar Rapids is narrated with an almost absurdly deep and gravelly voice. The video defines character, in part, as “who you stand with and you fight for.”

The rallies began to sound like the truck commercials that air on 96.5 Kiss FM Country.

Hearkening back to 2004, Biden introduced John Kerry at his rallies by speaking of Kerry’s military service and his “physical courage on the battlefield.” Kerry, in turn, joked about Trump skipping out on military service for “bone spurs.”

Every time Biden spoke of soldiers, sailors, airmen, or Marines, he called them “warriors.” When thanking Sen. Tom Carper, Biden described him as a Navy pilot.

Biden even framed his policy priorities in terms of toughness. On foreign policy, Biden suggested the main difference was that he’d be tougher than Trump: “I don’t believe we’re a nation that bows down to Vladimir Putin, because I sure as hell will not.”

On gun control, it was the same. Biden bragged about being well-armed. “I have a 20-gauge and a 12-gauge,” Biden said at one point. He argued for magazine limits by saying nobody needs that many rounds. And he said toughness will be needed to restrict gun rights. “I’ve taken on the NRA and beaten them,” Biden said, “and I promise you, I will beat them again.”

“I don’t believe that this nation lacks the courage to take on the NRA,” Biden said in Cedar Rapids, as if the NRA were a militia.

And Biden also mentioned that Kerry is a hunter. Kerry, in North Liberty, Iowa, tied his hunting to his former military service. “There’s not a veteran in the world,” Kerry said, who hunts deer with “an AR-16.”

