President Joe Biden appropriately decided to speak from the Oval Office Sunday night, issuing a call for unity that the country sorely needed after the failed assassination of Donald Trump. But like the shooter, he missed the mark entirely.
“My fellow Americans: I want to speak to you tonight about the need for us to lower the temperature in our politics, and to remember, while we may disagree, we are not enemies . . . we are fellow Americans,” Biden began.
“Yesterday’s shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania calls on all of us to take a step back,” the President continued, to “take stock of where we are, how we go forward from here.”
So far so good. But it turns out the President has a predictably narrow view of who “all of us” really entails.
He speaks of the terrible road we “must not go down” as Americans: the road which led to the “violent mob attacking the Capitol on Jan 6.” and the “brutal attack on the house of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi,” that fostered the “intimidation of election officials” and the “kidnapping plot against a sitting governor.” Oh, don’t forget it’s also the road that led to the “attempted assassination of Donald Trump as well, Biden concludes.
An audience member holds a sign calling on President Joe Biden to “pass the torch” during a campaign rally at Sherman Middle School on July 05, 2024 in Madison, Wisconsin. Biden has been receiving criticism suggesting that he is too old and in too poor health to serve another term as president. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
With this one-sided show of concern, Biden’s new commitment to unity was revealed to be much like the old: a cynical, political ploy. He even shamelessly cited the plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer which was chock-full of FBI meddling, as the courts acknowledged in acquitting many of the conspirators. With the strange outlier of a would-be assassin Saturday, it’s seemingly only right-wingers who commit political violence in America — at least by Biden’s calculations.
This is the picture that Democrats have long tried to paint. They conveniently forget about the road that leads to a Republican Congressman being shot at a baseball game, months of rioting and looting, and the intimidation of Jewish Americans across the country — all distinct outgrowths of their own ideologies and fellow travelers.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 27: People watch the CNN presidential debate between U.S. President Joe Biden and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at a debate watch party at The Continental Club on June 27, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Biden and Trump are facing off in the first presidential debate of the 2024 presidential cycle. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
If it wasn’t clear already, it should be abundantly so now: Democrats will never call out political violence on their own side, not really. They’ll mouth the right words to claim the moral high ground, but only to stab you in the back at the same time. Nothing but total defeat can make them see the light. Only from a position of utter powerlessness can they finally see the value in coming together with their “fellow Americans.”
