Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Presidential Pandering

President Biden has a disconcerting habit of pandering in the most obsequious fashion when addressing African American audiences.

Speaking to an audience consisting of a large number of African Americans in 2012 he warned his listeners that Republicans (Mitt Romney?!) are "going to put y'all back in chains."

In 2020 he told a black radio host that “...if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

More recently he gave the commencement speech at Morehouse College, a black college in Atlanta. The speech was shameful. It's hard to imagine a more racially divisive address.

He presented himself, rather dubiously, as something of a warrior in the civil-rights movement, but worse, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, he essentially told the graduates that America hates them.

Here are some excerpts from Mr. Biden's speech excerpted in a recent Journal editorial:

"You started college just as George Floyd was murdered and there was a reckoning on race. It’s natural to wonder if democracy you hear about actually works for you."

“What is democracy if black men are being killed in the street?"

“What is democracy if a trail of broken promises still leave black—black communities behind?"

“What is democracy if you have to be 10 times better than anyone else to get a fair shot?"

“And most of all, what does it mean, as we’ve heard before, to be a black man who loves his country even if it doesn’t love him back in equal measure?”

Mr. Biden's rhetoric suggests he's still living in the 1950s. Each of the above quotes contains either an untruth or a half-truth, but set that aside.

The Journal's editorial continues:
Thanks for the uplift, Mr. President. Since Mr. Biden is asking questions, is this what he wants these young graduates to believe about their country—that American democracy is defined by its racial animosity, as if they still live in the Jim Crow South?

As others have noted, imagine working hard for four years to graduate and on a day of celebration for you and your families the President of the United States sends you off with a message that your countrymen who are white want you to fail. Is this what President Biden thinks of America?

Apparently it is. He also told the graduates that Republicans don’t want blacks to vote. “Today in Georgia, they won’t allow water to be available to you while you wait in line to vote in an election. What in the hell is that all about? I’m serious. Think about it. And then the constant attacks on black election workers who count your vote,” he said.

Yes, think about it. The 2022 Senate race in the Deep South state of Georgia featured two black men as the major-party nominees. The Democrat won after the election reforms that Mr. Biden caricatures as racist.
The next quote is galling.
Mr. Biden also turned the Jan. 6 Capitol riot into a racial event: “Insurrectionists who storm the Capitol with Confederate flags are called ‘patriots’ by some. Not in my house. Black police officers, black veterans protecting the Capitol were called another word, as you’ll recall.”

The riot was a disgrace for which hundreds have been severely punished, but that day wasn’t driven by racial hatred.
This is galling because Mr. Biden neglects to mention that the only person killed on Jan. 6th was a white woman named Ashli Babbitt who was shot by a black police officer for trespassing in the Capitol. The officer was never held accountable for what was clearly an excessive use of force every bit as unjustified, if not more so, as the actions that precipitated the death of George Floyd.

Mr. Biden is apparently desperate because polls show him to be hemorrhaging African American support and his default strategy with African Americans is to demagogue them. It's insulting to them and both demeaning and dishonorable for him.