“You are a threat to the Republic,” President Biden tells millions of Americans
Why President Biden’s recent speech was so divisive
By Alvin Wright
Guest Writer
Just days before he was projected the winner of the 2020 Presidential Election, now-President Joe Biden took to Twitter with this message:
“To make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies. We are not enemies.”
His message understandably resonated with many Americans who at the time felt that the country’s political temperature was too high. The tweet amassed an astonishing 500k likes and thousands of comments.
That tweet was not an isolated call for unity. In fact, President Biden ran his presidential campaign under the banner of the themes of “decency” and “unity,” following in the footsteps of the man under whom he’d served as Vice President.
He frequently presented himself as an embodiment of these virtues — the opposite of his opponent Trump — whom he effectively portrayed as an indecent and destructively divisive figure.
“Decency is on the ballot,” his wife Jill Biden echoed his campaign message two months earlier to his tweet.
According to Biden, former President Trump’s divisive politics had impaired the “soul” of America. Thus, he characterized the 2020 Presidential Election as a battle for the “soul of America,” and presented himself as the only candidate worthy and capable of restoring America’s broken soul.
During his Inaugural Address, President Biden accentuated his vision to unite America, saying:
“I’m an American President — not the President of red America or blue America, but of all America.”
He further proclaimed:
“I will be a President for all Americans.”
Contrary to the vision he’d espoused for America, President Biden has been all but a uniter. His policies, and particularly his caustic rhetoric, has only served to further ravage America’s soul. He’s incessantly vilified his political opponents, and ruthlessly attacked Americans who oppose his agenda.
His recent address to the nation perfectly illustrates his divisive conduct toward the nation and sheds an extraordinary light on how he has governed America. On September 1st, Biden addressed the country from Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park to brief “the nation about the threats we face.”
You might be wondering what threats we as a nation face that are so urgent that the President decided to address the entire country. Biden, without mincing his words the slightest, categorically outlined to the American public the threats he was referring to.
According to Biden, this threat is “Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans.” He didn’t say “some,” “a few,” or “certain” MAGA Republicans. He simply said “Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans.”
It’s important to bear in mind that more than 74 million Americans voted for President Trump in 2020. According to Joe Biden, those 74 million plus Americans of various ethnicities, races, backgrounds, and walks of life, “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundation of our republic.”
These MAGA supporters, Biden angrily continued:
“Fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.”
Some might say that I misconstrued Biden’s words and that he was referring to only a small fraction of MAGA Republicans. This claim would merit consideration if it isn’t for the fact that Biden’s incendiary speech isn’t discrete. In fact, it comes in a succession of divisive statements that he’s made.
Just days earlier during a fundraiser in Maryland, Biden declared that he doesn’t “respect these MAGA Republicans.” He went as far as equating “MAGA philosophy” to “semi-fascism,” essentially assailing those who share a different political vision from him as semi-fascists.
It’s important to remember that this was the same Joe Biden who during his Inaugural Address proclaimed:
“If you disagree … That’s democracy. That’s America. The right to dissent peaceably, within the guardrails of our Republic, is perhaps our nation’s greatest strength.”
Indeed, the right to dissent is our nation’s greatest strength. Yet with every chance that he has gotten to demonstrate this, he’s vilified those who dissent from his agenda.
Historically, divisive rhetoric or actions have almost been an inevitable part of the political process. Virtually every single president from Washington to Trump has had some divisive element to their governance, no matter how much they united the country.
Whether it be Andrew Jackson’s discriminatory policies against Native Americans, William Mckinley’s paternalism toward Fillipinos, Calvin Coolidge’s immigration quota against Asian Americans, or FDR’s creation of Japanese Internment Camps, the trend seems to be common.
Divisive rhetoric tends to be fairly common within a body politic consisting of citizens with vastly different political views, opinions, and visions. Even the slightest attempt to appeal to one’s base naturally excludes millions of other citizens, which at times can manifest into division. Thus, divisive rhetoric isn’t endemic to President Biden.
What’s unique is the magnitude and the level to which he has amplified this divisiveness. Never before has an American President looked into a camera, while addressing the entire nation, and directly categorized supporters of the opposing political party as threats to the Republic.
While the media might be inclined to downplay his recent speech, the implications of Biden’s speech are simply too massive to ignore.
Biden isn’t some ordinary, powerless citizen engaging in inconsequential political diatribe. He’s the President of the United States, the leader of the free world. His words and actions have an immeasurable impact on the order of our nation.
That he deems millions of Americans a threat ostracizes a significant swath of the country, pits Americans of differing political views against each other, and most importantly, it weakens the stability of our nation which is built upon, in Biden’s own words, “the right to dissent.”
In light of these remarks, I suppose the natural, simple question to ask is why? Why does the President view his fellow Americans through such menacing and egregious lens through which you might expect terrorists to be viewed?
The answer lies in Biden’s disdain for Trump. He hates what Trump stands for. Hence, anyone who supports Trump and what he stands for — “MAGA Republicans” — inevitably ends up on the receiving end of his ire.
Truth is, it’s always been about their hatred for Trump since he arrived on the political scene in 2015. The media, celebrities, and members of the Democratic Party have incessantly demonized him and his supporters.
Hillary Clinton, infamously referred to Trump supporters as “deplorables.” They are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic,” averred Hillary Clinton.
Don Lemon of CNN said:
“If you voted for Trump, you voted for the person who the Klan supported. You voted for the person who Nazis support. You voted for the person the alt-right supports. That’s the crowd that you are in. You voted for the person who incited a crowd to go into the Capitol and potentially take the lives of lawmakers.”
So in a way, Biden’s recent speech isn’t a surprise, but rather the culmination of the deluge of hatred directed at Trump and his supporters in recent years.
Now the question is: where does the country go from here? In a time of such unprecedented polarization, how does the country survive the effects of Biden’s recent speech? To put it more pertinently, how do you restore the “soul of America?” How do you restore the soul of America when the president of the United States views a huge swath of the country as extremists, semi-fascists, and a threat to the Republic? How do you restore the soul of America when that is how the president is asking Americans to view their fellow citizens with whom they disagree politically?
It’s a question worth pondering.
In retrospect, President Biden’s promise of unity was an obvious sham.
His concerns about division were nothing but a political show.
He promised to be the president of “all” Americans, but he has governed only for his supporters.
He promised to unite Americans, but he has pitted his countrymen against each other.
He promised to restore the soul of America, but he has wounded it even more.
Alvin Wright is a sophomore majoring in International Affairs.
