“I won’t traffic in fear and division,” the presumptive Democratic nominee vowed. “I won’t fan the flames of hate”
Biden’s Philadelphia speech felt like a throwback in a different sense. There was sobriety and empathy in what the presumptive Democratic nominee had to say, qualities that couldn’t be more alien to Donald Trump, qualities that can feel all too rare in this chaotic moment.
The other critique of Biden is that we haven’t seen all that much of him. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic sent the campaign into the digital realm, Biden seemed to limit his public appearances and media interviews. And so there was a sense of anticipation, a bracing for the unknown, when Biden arrived in Philadelphia to speak to a grieving and anxious country.
Instead of using the Bible as a prop, Biden said, President Trump might consider reading a few pages of it. If Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had the time to ram through conservative judge after conservative judge, Biden said, then Congress had the time to outlaw the use of chokeholds by law-enforcement officers and bring a halt to the militarization of local police departments.“heal the racial wounds that have long plagued this country, not use them for political gain.
Barack Obama’s 2008 “A More Perfect Union” speech in Philadelphia this was not. But compare it with “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” or that protesters “were lowlifes and losers” who would be “greeted with the most vicious dogs and most ominous weapons,” or any of the other threats and incitements to violence spewed forth by President Trump in recent weeks and months.
Near the end of his speech, Biden said that this president “has turned our country into a battlefield riven by old resentments and fresh fears.” Well, no, that tradition long predates Donald Trump; he is merely its latest adherent. But Biden was correct, and forceful in a way that he’s needed to be for some time now, that Trump’s “narcissism has become more important than the nation’s well-being that he leads.
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