Segregationist to Unify America
Say what you will about Joe Biden, but the man is a political survivor. In his nearly 50 years in Washington, the soon-to-be 46th President of the United States has mastered the ability to position himself in-line with the mainstream Democrat thinking of the time.
33 years after his first run for President, Joe not only won but received the highest vote total in American history. His opponent had the second highest vote total in history so we shouldn’t make too much of that. But still, he did beat about a dozen other Democrats to win the nomination and moved on to a win over an incumbent.
A message of national unity should be an easy sell from such a man. Right?
Well, no. Not necessarily from someone with his political past.
Biden survives because he is a good Democrat, not a good American. His career is filled with the actions of a bendable man who has no conscious. Bendable is fine. The no conscious part is what should concern all of us.
Remember, Biden is the guy who started his career as a segregationist aligned with the Exalted Cyclops himself, Robert Byrd, in crafting legislation that would prevent the courts from ordering busing to desegregate schools.
He did not follow this course simply because he was a racist. He did it because a large numbers of white Delaware voters were frightened by what they saw on local TV, broadcast from nearby Philadelphia.
Biden knew this and became their champion for a ‘separate but equal’ society. Which side of the opportunist vs. racist scale his mind tilted to is worth debating but his actions point to a fairly even split.
The 1994 version of the segregationist Biden worked with President Bill Clinton and Senator Orin Hatch to address the fears of white America by passing the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. This legislation focused almost entirely on new prisons, 100,000 more police officers and mass incarceration.
Biden championed mandatory minimum sentences, which for minority groups, became forced segregation. He appeased the still scared people back home and the Democrat party at-large, which still expressed concern about violent crime back in the 90's.
In the 2000’s when President Bush inexplicably linked Iraq to 9/11 and used that and lies about weapons of mass destruction to champion war, Biden became a hawk who voted in lockstep with Bush/Cheney.
During the 2020 campaign Biden tried to distant himself from his vote for the war and his public pronouncements supporting military action. He said he ‘misspoke’ after his repeated lies were pointed out to him.
After an unremarkable stint as Vice President, we find ourselves where we are today. An old man who possibly is in an early stage of dementia, about to take the reins of power in the United States.
His administration is ideologically left of Obama. Not because Biden is some great champion of progressive causes. He’s not. He’s a survivor who is skilled at knowing which way the winds are blowing and amoral. It is easy for him to pivot in whichever direction keeps him at the forefront of the Democrat party.
Not the American people. The Democrat party.
He leads a cabinet and administration that has been stocked with those who will spend their time counting the days until Kamala Harris becomes the 47th President of the United States. This is not the man who will unify anyone other than the progressive elements of the Democrat party.
