When Rainbow PUSH came to shove, Jesse Jackson was always divisive. The late reverend was more a shakedown artist than a civil rights icon. He knew exactly how to exploit and foment a racial divide, usually for cash. So it’s no wonder that his funeral service on Friday was full of his fellow travelers stirring up similar division.

Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden all gave eulogies for a man who ran for president twice in the 1980s. Not-President Kamala Harris also spoke.

To his credit, Clinton was his usual winsome self, telling amusing stories about his personal friendship with Jackson. He concluded with a charge to the listeners: “He was my friend when I needed him, and I ask you to ask yourself how you can do more by being a better friend and a more effective one.”

If only his presidential successors could have taken that unifying cue.

Instead, Obama used the occasion to angrily attack President Donald Trump (though not by name) and the entire Right. Maybe Obama was ticked about Trump’s Truth Social post after Jackson’s death in February. “Jesse was a force of nature like few others before him,” Trump said. “He had much to do with the Election, without acknowledgment or credit, of Barack Hussein Obama, a man who Jesse could not stand. He loved his family greatly, and to them I send my deepest sympathies and condolences. Jesse will be missed!”

In any case, Obama held little back, reminding us that he was every bit as divisive as Trump on his worst day.

We are living in a time when it can be hard to hope. Each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions, another setback to the idea of the rule of law, an offense to common decency. Every day you wake up to things you just didn’t think were possible. Each day, we’re told by those in high office to fear each other and to turn on each other, and that some Americans count more than others, and that some don’t even count at all. Everywhere we see greed and bigotry being celebrated, and bullying and mockery masquerading as strength. We see science and expertise denigrated while ignorance and dishonesty and cruelty and corruption are reaping untold rewards. Every single day we see that, and it’s hard to hope in those moments. So it may be tempting to get discouraged, to give in to cynicism. It may be tempting for some to compromise with power and grab what you can, or even for good people to maybe just put your head down and wait for the storm to pass.

Obama praised Jackson, who “inspires us to take a harder path.” That’s an odd thing to say when Jackson made a career out of extorting companies for millions of dollars over drummed-up complaints of racism. He was the pinnacle of dishonesty, cruelty, and corruption, and it paid awfully well.

Obama followed in those footsteps, though he succeeded where Jackson failed — in winning the White House.

As for Biden, who’s only a year younger than the late Jackson and in almost as good of shape, he stuck mostly to his favorite subject: himself. He began by recounting his first wife, daughter, and oldest son’s deaths — tragic losses, to be sure. He talked about being an Irish Catholic from Scranton. He rambled on about his childhood, which led him to the part getting all the attention on social media:

I was a relatively good athlete and a pretty good student, but I stuttered. Now, if I told you all earlier, when I was a kid, I had a cleft palate or club foot, none of you would have laughed, but it’s okay to laugh at stuttering. I’m not being critical of you, but think about it. It’s the one place where people think you’re stupid. Oh, really? I’m a hell of a lot smarter than most of you.

That’s just Joe being Joe.

Sandwiched between a lot more talk about himself, Biden said something I’ve already noted was false: “Through decades of service, Jesse’s abiding message is one of unity.” It was more “unity — or else.”

That was also Biden’s message throughout his presidency. He alluded to that when he said, “We’re in a tough spot, folks. We’ve got an administration that doesn’t share any of the values that we have. I don’t think I’m exaggerating a little bit.” Jackson, insisted Biden, was more focused on “fulfilling our nation’s promise of restoring the nation’s soul.”

What bothers me about this rhetoric and behavior is that leftists tend to appeal to the worst of humanity. They often base their policies and pronouncements on exploiting envy and animosity, driving wedges between rich and poor, men and women, teachers and parents, blacks and whites. It’s not that unity is the ultimate virtue — it’s not — but that they only pretend to care about it while destroying any chance at reaching it. Jesse Jackson did that in life, and Barack Obama and Joe Biden used his death to perpetuate it.

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