The Patriot Post® · Biden's Silence Condoned the Violence
Joe Biden just flubbed his Sister Souljah moment. Badly.
In May 1992, the notorious rapper was asked a question about black-on-white violence during that year’s deadly Los Angeles riots. Her response — “Why not kill a white person?” — caused a furor, and it caused Bill Clinton to seize the moment. Soon thereafter, while speaking to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Clinton denounced Sister Souljah. And that was all it took to reassure Middle America that he and his party were squarely on their side.
Yesterday in Pittsburgh, Joe Biden had a similar opportunity — at least on its surface. Biden hadn’t said so much as an unkind word about Black Lives Matter or its white-privileged partners in crime, antifa, since this year’s rioting began in late May with the death of George Floyd. He and his running mate, Kamala Harris, never specifically call out either “organization,” and nary a word was mentioned about any of it (outside the standard leftist pablum about “police brutality”) during the entire week of the Democrat confab. Why? Biden doesn’t dare condemn BLM or antifa, because their support is absolutely necessary for him to win in November.
Even a gentle calling-out of these leftist thugs for their leading role in the arson, looting, and violence in our streets would’ve been welcome. Instead, Biden threatened that if we don’t elect him, his constituents will burn this country down: “Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected?” Biden demanded to know. “Ask yourself: Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?” No, but that’s exactly what his puppeteers look like.
Moreover, as the Wall Street Journal editorial board writes, “Mr. Biden assailed the excessive use of force by police, and then he turned to the ‘violence of extremists and opportunists — right-wing militias, white supremacists, vigilantes — who infiltrate protests carrying weapons of war.’”
No one — no one — believes the police and the “right-wing militias” are to blame for the torching and pillaging of our nation’s cities. And yet that’s where Joe Biden went. Perhaps he thinks the cops are burning down their own precincts? Is it any wonder, then, that President Donald Trump on July 15 received the endorsement of the National Association of Police Organizations — a group that had twice endorsed the Obama-Biden ticket?
So much for ol’ Scranton Joe speaking truth to power. “Silence is violence,” as the BLM Marxists like to say.
To be clear, Biden finds himself in a hole of his own party’s making. The Democrats have long been the 98-pound weaklings in the law enforcement debate — which is why the antifa thugs and the BLM bullies feel free to continually kick sand in their faces. There’s no other way to say it: Democrat mayors, Democrat governors, and Democrat presidential candidates are soft on crime.
As columnist Charles Hurt points out, even Biden’s running mate, former prosecutor and California Attorney General Kamala Harris, “worked so hard to ingratiate herself with the increasingly unruly mob that she went on record a few weeks back raising money ‘to help post bail’ for those arrested during the riots — riots they now claim to oppose.”
The American people are finally getting sick of all this, and it’s showing up in the polls — which is why Biden’s handlers felt the urgency to act. As W. James Antle III reports, “The civil unrest unfolding in cities across the country is starting to rival the coronavirus as a source of voter concern. … A recent Pew poll found violent crime suddenly a top five issue, just a few points behind the coronavirus. CNN’s Don Lemon commented last week that the violence was hurting Democrats.”
Even more telling — and more welcome — is the plummeting support for Black Lives Matter. As Antle continues, “Marquette Law School found 61% to 38% backing in mid-June yet a 48% to 48% split in early August.”
Will this cause Biden and his party to part ways with BLM and its thuggish, money-grubbing tactics and its effort to infect our nation’s schools with its radical “antiracism” ideology? Don’t count on it. Democrats need an angry and energized hard-left black vote to offset the inroads Donald Trump has made with more mainstream blacks.
Time was when the Democrats believed in the power of words over the violence of the street. But, as columnist Joy Pullmann points out, when the Left’s arguments became old, tired, stale, and unbelievable, “They started breaking things and attacking innocent civilian bystanders. When Rep. Maxine Waters encouraged mob violence against people for the crime of supporting Donald Trump, Joe Biden didn’t sternly warn her to stop. When the Democrat mayor of Washington, DC, didn’t provide enough police to keep historic monuments safe from fires and defacement, and elderly people and U.S. senators safe from mobs of politically motivated rioters, Joe Biden didn’t stand up and demand equal protection under the law for peaceful civilians to attend presidential speeches no matter their political beliefs.”
A decent, self-respecting media wouldn’t let Joe Biden get away with this hasty and desperate rebrand or his laughable effort to blame this orgy of leftist violence on Donald Trump. An honest Fourth Estate would call Biden out at every campaign stop between now and Election Day for his bald-face blame-shifting and his law-and-order me-tooism. Of course, that’s wishful thinking.
Still, and try as they might, Joe Biden and his handlers can’t rewrite recent history. Nor can they cause the American people to un-see what they’ve been seeing on their smartphones and TV screens for the past three months: mayhem caused by Joe Biden voters in cities run by Joe Biden supporters.
On November 3, it’s Trump or the Mob. That’s the choice.