https://amgreatness.com/2024/05/21/revisiting-reagans-commencement-address-at-notre-dame/
On Sunday, Joe Biden gave the commencement speech at Morehouse College, a historically black male college in Atlanta. Rather than use the moment to inspire the graduating class and provide them with life advice or any sort of wisdom, Biden instead chose to turn it into a highly divisive, racially inflammatory, and anti-American campaign speech—in a pathetic attempt to regain his rapidly diminishing support within the black community.
He called for “an immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, undermining Israel’s ability to defeat that savage terrorist group yet again. He slammed America as “systemically racist.” He warned the audience about the supposed threat of “white supremacy.” He insinuated that black men are randomly “being killed” by cops in the streets—a specious charge not backed by any data—and he uttered this rather remarkable line to the graduating class: “what does it mean, as we’ve heard before, to be a black man who loves his country even if it doesn’t love him back in equal measure?”
Yes, the president of the United States told a group of young black male graduates that the country they live in—and the one he is supposedly in charge of—does not love them. How inspiring.
But rather than spend anymore ink dissecting what was truly a despicable and grotesque speech by a reprehensible man, it is important to remember what a real commencement address delivered by a real president, who isn’t trying to score cheap political points, should look and sound like.
Almost 43 years to the day before Biden’s shameful remarks at Morehouse College, President Ronald Reagan delivered the commencement address at Notre Dame University on May 17, 1981.
The contrast between the two speeches could not have been more stark. Reagan spoke excitedly of a country that he was proud to be a citizen and leader of.
As was typical of Reagan, it was full of humor and self-depreciation.