https://amgreatness.com/2024/05/25/joe-biden-angry-warrior/
Last weekend, President Biden spoke at the graduation ceremony at Morehouse College, an all-male, historically black college, aggressively attacking his Republican opponents and decrying what he sees as pervasive, overt, and violent ongoing racism in American society. “What,” Biden asked rhetorically, “is democracy if black men are being killed in the street? What is democracy if a trail of broken promises still leave black communities behind? What is democracy if you have to be 10 times better than anyone else to get a fair shot?” Finally, he intoned, “And most of all, 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?”
The speech has been the subject of much discussion, particularly among Republicans, most of whom have bemoaned the President’s purposeful victimization of young black men for political purposes. Rather than tell them the truth, rather than encourage them to be great and to dedicate their lives to fixing the problems that exist in the nation, he encouraged them to wallow in their misery and to blame others for their problems.
Certainly, there is considerable truth in this criticism. And certainly, Biden should be chided for playing into an ideology that thrives on resentment and jealousy. Still, the substance of the President’s comments is quite probably less important in the grand scheme of things than the tenor in which they were delivered.
A week before his speech at Morehouse, President Biden and his campaign team released a video addressing the Trump campaign’s demand for head-to-head debates. “Make my day, pal,” Biden challenges Trump as he declares that he beat the former president twice in their previous campaign and will gladly do so this time too.
Here again, critics rightly noted that the substance of the video was questionable at best. “6 jump cuts in 11 seconds,” conservative commentator Stephen L. Miller noted. Biden is so bad at this that he can’t even read his cue cards in a studio. How is he going to do an entire debate, much less two? He’s not up to his actual job, much less to running a grueling campaign in addition.
This is another fair point, to be sure, but one that still misses the bigger picture—Biden’s tone.
Joe Biden—or at least the Joe Biden the public is allowed to see these days—is angry. He sounds like he wants to fight Trump. He yells at the young men at Morehouse on one of the most joyful and special days of their lives. He’s rough and gruff and thoroughly displeased with everyone and everything. And if he’s not careful, it’s going to cost him the election.