America, Her Soul And An Honest Assessment - Editorial
Last Thursday night, President Joe Biden gave a speech at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall that we, like most of the nation, found quite stirring in one way or another.
Biden’s presidency is a unique one: he inherited a deeply fractured America and has spent the first year and a half of his term trying to straddle two, if not more, diametrically opposed factions. So, in what feels like an almost last-ditch attempt to appeal to what’s left of American commonality, Biden did something that hasn’t been done by an American president in quite some time: he was brutally—almost radically—honest.
“We must be honest with each other and with ourselves: too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” he says early on. And later, “I believe it is my duty to level with you, to tell the truth no matter how difficult, no matter how painful.”
And level with us he did.
The president unabashedly called out the “MAGA Republicans,” saying they represent “an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” “are determined to take this country backwards,” and that they “look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6…as patriots,” rather than “insurrectionists who placed a dagger to the throat of our democracy.”
Though he clarified that “not even a majority” of Republicans identify with MAGA rhetoric and that the number of those who reject it far outweighs those who accept it, it didn’t take long for the shock and disapproval of the president’s speech to roll in and take over conservative headlines.
Yes, the speech was surprisingly direct. Yes, the president singled out a political faction and condemned its politics as extremism, a divisive and not entirely advisable move right before the midterms. Yes, he opened himself up for a vast amount of finger pointing and disapproval from the right. But was the speech a genuine assessment of the state of the nation that factually identified threats to basic democracy? Also yes.
Election interference, insurrection, political violence: these are all realities of America in this snapshot in time, whether we like it or not.
“We saw law enforcement brutally attacked on January the 6th.” True.
“FBI agents just doing their job as directed, facing threats to their own lives from their own fellow citizens.” True. The raid at Mar-a-Lago saw calls from Trump’s adjacents to “defund the FBI,” a quick pivot from their previous condemnation of calls to defund law enforcement.
“You’ve heard it: more and more talk about violence as an acceptable political tool in this country….On top of that, there are public figures—today, yesterday and the day before—predicting and all but calling for mass violence and rioting in the streets.” Also true; Senator Lindsey Graham just weeks ago said that the prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump would lead to “riots in the streets.”
Biden’s condemnation of the minority, placing outright on them the blame for America’s political unrest, is questionable at best, but the rest of his message is clear: democracy is not promised; without active protection, it can and will fall.
“History tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy.” If you’ve taken a world history class, you know he’s right.
A speech as divisive as this one is, in normal circumstances, not the best attempt at uniting two opposing parties. But Biden himself said it: what’s happening in our country right now is not necessarily normal. And is it really as divisive as it seems? MAGA-directed finger pointing aside, the message that Biden delivered last week is, in basic terms, that our nation is on the verge of a political and social breakdown. Where America ends up when all is said and done depends heavily on how its citizens choose to respond. But how can the citizens respond if they don’t know the actuality of it, and haven’t experienced the full realization of the crossroads they’re at?
Well, that’s what Biden did here: delivered some semblance of self-realization to the American people. He told the truth, the brutal truth, that America needed to hear. At the very least, American citizens deserve that: a president who will tell it like it is.
“You can’t love your country only when you win.”