Joe Biden delivered one of the most partisan, divisive, hate-filled speeches of his presidency Thursday night with seething criticisms of his chief political opponent and direct threats to democratic institutions. If the speaker had been Donald Trump, there might have been a movement to impeach him a third time.
In what may have been Biden’s final State of the Union, the president spent the first half hour of his angry address attempting to intimidate the associate justices of the Supreme Court seated in the House chamber while depicting his opposition as violently extreme.
“My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about Jan. 6,” Biden said, declaring objections to electoral certification — which Democrats have made for decades — the “gravest threat to U.S. democracy since the Civil War.”
Then, the president condemned the Supreme Court for overturning the 50-year precedent set forth in Roe v. Wade that wrongly recognized a constitutional right to abortion.
“With all due respect, justices,” Biden said, “women are not without electoral or political power … you’re about to realize just how much.”
Thursday night’s speech put to rest any remaining doubt that President Biden failed to represent the “return to normalcy” he promised four years ago that echoed the 1920 campaign of Ohio Sen. Warren G. Harding, who also campaigned from home. Biden’s divisive address rivaled his kickoff speech for the 2022 midterms when the president depicted political dissidents as a “threat” to “the very soul” of America while flanked by marines under a blood-red background.
The Beltway press celebrated both speeches as righteously defiant against unprecedented threats against democracy itself.
“Biden Calls on Americans to Resist Threats to Democracy” read a headline from The New York Times three years ago. Last night, the Times headlined: “Biden Focused on Defending Democracy, the Economy and the Border.”
Former President Donald Trump, on the other hand, delivered an election-year speech in 2020 celebrating civil rights heroes, and the Times called it “dark and divisive.” Speaking at the base of Mount Rushmore, Trump was aspirational about American ambitions, dreaming that “one day very soon, we will plant our flag on Mars,” as far-left rioters tore down statues of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt, the four men carved into the South Dakota mountain.
“This monument will never be desecrated, these heroes will never be defaced, their legacy will never be destroyed, their achievements will never be forgotten, and Mount Rushmore will stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers’ fathers and to our freedom,” Trump triumphantly declared.
Any time Trump gave a speech, however, he was blasted with hysterical press coverage. The Washington Post claimed Trump’s Independence Day address at Mount Rushmore “exploits social division” and sought to “amplify racism.” But Trump could have spent Jan. 6 talking about the weather, and the Democrats still would have indicted him.
Biden will spend the rest of the year being celebrated by the press for smearing half the nation as domestic extremists. Trump will continue to run against an incumbent who remains propped up by the Beltway media.
