On Thursday morning, former Vice President Joe Biden announced his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Two hours later, President Donald Trump welcomed him into the race with a new nickname.
“Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe,” Trump tweeted. “I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign. It will be nasty – you will be dealing with people who truly have some very sick & demented ideas. But if you make it, I will see you at the Starting Gate!”
Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe. I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign. It will be nasty – you will be dealing with people who truly have some very sick & demented ideas. But if you make it, I will see you at the Starting Gate!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 25, 2019
Biden announced his campaign in a video focused on the white nationalist riots in Charlottesville, Va. He rightly denounced the “Klansmen and white supremacists and Neo-Nazis” who marched, “chanting the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the 30s.”
Yet the former vice president selectively quoted President Trump’s words shortly after Charlottesville, in which the president said there were “some very fine people on both sides.” Later in those very same remarks, Trump clarified, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally – but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”
Trump was not referring to the tiki torch marchers who chanted, “Jews will not replace us,” but to the protesters the next day, some of whom gathered only to protest against the removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee.
Yet Democrats like Biden continue to insist that Trump “assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it.”
Biden framed his campaign as “a battle for the soul of this nation.”
“I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an abberant moment in time. But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are. And I cannot stand by and watch that happen,” the former vice president said.
The core values of this nation… our standing in the world… our very democracy…everything that has made America — America –is at stake. That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States. #Joe2020 https://t.co/jzaQbyTEz3
— Joe Biden (Text Join to 30330) (@JoeBiden) April 25, 2019
Then Biden waxed eloquent about the spirit of America, a pro-America message that seems so lacking in today’s Democratic Party. “Folks, America is an idea. An idea that’s stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant. It gives hope to the most desperate people on earth, it guarantees that all people are treated with dignity, and gives hate no safe harbor,” he said.
The former vice president may believe Trump endangers the spirit of America, but the greater threats to that spirit arguably come from the Democratic Party. Out-and-out socialists are running for president, and have a decent chance at winning. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who used her position as California’s attorney general to silence pro-life speech, may have embraced marijuana but she has not turned away from her anti-First Amendment record. Democratic candidates have demonized Roman Catholics and conservative Christians for their faith, imposing a religious test for public office. 2020 Democrats have also endorsed abolishing the Electoral College and fundamentally altering the Supreme Court.
Trump’s immediate response to Charlottesville was regrettable, but it did not reveal him to be a Nazi like many Democrats seem to think it did. Meanwhile, the Democrats are moving further and further to the left, rejecting the Constitution, free markets, and religious freedom.
If Joe Biden wants a threat to the American spirit, he should look around in his own party. Or is he too sleepy to notice?
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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