On Saturday, former Vice President Joe Biden compared President Donald Trump’s election in 2016 to the assassinations of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Biden said that Trump’s victory was shocking enough to “reawaken” liberals in politics, just like those horrific deaths.
“I think what’s happening now is, I think that Donald Trump may have reawakened sensibilities in this country to say ‘Whoa, maybe we can do this now, just like our generation was awakened when Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated,’” Biden told Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC Saturday.
After those assassinations, Biden suggested, “Our whole generation said, ‘I’m back in, man.'” Similarly, he described Trump’s election as the catalyst to millennial political engagement. “These millennials — they get it, Rev. And now they want to get engaged.”
While the former vice president is correct that Trump’s victory energized liberal activists, his decision to compare that election to these horrific assassinations should raise more than a couple of eyebrows.
Biden is currently the frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. His fellow Democrats are out for blood, but it seems unlikely they will criticize him for these comments.
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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