Joe Biden waited several weeks before formally addressing the unrest on U.S. college campuses, Previous to yesterday's televised remarks, Biden had passed off the job of commenting to aides and surrogates.
From Biden's perspective, there was no upside to speaking unless he absolutely had to. Finally, this week, the pro-Palestinian protesters forced his hand when they occupied buildings on three campuses and the police arrested more than 2,000 students across the country.
The reason Biden was reluctant to speak out was because the protesters and the targets of those protests were both part of the shaky political coalition that he needs to help him win re-election in November. His Herculean task was to thread the needle and talk about "hate" while supporting the right to protest.
He failed.
Biden tried to split the difference by pointing out all the "violent" actions taken by the pro-Palestinian protesters, including “Destroying property … vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduation … threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people.” He also said there was "no place" for antisemitism on campus or anywhere in America.
“He’s between a rock and a hard place,” Dane Strother, a Democratic political consultant, told Dispatch Politics. “There is no perfect solution given how spread out the protests are.”
Among all adults, 47 percent say they either strongly or somewhat oppose the pro-Palestinian protests on campuses, with just 28 percent saying they either strongly or somewhat support them. But those numbers are basically reversed among Democrats, with 46 percent saying they strongly or somewhat support the protests and just 31 percent saying they strongly or somewhat oppose them. Yet in his remarks on Thursday, Biden was likely trying to target the independents, 44 percent of whom say they oppose the protests, with just 24 percent saying they support them.
“Peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues,” Biden said. “But neither are we a lawless country. We are a civil society, and order must prevail.”
There is a sizable portion of Biden's coalition who strongly disagree with that statement. "Order" must only prevail after all of society's wrongs have been righted. Otherwise, order is "oppression" and needs to be resisted.
“Politically, it puts him in the same place as most people,” said T.J. Rooney, the former chairman of the Democratic party in Pennsylvania, a key swing state. “Protest all day long but when you break s**t, you own it.”
Biden wanted to wait until there were overt acts of violence by protesters before commenting. That he sort of came down on the side of law and order is about the best he could do considering the nature of the protesters and their open antisemitism.
Biden aides acknowledged that they gave in to pressure to speak on the unrest.
Biden delivered the comments, which lasted about four minutes, after several of his Democratic allies urged him to do so and after former President Donald Trump ramped up his criticism of the Biden administration’s handling of the turmoil.
A White House official, referring to the outside pressure, described the decision for Biden to speak Thursday as “we answered the mail.” Biden’s team is focusing heavily on a speech he’s set to deliver next week at a Holocaust Memorial Ceremony about antisemitism, the official said
Biden is becoming a ghostly figure on the national stage. He seems to be an observer while the nation is boiling. And like Nikki Haley and some other Republicans who have all now fallen by the political wayside, he appears to be talking to a country that has passed him by.
But in invoking a quieter more conventional age, before Trump’s incessant cacophony, social media fury, and growing extremism on the left, Biden often seems to be trying to lead a country that no longer exists.
Joe Biden should not be the president in this perilous moment in American history. He cannot grasp the forces at work that are dividing America and pulling us apart.
Frankly, I'm not sure that anyone can pull us together when so many are trying to separate us.
