The Sound Guy
Pursuit Driver
And doing their best to show Biden as a leader vs Trump the reactor. I think this may be the DNC theme for the election. The writer takes pains to point out that Biden is not as progressive as he'd like... but is better than Trump. Obviously trying to unify the various candidates followers.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, spoke from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this morning, a city -- like many across the country -- where thousands have been taking to the streets to protest the latest death of an unarmed black man in police custody: George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer dug his knee into his neck for more than eight long minutes.
Biden's speech could not have distinguished him more from President Donald Trump. While Trump seems to think chaos benefits him and acts to drive it at any turn, Biden struck a markedly different tone, issuing a call for calm, reconciliation, and understanding. "We're a nation in pain," Biden said. "We must not let our pain destroy us."
In a pointed critique of the President, who has long refused to take responsibility for any of his actions and never accepts blame -- even when his failed response to a pandemic has left more than 100,000 Americans dead -- Biden said, "I'll do my job and take responsibility. I won't blame others. I'll never forget that the job isn't about me."
Whatever you think of Biden -- and he wasn't my pick for the Democratic nomination -- it was almost startling to hear from an empathetic, rational adult who understands he's asking to be the public's most prominent servant, not its petty disciplinarian.
It was a window into what a Biden presidency might look like: Hardly the stuff of progressive dreams, but also leaps and bounds better than the current nightmare of narcissism, division, and autocracy from a President primarily concerned about his ratings and anyone he perceives to have slighted him. Biden promises to listen, lead, and to try to do right by the whole country, not just the angry few who don red hats and shout the loudest at political rallies.
He may not be offering the kind of enormous progress voters like me crave. But he does promise to pull us back from the abyss.
He delivered his remarks from City Hall in a metropolis where, like so many others across the country, police have been escalating their response to protesters, sometimes tear gassing even those peaceably assembled, beating people with nightsticks and shields, and attacking and arresting journalists -- including the Philadelphia Inquirer's Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Kristen Graham.
These increasingly violent tactics have been sanctioned by Trump, a pathetic coward who responded to a night of protests in Washington, DC, by hiding below ground in a White House bunker, and who on Monday evening staged a photo op of his supposed bravery walking out onto the streets of the capital -- after he had police use tear gas, flash grenades and rubber bullets to clear all the peaceful, and mostly young, citizen protesters away.
Standing in the Rose Garden he gave what will go down as one of the most terrifyingly authoritarian, anti-American screeds in US history. Law enforcement, he said, would "dominate the streets." If city and state leaders didn't squash protesters, Trump said, he would send in the military to do it for them. It was the kind of rhetoric you might be familiar with if you've ever heard a tin-pot dictator trying to put down a righteous mass movement against him. Then he walked to a venerated DC church, where he stood with aids, held up a Bible and said, "We have the greatest country in the world."
************************************
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, spoke from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this morning, a city -- like many across the country -- where thousands have been taking to the streets to protest the latest death of an unarmed black man in police custody: George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer dug his knee into his neck for more than eight long minutes.
Biden's speech could not have distinguished him more from President Donald Trump. While Trump seems to think chaos benefits him and acts to drive it at any turn, Biden struck a markedly different tone, issuing a call for calm, reconciliation, and understanding. "We're a nation in pain," Biden said. "We must not let our pain destroy us."
In a pointed critique of the President, who has long refused to take responsibility for any of his actions and never accepts blame -- even when his failed response to a pandemic has left more than 100,000 Americans dead -- Biden said, "I'll do my job and take responsibility. I won't blame others. I'll never forget that the job isn't about me."
Whatever you think of Biden -- and he wasn't my pick for the Democratic nomination -- it was almost startling to hear from an empathetic, rational adult who understands he's asking to be the public's most prominent servant, not its petty disciplinarian.
It was a window into what a Biden presidency might look like: Hardly the stuff of progressive dreams, but also leaps and bounds better than the current nightmare of narcissism, division, and autocracy from a President primarily concerned about his ratings and anyone he perceives to have slighted him. Biden promises to listen, lead, and to try to do right by the whole country, not just the angry few who don red hats and shout the loudest at political rallies.
He may not be offering the kind of enormous progress voters like me crave. But he does promise to pull us back from the abyss.
He delivered his remarks from City Hall in a metropolis where, like so many others across the country, police have been escalating their response to protesters, sometimes tear gassing even those peaceably assembled, beating people with nightsticks and shields, and attacking and arresting journalists -- including the Philadelphia Inquirer's Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Kristen Graham.
These increasingly violent tactics have been sanctioned by Trump, a pathetic coward who responded to a night of protests in Washington, DC, by hiding below ground in a White House bunker, and who on Monday evening staged a photo op of his supposed bravery walking out onto the streets of the capital -- after he had police use tear gas, flash grenades and rubber bullets to clear all the peaceful, and mostly young, citizen protesters away.
Standing in the Rose Garden he gave what will go down as one of the most terrifyingly authoritarian, anti-American screeds in US history. Law enforcement, he said, would "dominate the streets." If city and state leaders didn't squash protesters, Trump said, he would send in the military to do it for them. It was the kind of rhetoric you might be familiar with if you've ever heard a tin-pot dictator trying to put down a righteous mass movement against him. Then he walked to a venerated DC church, where he stood with aids, held up a Bible and said, "We have the greatest country in the world."
