Joe Biden's Speech Only Further Divided America

I spoke this week in New Hampshire about the path forward for our nation, and how we ought to view our fellow countrymen.

In 2020, candidate Joe Biden promised to unite the country and provide steady leadership.  As President, he has done neither. His speech in Philadelphia just a few weeks ago was further evidence of his failure.

With Independence Hall behind him and the Presidential seal in front of him, President Biden had a unique opportunity to unite America. Instead, he desecrated those unifying symbols with one of the most divisive presidential speeches in American history.  Even worse, he used two Marines as window dressing while he attacked half of our nation. Joe Biden is no unifier.

Too many today, including our President, misunderstand fights between our enemies, and fights between our friends.  As Secretary of State, I battled Chairman Kim, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping.  These men are our enemies; they want for America only destruction or submission to their whims.  These are the kinds of enemies America must defend herself against.

But when we talk about our fellow countrymen, we are now talking about our friends and neighbors.  We don’t fight with our fellow Americans – we disagree, debate, persuade, and convince.  And ultimately, we all vote on the way forward for the country.  Joe Biden did away with this distinction in Philadelphia. He treated his fellow Americans, “MAGA Republicans,” as a threat to our nation on par with the Chinese Communist Party.

I don’t know why Joe Biden chose to forget this crucial distinction. I do know this: Biden’s leadership can be summed up in three words – woke, weak, and waffling.

When Joe Biden says conservatism is a threat to American democracy, he is either lying or he's a cynic who cares more about power than the future of our country.  Democrats spent $44 million to help conservative candidates win Republican primaries across America. Why would Joe Biden stand by while his party spends millions boosting the very people he calls an existential threat to America?  It’s because he is content to waffle between right and wrong so long as it serves his interests.

Joe Biden is hiring 87,000 more IRS agents to shake down hard-working Americans, just as King George did to our forebears.  Joe Biden tried to sidestep our Constitution and impose a vaccine mandate on small businesses.  His Administration stood up a short-lived “Disinformation Board” to control political narratives they don’t like.  His Attorney General labeled American parents as domestic terrorists.  And then Biden pushed $400 billion of debt onto the backs of every American so that a chosen few wouldn’t have to pay back the student loans they freely took.

But if you think any of these things are wrong, then according to Biden – YOU are a threat to democracy.

President Biden state: “The soul of America is defined by the sacred proposition that all are created equal in the image of God.”  Fair enough, Mr. President – I agree.  Yet, according to our President, to earnestly and faithfully believe that this proposition extends to born and unborn alike makes you a threat to democracy.  From parents, to people of faith, to working-class Americans, Joe Biden treats any who don’t share a ‘woke’ worldview as enemies of the state.

And what has Joe Biden actually done for the American people?  Inflation is 8.5%.  Gas is 50% higher than when he took office.  Cities across America are suffering spikes in violent crime.  But President Biden didn't mention any of these things.  We should see Biden’s declared threat from conservatives for what it is: an attempt to distract from the very real calamities his policies have wrought. Joe Biden’s America is weak.

Woke, weak, and waffling – we must consider a better path forward for our country. That starts this November.  We can choose to continue down the paths of partisan acrimony and petty personalized politics, just as we heard in Biden’s speech.  Or we can choose something better.

We must choose to embrace our Constitution and the wisdom of our Founding.  We must work with our fellow Americans, even those with whom we profoundly disagree, and not resort to name-calling when they threaten our political control.  We must remember that our fight is not with our fellow Americans, but rather with the corrosive, anti-American ideas they have chosen to embrace.

In his speech, President Biden claimed to be leading the fight for the “soul of America.” He wasn’t.  He was only struggling to further his own power over the places where America’s soul is truly found, in what our Founders called the “small places” and “little platoons” – in our churches, families, and local communities.  In order to defend the soul of America, our organizing principle as conservatives must be to expand and secure liberty in these essential places.  Rather than rely on politicians in Washington cutting deals that serve their own interests, conservatives across America must get involved at every level of society, from school boards and local government to grassroots campaigning, in order to secure our essential freedoms.  In doing so, we will reject Biden’s partisan division and fearmongering.  This we must do, with urgency.  For, to borrow from a favorite book of mine, what does it profit a party—or a country—to gain the world but lose its soul?