In his first campaign speech after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, President Joe Biden said the need for rejecting political violence doesn’t mean he’ll be shying away from denouncing the former president’s illiberal behavior or record.
Conservatives have baselessly argued that the shooting in Pennsylvania was an outgrowth of liberals’ criticism of his authoritarian behavior. And Biden is pushing back on that bogus claim.
Addressing Black voters and lawmakers during a speech to the NAACP in Nevada, the president reiterated his call for everyone to reject political violence. But he received applause after he name-checked Black people who have been the victims of violence and violent threats in recent years. He said:
For the race riots in Springfield, Illinois, in 1908, the NAACP was formed — that’s what started it. You know the pain and the price of violence. You understand that if you’re going to talk about standing against violence, you must stand against all violence. You must stand against violence against presidential candidates in Pennsylvania — must stand against all violence. Violence perpetrated against George Floyd in Minnesota. Against Black veterans like police officer Eugene Goodman on Jan. 6. And Black election workers, like Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss in Atlanta. We have to stand against the violence and intimidation of white supremacy — the murder of innocent lives in that grocery store in Buffalo, New York, when I went up there.
The applause in response to Biden name-checking Goodman, Freeman and Moss was noteworthy. This was the president acknowledging a sentiment that many liberals have been expressing — that any conversation about stemming political violence can’t, in earnest, ignore the actions of Trump and his followers.
Goodman, the U.S. Capitol Police officer, was recognized with a Congressional Gold Medal for his heroism in the face of violent, pro-Trump insurrectionists on Jan. 6. Freeman and Moss were innocent election workers in Georgia who faced death threats after Trump and his movement targeted them after the 2020 election.
And if it wasn’t clear enough from their resumption of political ads, Biden made clear that he won’t be treating Trump with kid gloves.
And if it wasn’t clear enough from their resumption of political ads, Biden made clear that he won’t be treating Trump with kid gloves.
“Now, just because we must lower the temperature in our politics as it relates to violence doesn’t mean we should stop telling the truth,” Biden told the NAACP audience, before lambasting Trump for deploying the National Guard to quell racial justice protesters in 2020, his mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and his attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
After hitting pause on political attacks for a few days, it’s officially “game on” again for the Biden campaign.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.