How and why the Wall Street Journal didn’t praise Biden’s speech too much. Punzi’s comment
What Biden said and what he didn't say in the inauguration speech. The comment by Federico Punzi, editorial director of Atlantico Quotidiano
As per tradition (which not even Trump had evaded), Biden also presented himself as " the president of all ", even of the Americans who did not vote for him. They are now ritual phrases, each president appeals to the unity and cohesion of the country. But this time, for obvious reasons, there were no ritual passages, the theme connoted the whole speech: it's time to "cure the soul of the nation", "we must put an end to this uncivilized war that pits reds against blues , the conservatives against the liberals “.
There is no doubt that a creeping civil or uncivilized war has been going on in America for years, at a low intensity for the moment. It is on the causes of this extreme polarization, however, that we are still far from clarifying, or rather the whole truth is not being told.
The problem is that these sound principles, in a democracy, must also be practiced, not just enunciated. And above all, not only when it is too easy, when an election has just been won and the presidency has been regained. They should be practiced on all sides, in victory as well as in defeat. And on this the Democrats, and Biden himself, are in no position to lecture.
For the past four years, since the transition in 2016, they have practiced the opposite of what the president preached yesterday.
One cannot be credible in appeals for unity if one does not assume one's share of responsibility for the ongoing "uncivilized war". A war that in these four years the Democrats have fueled and fought with all the means at their disposal, with all their firepower, from all positions (institutional, media, cultural) and even in the streets.
An appeal, that of Biden yesterday, which among other things is blatantly contradicted in recent days by their initiatives and words, in Congress and outside. According to impeachment , a climate of purge, republican senators threatened with expulsions, trials and blacklists , requests for abjuration, damnatio memoriae of the opponent. Not to mention the censorship of social media . The same Biden who today calls for “unity” yesterday compared Senators Cruz and Hawley to Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, for supporting allegations of fraud. And during the campaign he had already compared Trump himself to Goebbels.
On the other hand, from the same speech by the new president it is clear that all the responsibility for the "uncivilized war" falls on the opponents. "White supremacism", "systemic racism", "internal terrorism", all extremism and all political violence seem to stand on one side.
Not even an en passant mention of the extremism and violence of radical left movements, such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa (which Biden defined as "an idea, not an organization"), which throughout the summer have dozens of cities, months of riots, causing enormous devastation, dozens of victims, damages for two billion dollars, and occupying government buildings for weeks. Violence tolerated by Democratic mayors, governors and prosecutors, downplayed when not justified by the liberal media. Even Biden, in condemning the violence during the campaign, said that the "protesters" still deserved to be heard. And donations have come from the Biden / Harris Campaign to groups committed to freeing and exonerating those few identified perpetrators of charges.
From one day to the next, as left by politicians and media present it to us, the sun has returned to shine on America, while until yesterday it was the land of darkness. It is this exasperated dichotomy between Good and Evil of the narrative of the left, even on the day of victory, that contradicts and denies at the root any discourse of reconciliation. "Today, we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate, but of the cause of democracy," Biden said yesterday opening his speech, implicitly arguing that a victory for his opponent would be the defeat of democracy.
It is a point, a contradiction of Biden's speech that has perfectly captured the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal : "In his appeal for unity there was more than an indication that we are required to unite under a single point of view" . The progressive one.
In the words of the president, on the one hand there are those who believe in "American ideals", on the other the racists and nativists. But do they boil down to this, the WSJ asks, "our political differences"? “It sounds too similar to Barack Obama's tendency to see differences in ideology or politics as divisions between enlightenment and intolerance. It is divisive in its cultural and moral superiority, as the Obama years have shown by opening the political space for Trump ”.
“There is the truth and there are the lies,” Biden says. But as the WSJ board still observes, the lies are not all on one side. Political differences cannot be classified as truth on the one hand and lies on the other.
“We have heard too little in Biden's speech – concludes the WSJ – to reassure the conservatives, now purged and ostracized, that he will cancel the encouraged progressive censors. If its pursuit of social justice becomes a drive to blame racism for every inequity in American life, it will divide rather than unite. If he insists that those who disagree on climate change are 'deniers' who don't care about the planet, he will alienate millions of people ”.
And how can one invoke "unity", if for four years the defeated opponent, voted for by 75 million voters, was portrayed as the personification of Evil, the opposite of democracy, a tyrant to be overcome? This is how Democrats have viewed Trump since the night of November 3, 2016: a tyrant to be overthrown. A demonization that we know well here in Italy and that seems inherent in the left.
The myth of the stolen election, and the consequent "Resistance" to the usurper, was born in 2016 in the home of the Democrats and has poisoned the political climate in the United States for four long years. In a notorious tweet that we report, the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, still in May 2017, spoke of “stolen election, there is no doubt. Congress has a duty to protect our democracy ”.
Only apparently was it a correct and orderly transition. Obama met Trump and was present at the inauguration ceremony. But in the meantime, his administration was spying on the government team of the new president to create the conditions, if not for his removal from office, at least for a permanent delegitimization, as happened later.
A fake scandal artfully assembled – today we know – by the Clinton Campaign, in order to discredit Trump and cover up the embarrassing Emailgate that involved it, was used to fabricate Russiagate on us , to credit the theory that Trump had stolen the elections with the help from Russia. Starting as a poisoned meatball from the election campaign, with the decisive contribution of the leaders of the CIA and the FBI, and the blessing of the Obama White House, it turned into a real attempt – yes – of a coup. Not only were they aware of the Clinton campaign's plan to discredit Trump, but they knew that Russian intelligence was aware of it and that his misinformation might be at work.
In spite of everything, the FBI was pushed to move to credit the accusation of the Trump-Russia collusion, up to obtaining surveillance warrants hiding evidence from the FISA courts and the appointment of special prosecutor Mueller (for details, I refer you to our insights ).
So, wasn't Russiagate part of that “culture of manipulated or invented facts”, and among the “lies told for power”, of which Biden spoke yesterday?
And to be honest, although not recognized by the courts (and indeed not even examined), some of the electoral fraud incidents reported by President Trump are far more documented than was his alleged collusion with Russia in 2016. Yet, this hoax went on for years, with press campaigns, investigations and indictments, while today the reports of fraud and irregularities in the vote of last November 3 are branded as an attempted coup. The coup attempt was made, but in 2016.
We will see in daily practice whether Biden will be consistent with his call for unity.
According to Federico Rampini, who has had an objective look at American politics in recent years, “Biden does not have the charisma of Barack Obama but has meditated on the errors of the Democrats. His campaign was built by keeping a left wing of the hegemonic party at bay in the media, universities and some coastal metropolises ”.
In reality, it was not necessary, indeed it was counterproductive in the election campaign that the cultural hegemony of the left was visible. Biden's candidacy itself served to hide the radical agenda that was behind him and that entered the White House with him. And, if implemented, it will make America poorer, weaker and more divided.
(Extract from an article published on atlanticoquotidiano.it)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/come-e-perche-il-wall-street-journal-non-ha-lodato-il-discorso-di-biden/ on Thu, 21 Jan 2021 09:25:11 +0000.