Saturday night, November 7, on the heels of their currently contested presidential victory, Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris unleashed a real rip-snorter of a pseudo-acceptance speech; a red-white-and-blue humdinger! It was a bit of a surprise, admittedly, coming from this duo who, for most of their campaign, had been dissing the nation they now hope to lead.
If you didn’t know better, you’d almost think Biden/Harris — and by extension, their acolytes — are proud of the ol’ US of A; proud to be Americans!
“The American story is about the slow, yet steady widening of opportunity,” thundered the seventy-seven-year-old man presently claiming the title “President-Elect”. “America has always been shaped by inflection points,” he continued luminously, “by moments in time where we’ve made hard decisions about who we are and what we want to be. Lincoln in 1860 — coming to save the Union. FDR in 1932 — promising a beleaguered country a New Deal. JFK in 1960 — pledging a New Frontier. And twelve years ago, when Barack Obama made history, and told us, ‘Yes, we can.'”
But, hold the progressive fort! I thought, per the tenets of today’s Leftism and the modern Democratic party, the American “story” was overridingly taken up with sinister realities: predatory colonialism; deeply-anchored; systemic racism; bullying subjugation of women, gays, and transgenders; marauding law enforcement; income inequality fueled by robber barons, big oil, big pharma, generic corporations, and assorted mustache-twirling capitalists.
What’s suddenly generating all this flag-waving rah-rah from the top of the Donkey Party ticket?
“I’ve always believed,” intoned Joe Biden on that evening, “we can define America in one word: Possibilities. That in America everyone should be given the opportunity to go as far as their dreams and God-given ability will take them. You see, I believe in the possibility of this country.”
So … it’s now safe to admit this Republic has managed a handful of glorious moments? Is that the political and cultural portside’s revamped company line? I’m just trying to keep things clear here.
“This is a great nation,” pressed the Democratic Big. “And we are a good people. This is the United States of America. And there has never been anything we haven’t been able to do when we’ve done it together.”
That there is some mighty high-flown talk for a guy who’s ridden toward the White House atop an “America S*cks!” message for the past year or so.
Even the budding VP strayed into something which, at cursory glance, could be mistaken for a sort of patriotism:
“And to the American people who make up our beautiful country”, she proclaimed in her warm-up to Biden’s statements, “thank you for turning out in record numbers to make your voices heard.”
Whoa, Nellie … Back that up: “Beautiful country”? This klan-tinged, racist hotbed? This free-market hell-hole of soulless injustice? I thought America needed to be transformed? If Sen. Harris had alluded to her and Joe’s “beautiful supporters”? Well, that would have been more philosophically and stylistically consistent. But the whole country? “Beautiful”? Where were those sentiments expressed from her — or from most of her fellow Democratic presidential contenders — over the course of the 2019/2020 campaign season?
On top of that, how about the wanna-be President’s off-the-cuff mention of “God-given ability”?
“God-given”? Easy there, fella! Have you lost sight of that sacrosanct — pardon the pun — “separation of church and State”?
There are legions of irreligious, “nones”, “brights”, agnostics, atheists, and pagans who’ve flocked to Mr. Biden’s secularistic party. How are they feeling about their standard-bearer’s smuggling in a reference to the Deity Who gives everyone abilities — but Who gives them hives?
Then there’s this …
Joe Biden, eyes-blazing like a revivalist preacher: “The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season — a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal.”
Not imagining things here — we have it on video: the one who recently said, “The party is me. Right now, I am the Democratic Party” quoting the Bible. Explicitly. Verbatim. Where’s the predictable outrage from the God-haters who’ve stuck with him up to this point?
There are echoes here of Barak Obama who, while bizarrely, arbitrarily avoiding allusions to the “Creator” and our “endowed” rights in his citing of the Declaration of Independence, would then periodically recite Scripture in cynical service to his policies and causes — all with zero pushback from fellow Leftists who’d otherwise hyperventilate over a looming “theocracy”. Don’t forget about that 44th president’s trotting out Jesus’ venerated “Good Samaritan” parable at a 2012 address before the Clinton Global Initiative. He’d preceded that remark speaking about “doing the Lord’s work” (!!) and overtly reaching back, once more, to the Good Book: “answering the ‘Bible’s call’ — to ‘seek justice’ and ‘rescue the oppressed.’ ”
Point of curious fact, a preferred Barack Obama stump-speech theme was straight out of the much-ridiculed Book of Genesis: The call of each of us to be our “brother’s keeper”. That exhortation crops up, for instance, in the CGI speech noted above and elsewhere during his tenure.
Nary a BHO enthusiast, to my knowledge, ever raised even a squeak of objection to all these Judeo-Christian pieties. You see, this wasn’t some nasty right-wing peasant “forcing religion” on the citizenry, but the Left’s champion — so, no problem.
Back to Biden. Get this: he wrapped his November 7 oration with this flourish:
In the last days of the campaign, I’ve been thinking about a hymn that means a lot to me and to my family … It captures the faith that sustains me and which I believe sustains America. … Hopefully this hymn gives you solace as well.
“And He will raise you up on eagle’s wings,
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of His Hand.”And now, together — on eagle’s wings — we embark on the work that God and history have called upon us to do.
The temeritous chap from Delaware … or Scranton … or wherever, literally recited the chorus of a favorite sacred song. One that reportedly was inspired by the 91st Psalm to boot. (Eeek! Is there no escaping that anathematized Book?!?)
What’s going on here? What’s with the prattle about “He will lift you up” and “His hand”? What’s the former Vice-President darkly insinuating about the “faith” sustaining him? Sustaining America!? Had Biden’s audience unwittingly stumbled into some kind of Pentecostal camp meeting that evening?
Actually, it turns out that lyrical composition is of Roman Catholic provenance — which likely doesn’t make it much more palatable to the anti-religion set. That institution, recall, is allegedly the “anti-choice”, “anti-LGBTQ” refuge of pro-Nazi popes and pedophilic priests, right? It gets reflexively sneered at by the Mainstream Media, pop culture, and the nation’s sophisticates.
Yet, for all the land to hear, the Democrat claiming to be the next President of the United States was approvingly touting — vocally recommending, really — one of that Church’s canticles.
What possible conclusion can America draw? God? Country? Thumbs up from Biden/ Harris and Company — at least as of a couple weeks back.
All of them, and the other precincts of crusading progressivism, simply must stop sending out scrambled signals. Give the rest of us some straightforward guidelines about what’s acceptable public discourse already! (Particularly if the aforementioned pair do end up occupying the nation’s highest offices.) How else are we benighted schlubs supposed to know what we’re permitted to do, to say? And what “woke” precepts we’re violating when we decide we no longer have any other choice but to stop cooperating and push back?
