Biden Nails It Again

Joe Biden has been under pressure to respond to Trump's attacks on him and his depiction of Biden as a radical leftist bent on encouraging violence and seeking the support of extremists while turning a deaf ear to the cornerstone of people worried about the growing chaos and lawlessness in the country.  Yesterday, Biden responded aggressively and forcefully  to Trump's claims that a Biden administration would make America less safe in a twenty-minute speech in Pittsburgh.

"I want a safe America: safe from COVID, safe from crime and looting, safe from racially motivated violence, safe from bad cops," Biden said, adding, "Let me be crystal clear: safe from four more years of Donald Trump." 

Biden clearly condemned the violence emanating from protests against racial injustice and warned demonstrators that allowing violence to get out of hand destroyed the very communities they were trying to help.

"Rioting is not protesting," Biden said.  "Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. It’s lawlessness, plain and simple, and those who do it should be prosecuted." He also said, “Violence will not bring change. It will only bring destruction. It’s wrong in every way. It divides instead of unites ... it makes things worse across the board, not better. It’s not what Dr. King or John Lewis taught and it must end."

He also laid into Trump on how he let the COVID-19 pandemic to spiral out of hand, making Americans less safe even without civil unrest, as well as how Trump's handling of  COVID-19 decimated the economy.  He even cited Kellyanne Conway's observation that more violence helps Trump and how Trump supporters incite violence on their candidate's behalf.

Biden then asked voters to answer whether they're safe after four years of Donald Trump.

"Fires are burning and we have a president who fans the flames rather than fighting the flames," Biden also stressed.  "But we must not burn. We have to build."

Needless to say, Biden made a few comments that might not sit well with progressives in his efforts to appeal to the center.  He said that most cops are good, decent people, a characterization that progressives might have a problem with.  Biden tried to cast aside Trump's insistence that how would ban fracking, saying that he would not.  Yes, and the left definitely has a problem with that!  (And in spite of his clean-energy program, which, of course, satisfies no one among the far left.)  And he quoted Pope John Paul II in urging people not to be afraid.  (If you're a Democrat and you want to shore up your own base, John Paul II is probably the last pope you want to quote, not just because of his mishandling od the Church sex-abuse scandal but also because of his own cultural conservatism.)

Biden's biggest mistake would not be anything he said yesterday.  His biggest mistake would be thinking that he doesn't have to say any of that again, because Trump lies so much and so often that this speech will hardly be the last word.  Biden has to keep up his rhetoric because Trump will keep up his rhetoric.  For now, though, Biden has more numbers on the scorecard.