OPINION: by Decide Man
I'll be the first to admit, I do not pay much attention to politics in our country. Having lived in California most of my life, I am a strongly Democratic individual. The past few years have been hard on all of us, from the insanity that was Trump's first term, to the pandemic, the peaceful protests, riots, Jan 6th and more. I've spoken with the other heads of DecideThought, and though we truly never wanted to do political episodes or blog posts, we agreed that this "Soul of the Nation" speech needed to be addressed.
Firstly, let us take a look at the imagery presented throughout the speech...
We have our elected leader standing forward, military guardsmen behind him, red lights shining on a dark wall.
Now, ignoring the allusions towards Hitler, fascism, and dictators that Republicans and those on the Right have been throwing out since this address was aired... my concern with this imagery is what it means.
What is up with the military personnel being shown so prominently? I understand that politicians will have guards present during big speeches. This is normal and to be expected. But, at least in the video I watched, these personnel were visible in well over half of the speech. It felt unusual, but it did lend President Biden an air of strength, that he had the backing of the military behind him (quite literally).
Why choose Red as the primary backdrop? Red is a dangerous colour to use. Red means blood, anger, wrath and fire. We use this colouration to depict who the villains are in our movies and television. Choosing Red as a backdrop is choosing a War or Conflict backdrop. If the building had been lighter rather than draped in the darkness of the evening, perhaps it wouldn't have come across so harsh... but the choice of colour for such an address sets the mood for the speech. The speech certainly went alongside the mood of the chosen lighting...
Now, I know I voted for President Biden, as many others did, for his message of unifying our great country. In this address he clearly has chosen to go against that idea. Let me give just a few quotes our President gave during the address... (my responses when he said these quotes are in italics. for divisive, for contradictive, for I agree but wait... ) all quotes are attributed to President Joe Biden.
"...equality and democracy are under assault, we do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise."
wait, if our equality is under assault, why are you assaulting both our equality and democracy by verbally attacking Republicans? "... not even the majority of Republicans are MAGA Republicans... ...the Republican party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans..."
wait, wait, wait... if the majority of republicans aren't MAGA, then how is the republican party dominated by MAGA republicans?
"... not a president of red America, blue America, but of all America." Uhmmm... so far you've done nothing but separate blue and red 'America'. "... federal circuit court judge Michael Luttig has called Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans quoted: clear and present danger to our democracy." and again you separate yourself and blue America from red America...
"... to build a future obsessed about the past, to be a nation of Hope and Unity and Optimism, or fear, division and darkness."
wait, aren't democrats the ones obsessed about what really happened in our nations history? isn't that why the Right complains about CRT?
"... I know your courage, I know your hearts, and I know our history..." whose hearts? Not Americans, because this is sounding more and more like you consider nearly half of American citizens not to be Americans...
"... we are still at our core a Democracy." didn't you earlier declare that we are a Republic? I mean, we are a constitutional republic, so why are you saying we're a democracy now? which is it? "We can't let the integrity of our elections be undermined, for that is a path to chaos."
if we can't let our election integrity be undermined, why did democrats work so hard to denounce questions about the election? Respond to those questions and prove the integrity so that faith in the integrity is upheld. Denouncing the questions as baseless, however true, means those questions remain and the faith in our system is reduced....
"they don't understand what... every patriotic American knows, you can't love your country only when you win." wait... then WHY did we democrats complain about Trump when he was elected and fight so hard then and now against him?
"...respect our legitimate political differences..."
then why are so many democrats complaining about the political differences of the Roe v. Wade decision? "CRT" in schools? Gun laws? where's the respect to the right for these differences of opinion?
"... as your president I will defend our Democracy with every fiber of my being, and I'm asking every American to join me."
Did you seriously ask Americans to choose a side? Us or Republicans?
"... Largest economic recovery since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and today America's economy is faster, stronger than any other advanced nation..."
uhmmm... I was doing far better economically back in 2019... wait, are you considering one of America's highest periods of inflation to be a RECOVERY?
"... more Americans are working than ever..."
oh, do you mean the recovery from after you shut down businesses? "... the future will be made in America, no matter what the White Supremacists and the extremists say." uhmmm... those people who you are calling white supremacists and extremists have been screaming for years about "bring back to america" and "made in america". I thought we weren't supposed to believe that?
"... that all are created equal in the image of God, that all are entitled to be treated with decency, dignity and respect..." ok, really getting tired of this... if we're supposed to treat all with "decency, dignity, and respect" why have you continually berated the Right, and Republicans so much in this speech? where's the "decency, dignity, and respect" that they are due?
"... the willingness to see each other not as enemies but as fellow Americans."
You've literally been treating Republicans as an enemy this entire speech!!
Worse than all this, President Biden didn't touch on the immigrant problem, said nothing about the conflict in Ukraine, nor about what America will do about Taiwan. He tells us that we're in a great economic recovery, but I can't remember the last time I had so little money. He claimed to denounce "political violence" but this administration is literally attacking Republicans and those who defend them by force of law... most of which have been charged for crimes well beyond what even Democrats claim have happened.
To me, this speech was terrifying. It feels that President Biden and his administration is intentionally pushing us towards Civil War, and at a time where our country's resources are becoming more and more limited (California is again dealing with electricity shortages) and war with either Russia or China (or both) seems more and more likely. Simply put... A President elected on a message of Unity and Peace, just Addressed our Nation with a message of Division, Hatred, and Conflict, while ignoring many of the issues our citizens are concerned about.
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