Trump spoke in the Bronx last Thursday to a crowd as diverse as New York itself. "It doesn't matter whether you're black, or brown, or white or whatever the hell color you are, it doesn't matter. We are all Americans and we're going to pull together as Americans."
"USA! USA! USA!" The crowd chanted. It turns out that from the Bronx to Atlanta, from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Gulf Stream waters, from sea to shining sea, Americans don't want to be told that their efforts are meaningless, they don't want to hear that the deck is stacked against them, they don't want to feel that their leaders look down on them or think they can't achieve in their home nation. That's not what Americans are about. Trump knows it. Biden does not.
Biden has built his presidency on grievance and he makes no bones about it. He tells black Americans they are not good enough to succeed without government handouts. He tells white Americans they don't deserve what they've earned. During his 2020 campaign he repeatedly told Americans that he was running in order to keep Americans safe, but what he meant by safe was safe from ideas. He wanted to keep Americans safe from the pandemic and what he and his cronies called misinformation thereto, from the language of racism, from climate change, from whatever other boogie man he could terrify us with.
Biden could be seen delivering a commencement address at the historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Speaking to an audience of future leaders and rising elites in the black community and beyond, Biden had overwhelming negativity to offer.
"You missed your high school graduation," he told them, "you started college just as George Floyd was murdered. And there was a reckoning on race." Many high school graduations were cancelled in 2020 due to pandemic-inspired restrictions, and Floyd died in Minneapolis police custody in May of that year. Riots followed his death."
"It's natural to wonder if the Democracy you hear about actually works for you," Biden told the black graduates, suggesting that American democracy was not for them and would continue to leave them behind, despite the prestigious degree and their years of hard work. Some students even turned their backs on him during his speech.
"What is democracy if black men are being killed in the street? What is democracy if the trail of broken promises still leave black communities behind? What is democracy if you have to be ten times better than anyone else to get a fair shot? Most of all, what does it mean, as you've heard before, to be a black man who loves his country even if it doesn't love him back in equal measure."
Biden took the opportunity to speak to young men and women inheriting the mantle of America, who had earned their degrees, who had likely struggled under Covid mandates and restrictions placed upon them at the behest of his administration, to tell them that no matter what, they would not be able to achieve like their non-black counterparts. He told them that the proverbial deck was stacked against them.
That's not Trump's jam at all. For Trump, Americans lead the country, not politicians and each American is exactly that, with all of the rights and privileges that entails. In each of Trump’s campaigns, he has worked to bring people together. While leftists have demonized him, called him a fascist for upholding individual liberty and states rights over the collective, he has inspired Americans to realize what they have in common—and it isn’t grievance or negativity.
It’s the feeling that no matter what, we are a vibrant, loud, strong, over-the-top people with a whole lot of attitude, a sh*t ton of promise, and a great big nation in which to achieve our dreams. The American dream is alive and it’s for all of us—whatever the hell color you are. Only one presidential candidate knows this.
We Americans are tired of hearing how much our leaders think we suck, how we’re divided based on skin and class, we want to hear about the promise of our nation, the bright future we know we have ahead of us, not the bitterness of the past.
