Now that the news cycle has moved on to other more entertaining “circuses” (best to leave the bread part out since the price of that has and will continue to rise), perhaps it is time to take one last look at Joe Biden’s historic (and not in a good way) speech on September 1st. After all, both the legacy and alternative news media have already covered it in the customary partisan manner that we are now all used to.
Thus for moment, set aside the political and factual tribalism that exists on both sides of the aisle when it comes to this speech, since we already knew who the speech was and wasn’t for. Also, ignore all of the smarmy applause, the elitist condescension, and deadpan gaslighting from the progressive stoogeoisie class, because we’ve all seen it before and no one is buying it. Furthermore, set aside the reactive vitriol and cries of hypocrisy and double standards by Biden’s critics on the institutional right. The progressive left is immune to such remarks, so at this point a lot of conservative criticism is beginning to sound a lot like virtue signaling.
In short, stop letting your reactions to the speech be yet another data point Big Tech uses to fine-tune their algorithms against you, and take a moment to ask a simple question: what was the purpose of the speech? To drum up the Democratic base? To shore up DNC morale in light of their projected losses in the coming midterms? To dress up the “Orange Man Bad” slogan for yet another round of campaigning? Because it certainly wasn't to unify anything or anyone, let alone the nation.
A New Red Scare
Well given the progressive left’s tendency to name bills and (in this case) speeches that are crafted to accomplish the complete opposite of the plain meaning of their title, perhaps it would be better to consider the more off-putting parts of the speech. For instance, its tone and tenor along with its dark red “satanic and ghoulish” lighting. Or how the stochastically chosen (but hopefully not portentous) date of September 1st, was actually the 83rd anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939. And lastly, to consider those parts of the speech Biden or his court jester Karine Jean-Pierre attempted to walk back when it became impossible to hide the fact that they got caught redhanded with their rhetorical hands in the commie-cookie jar.
From that vantage point it, Biden’s speech was indeed the most divisive presidential address in history. For in a mere 20 minutes, Biden castigated a very specific and yet vaguely-defined group of American citizens as not only enemies of “democracy” and America, but of Joe Biden himself. This not to say that former presidents have never spoken in such a manner, but historically speaking, such ideological ire was usually reserved for those nations or heads of state that we were at war with. Which is why the speech's date seems a little ominous.
Now to be fair, Trump was notorious for peppering his speech with superlatives and was certainly not one to shy away from using amusingly malicious monikers, and historically speaking this too has been a mainstay of American politics. However, when it came to Trump's “divisive” manner of speaking, there were those who knew the difference between taking him “seriously” versus “literally”, and those who just didn’t like him.
When it came to Biden’s speech though, it was more than simply “saying the quiet part out loud.” As a video essay from Don’t Walk, Run, Productions has shown, his speech wasn’t that much different from anything he or the Democrats have been saying since the 2020--with one crucial exception. What sets this speech apart from all of his presidential predecessors is that one, he made it in his official capacity as POTUS, and two, that he was aiming his “official” contempt at a substantial portion of the nation that he is supposed to be serving. This reality gives a whole new and baleful meaning to the phrase “My fellow Americans,” and if you have to ask who he is talking about, it’s not you.
Moreover, what is most galling in all this is that he made his speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the birthplace of our constitutional republic. This is precisely why all the speech’s trappings such as the Marine Corps guards and the blood-red glow should rightly be called “satanic,” because it is an inversion and scorning of our nation's founding principles. It was the bitter fruit of the Left’s long march through the institutions whereby the POTUS can now officially voice the beliefs of vast numbers of Americans who reject those founding principles and even the nation itself.
We Are Now Living Inside of a Dystopian Tale
Many a meme has been made of Biden’s speech, but one of the more humorous and salient ones are the ones that parody Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. In one scene, Emperor Palpatine is revealed to be a Sith Lord (who carries a red lightsaber) and a group of Jedi knights are sent to arrest him. When the leader of the knights, Mace Windu, says that the Galactic Senate will determine his fate, Palpatine responds, “I am the Senate!”
The scene and the meme where Biden is shown to be shouting “I am the Democracy” are a good match. For not only does it sum up the tenor of the speech, but it also highlights how life has become stranger than fiction. For as rational thought has gone by the wayside, the “narrative” one adheres to has become more powerful than their lived reality. This is why it can seem like we are living inside of a dystopian story like Revenge of the Sith, V for Vendetta, Elysium, or most appropriately George Orwell’s 1984. Biden’s September 1st speech was ten times longer than the Orwellian “two minutes of hate” used to whip the “proles” into a frenzy as a means of maintaining their control and compliance to “the Party.” This is why, when all is said and done, the real battle for our nation’s soul will not be one of competing facts and figures but against the principles (or lack thereof), against the power of the woke rulers handling this president’s dark mess. It will be one of competing narratives.
Whatever his real or stated intentions of the speech were, it doesn't really matter at this point as he said what he said and there’s no redo button with words like that. If the raid on Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago was seen by some as the “crossing of the Rubicon,” then Biden’s speech was the Alea iacta est (“the die has been cast”) moment as the race for the power over our nation's destiny has begun. Any attempt to walk a via media between these two extremes will be unlikely to work, as our country is simply too polarized for either extreme to reach a compromise. Any attempt by Biden to walk back or “clarify” his comments will either be seen as weakness by one side or just more obfuscation by the other. Plus, does anyone really believe that he is running the show at this point?
And already, it has become clear that Biden and his administration are going for bust, on the roll of their dice. In addition to the Mar-a-Lago raid, we have seen the arrest of Trump associates Peter Navarro (in leg irons!) and Steve Bannon, for what are not major crimes. As of September 9th, it was reported that as many as 50 other Trump associates have had their homes raided by the DOJ-FBI. Or the SWATTING of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene three nights in a row or the guy who showed up at Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s house- both of which amounted to an attempted assassination and both of which have not been pursued by the Feds. But worst of all is of course is the imprisonment and treatment of the J6 suspects who have been imprisoned for over a year without trial and some of whom are being tortured.
So rest assured that more events like these are coming, the question is whether or not we as conservatives can mount a more potent riposte with a better countering narrative, with ridicule, or simply to holdfast and exalt those things that matter the most- faith, family, and freedom. Time will tell.
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