Can Biden Win with a Message of Unity?
Despite an atmosphere of divisiveness, Joe Biden wants to put aside anger and embrace a message of unity. This was one of the main takeaways from his official campaign launch speech on Saturday. But when Donald Trump is your adversary, can unity win the day? More at NPR.
He is correct that many Democrats are angry about what has unfolded in the Oval Office, Congress and Republican-dominated states such as Alabama in the past two years. But he should be careful not to downplay that anger, which drove millions of voters to turn out in 2018 and give Democrats control of the House.
Biden’s pitch comes down to: I’ve done it before, so I can do it now. Sure, that sounds nice, but it’s completely unrealistic to expect bipartisanship from today’s Republican Party whose win-at-any-cost ethos got us a Trump presidency. And it’s also unrealistic to expect Democrats to calm down when their rights are under assault.
Biden’s speech was centered around a “unity” theme, set against Trump, who he called the “divider in chief.” [.] It was an escalation of the back-and-forth between Biden and Trump, and one of the most aggressive efforts from any 2020 Democrat so far to directly talk about the president’s divisive and racist rhetoric. Biden’s not alone among the Democratic field in making denunciations of Trump central to his campaign.