John Avlon writes for CNN that Joe Biden has “a marrow-deep belief in the power of personal decency as a road to bipartisan progress.” If the Democrat’s Tuesday speech at the Gettysburg battlefield in any indication, that’s an accurate assessment. While acknowledging that many find this faith alarmingly naïve, Biden insisted that we came through the Civil War united and we can come through our present divisions, too, and better and stronger for the struggle.
The speech won a lot of praise but little actual attention. Trump’s America is all about Trump, and it may remain that way for a while even when he’s an ex-president. But Biden’s working on the margins, now, and making frequent forays into Trump country.
He has increasingly traveled to areas where Trump has strong support, as a growing lead in national polls, consistent advantages in swing-state surveys, and increasingly competitive contests even in more conservative states like Texas and Georgia raise the prospect of a large Electoral College win. He visited an area of Miami with a large Cuban population on Monday, to court a constituency that often votes Republican. And last week he went to Johnstown and other parts of Western Pennsylvania, where Trump has deep support among white working-class voters.
Gettysburg, in Adams County, voted for Trump by a 2-1 ratio in 2016.
Biden is trying to stop and reverse the rightward drift of rural America. Running against John McCain in 2008, Barack Obama received 40 percent of the two-party vote* in Adams County, but those numbers were 36-64 against Mitt Romney in 2012, and 31-69 for Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump in 2016. Obama dropped 8,716 votes in Adams County in 2008, while Clinton dropped 17,204 to Trump in a statewide contest she lost by a total of 44,000.
[* The Two-Party vote excludes votes cast for third parties to make for a better comparison between different election years]
Of course, Biden delivered a national message at Gettysburg, and it seemed more a genuine reflection of his beliefs rather than a cynical political stratagem.
With a statesmanlike tone layered over his Scranton-bred everyman persona, Biden sought to place himself above the fray, spending more time discussing American values than leveling attacks on President Donald Trump. Earlier in the day, Biden described the speech as one that he “worked and worked and worked on.”
In fact, Biden never explicitly mentioned Trump by name in the speech, largely because there is no need to explain the president’s divisiveness to the American electorate. Instead, he provided his vision of a future without him:
Reciting the opening words of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Biden said, “He taught us this: A house divided could not stand. That is a great and timeless truth. Today, once again, we’re at a house divided. But that, my friends, can no longer be. We are facing too many crises, we have too much work to do, we have too bright a future to have it shipwrecked on the shores of anger and hate and division.”
“The country is in a dangerous place. Our trust in each other is ebbing. Hope seems elusive,” he said in remarks that rarely mentioned Trump but frequently alluded to his presidency.
“Too many Americans seek not to overcome our divisions, but to deepen them,” Biden said. “We must seek not to build walls, but bridges. We must seek not to have our fists clinched but our arms open. We have to seek not to tear each other apart. We have to seek to come together.”
I very much doubt the Republicans will cooperate with a President Biden, but he’s right about what the nation needs, and that’s precisely why his message resonates whenever it can be heard above the din of Trump’s chaos.
At the same time the Republicans are going to crash the economy so Biden is a failed President.
“…Biden insisted that we came through the Civil War united and we can come through our present divisions, too, and better and stronger for the struggle.”
But did we? Certainly, there was an elite consensus after the Civil War and there was a level of white solidarity. But the price of white solidarity was Jim Crow.
Can we build a more just unity in the post-Trump world? I would like to think so. But white solidarity around 1900 came about through marginalizing between 10-15% of the population – perhaps more if we include other immigrants. Do we need to find another group to marginalize in order to make this work? Like… maybe far right voters? But that doesn’t seem workable. There are too many of them.
Thanks for your comment. Immediately after the Civil War the level of white solidarity was relatively low. The US Army occupied the rebellious states for several years. Major civil rights legislation was enacted. New, progressive state constitutions were written across the South. Cross-racial coalitions governed most southern states and unleashed a wave of progressive legislation, investing in public education, infrastructure, and economic development.
Yes, that’s true. In 2021, perhaps we can have our Liberalism and eat it too. I think that will break down by the next midterms. But maybe not.
My impression is that period did not last long enough. Before long the industrial revolution and immigration intervened, and then there was a war, a depression and another war, and the north went off in another direction while the south lingered as a somewhat lost society and took to creating memorials to dead generals and creating laws to keep the Black man under their thumbs and all in all ignored the north and created the so called solid south. It is still solid but now another party has taken up there cause whatever it is. Anyway just my impression but then I am not a historian. Yet we remain divided and violence is threatening again.
The Civil War has been raging since before the US Constitution was written, and has been both Hot and Cold since. 1860-1865 was just a Hot War, compared to the continual Cold war.
Read David Brin’s blog post about it.
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2014/09/phases-of-american-civil-war.html
Then read all of David Brin’s blog posts because it’s absolutely worth reading.
True, the short time after civil war was just an interlude. This battle was joined in 1619 when the first slaves were brought in Virginia. We have been unable to shuck off that evil coil or to deal with it,
True. 1877 was the end of Reconstruction and the US Army was pulled out of the South, with some of it deployed to northern bases and armories (most northern cities have large, solidly built armories from this era) as a backup force to use against workers in the wake of the Great Railroad Strike (which was as close as this country has ever come to a general strike).
I must admit I get nervous when Biden talks about bipartisanship. There will be no votes from Rs on anything , not one. You couldn’t get a vote for renaming a post office from that bunch and nor should we even try. They’ll pursue relentless obstruction and we should just ignore, say we tried and failed to come to an agreement but the country cannot wait, and then do away with the filibuster and expand the court. Failure will result in even worse outcomes in 2022 and 2024 and probably an end to the republic. See Norman Ornstein. Strike when this opportunity presents , or else we are doomed.
The more this division continues, the more likely we approach a reckoning, maybe a violent one. Funny how FDR with his “socialist” agenda got the southerners to back his moves. Those may have been the good times. I am not at all sure how we heal the divisions.
That FDR managed to get southerners to back him is partly sourced in the white solidarity of the early and mid-20th century US. Conservatives were smart to appeal to southern social and racial conservatism. Now it is nearly unthinkable that the south would back any sort of economic progressive projects.
With respect, I disagree. There’s a slim-but-real chance that Biden gets 100+ electoral votes from the South. Even if he gets less, it’s likely that by the end of the decade, FL, GA, NC, TX, and VA are all increasingly “blue” states politically.
There’s a shrinking (yet powerful) minority of voters who make up the nativist/racist Republican base (which is one difference from the 1930s). And there’s a slim-but-growing multiracial center-left majority that’s ready to take on major parts of a progressive agenda.
Then if the Dems get Biden and both the House and Senate they need to do what California did and run right over the Republicans. The usual BS the GOP spouts was proven to be BS as nothing they claimed came to pass. The state was in good shape before the pandemic. I don’t believe the assertion that we need a loyal opposition. The Golden State is doing just fine without one.
Let’s be real clear. There won’ be one fucking bit of “bipartisanship” from the Republican Party, because there hasn’t been for decades, and never will as long as it exists. It is now nothing but a Death Cult.
Speak softly, and carry a big stick is probably a much better strategy.
IF the Democrats win the White House (still a toss-up) and win the Senate (still a toss-up), then Biden and the Senate Majority Leader needs to tell the Republican Senate Caucus that if they refuse to perform their actions as US Senators, they will be ignored as they fucking should be.
Then, do what is necessary to save this country.
Burn the fucking Filibuster to the ground. Tell Puerto Rico, Guam, DC, and any other US Territory that NOW is the time to become a US State. Add 9 Justices to the Supreme Court. Pass voting rights legislation that ensures that any future attempts to defraud the voting process will be met with immediate criminal prosecution.
And open 100% TRANSPARENT INVESTIGATIONS into Trump’s last four years in office, so that we can see exactly how fucking deep the corruption goes.
Anything less than that and we might as well let Trump and Friends just kill this country now.
If there were no electoral college we might achieve much of this. But since you need like three quarters of the states to support a change to the constitution we can’t do it or enter new states. But we can still do a great deal if we put our mind to it.
Congress adds states, and the President signs. Congress adds SC Justices.
Burn the Filibuster, add States, add Justices, legislate new Voting Rights Act.
agree