President Joe Biden visited Atlanta on Saturday and delivered a commencement address at Morehouse College– a historic black university— which has been widely attacked for declaring numerous falsehoods. The speech was an attempt to bolster his poll numbers with what was once one of his strongest demographics— African-Americans. But polls so far are unkind to him.
Before his speech, a survey by the Pew Research Center found that only 55 percent of black voters approve of Biden’s job performance, marking a significant shift from the overwhelming support he received during the 2020 election, where 95 percent of black women and 87 percent of black men voted for him.
Left-wing protestors outside the college were noisily attacking the Democratic presidential candidate for his perceived pro-Israel stance regarding the war in Gaza, while a number of black students and professors silently turned their backs to Biden when he was speaking. Anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian social media was not favorable to Biden’s speech. (Ironically, Biden confusingly clapped when a graduate speaker demanded an “immediate and permanent ceasefire,” which of course would help save Hamas and would undermine U.S. ally Israel’s war effort.)
Center-right social media commentary was strident in opposition to the president’s remarks. For example, Biden resurrected a widely-known false statement that it is illegal for “water to be available” while Georgians wait in line to vote. A blogger named “Bonchie” writing on redstate.com countered: “Not only can people bring water themselves (which adults should be capable of), but a polling place can also provide water. The only thing outlawed is blatant electioneering by outside parties, i.e. political activists giving someone free stuff while trying to influence their vote.”
Biden’s comments about the late felon George Floyd were no better. He claimed black families must give their kids “the talk,” the notion that black children must be coached on being pulled over lest they be randomly gunned down by a law enforcement officer. That’s a fear not supported the data—and the record shows Floyd was not pulled over because he was black. In the words of one social media critic: “He was high on fentanyl while trying to pass a hot check inside a convenience store when the police were called.”
The following are a few other controversial Biden speech quotes:
- “You started college just as George Floyd was murdered and there was a reckoning on race. It’s natural to wonder if democracy you hear about actually works for you.”
- “What is democracy if black men are being killed in the street?”
- “What is democracy if a trail of broken promises still leave black… communities behind?”
- “What is democracy if you have to be 10 times better than anyone else to get a fair shot?”
- “And most of all, what does it mean, as we’ve heard before, to be a black man who loves his country even if it doesn’t love him back in equal measure?”
“Thanks for the uplift, Mr. President,” The Wall Street Journal editorialized. “Since Mr. Biden is asking questions, is this what he wants these young graduates to believe about their country— that American democracy is defined by its racial animosity, as if they still live in the Jim Crow South?”
