Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden recently asked the American people the following question: “Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters?” Well, yes, as a matter of fact. But Biden doesn’t just look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters — he acts like one, too.
Presidential candidates traditionally do their best to appeal to their party’s base during the primaries, serving up red meat while leaving themselves with enough rhetorical wiggle room to tack back toward the political center once they lock up the nomination and have to start appealing to the swing voters who decide presidential elections. Joe Biden has turned that convention on its head, eschewing the “moderate” image he worked so hard to cultivate during the primaries and openly embracing some of his party’s most extreme policy ideas as soon as he became the presumptive nominee.
Former President Barack Obama, whose own far-left ambitions only sometimes exceeded his grasp, deemed Biden’s campaign platform the most liberal policy agenda of any major-party candidate in American history. In July, democratic-socialist Senator Bernie Sanders insisted that Biden would be the most progressive president since FDR if elected.
The Democratic Party’s official 2020 platform proves Sanders right, incorporating numerous elements from the “unity platform” put together jointly by staffers for Sanders and Biden. The platform also gives a nod to the far-left activists currently demanding that cities and states “defund the police,” calling for a top-to-bottom “overhaul” of our criminal justice system.
Speakers at the Democratic National Convention were conspicuously silent about the rioting and looting that have plagued many of the nation’s cities throughout the summer, ignoring the tragic direct and indirect consequences they have had on so many communities, including the preventable deaths of innocent Americans.
Selecting Sen. Kamala Harris, who once served as attorney general of California, as his running mate was supposed to shore up Biden’s credentials without requiring him to wade into the conversation over the unrest that Democrat elected officials continue to enable. The plan backfired, however, when it was revealed that Harris had personally promoted the Minnesota Freedom Fund, an organization dedicated to raising money to bail out individuals arrested during the violent riots that ravaged the Twin Cities.
The story also served as a reminder that at least 13 members of Biden’s campaign staff had also donated to the Minnesota Freedom Fund. A campaign spokesperson responded to that news by declaring that Biden opposes the very concept of cash bail, believing that incarcerated rioters should be turned loose without leaving any kind of bond to encourage them to show up for their court date.
Biden himself remained silent for months as the violence engulfed major cities such as Minneapolis and Portland — except when he was propagating the lie that the rioters and looters who have caused millions upon millions of dollars in damage to public and private property all over the country are just “peaceful protesters.” In July, Biden even declared that he would “absolutely” support “redirecting” funds away from law enforcement budgets — an explicit endorsement of the radical “defund the police” agenda espoused by the rioters.
In fact, Biden only condemned the wanton destruction of Kenosha, Wisconsin, after it became clear that his failure to speak out had become a political liability. He finally addressed the lawlessness in an equivocal speech on Monday, but still made no mention of either the organized Antifa groups responsible for much of the violence or the violent leftist ideology that drives them — an ideology that he and his Party have embraced in both word and deed.
The Biden campaign is desperately trying to redefine the candidate’s image once again by pretending that his all-out embrace of the radical left never happened. Their efforts, however, are a day late and a dollar short, as Biden’s attempt to dismiss his critics unintentionally revealed.
Biden, failing to recognize the pitfalls of his approach, encouraged Americans to “Ask yourself: Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters?”
That’s exactly what he looks like at this point, because he’s done such a good job of playing the part.
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Charlie Kirk is the founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, an advocacy group for young conservatives.
