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The New Non-Normal

“Too much of what’s happening in our country today,” President Joe Biden offered last night, “is not normal.”

You can say that again!

“A crowd of about 300 invited guests — a mix of elected officials and dignitaries, along with Democratic supporters,” reported CNN, “watched Biden speak” at Independence Hall in Philadelphia “from behind panes of bulletproof glass.” 

The president said some other things with which I agree.

“There is no place for political violence in America. Period. None. Ever,” Mr. Biden intoned. Well, “ever” goes just a tad too far. After all, the American Revolution was violence. But generally, yes, Joe is right that “we can’t allow violence to be normalized.”

Which is why he should call out the political violence that occurred throughout the summer of 2020 as well as that of January 6th. 

Biden spoke against “the politics of grievance” and those who “obsess about the past.” But golly gee whiz, does Biden really want to alienate his Critical Race Theorist fan base?

“You can’t love your country only when you win” an election, he argued. Hasn’t that been an equal opportunity foible for both Rs and Ds — considering the 2016 as well as 2020 presidential results!

Losing the battle for the economy of the nation, Mr. Biden is looking for Campaign 2022 to be a “battle for the soul of the nation.” But making sweeping attacks about all who favor Trump being “semi-fascists” has led even Democrats like U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan to criticize Biden.

“They refuse to accept the will of the people,” the president said of so-called MAGA Republicans. “They embrace political violence. They don’t believe in democracy.”

Sadly, that applies to both parties as well.

“Get engaged,” Biden implored the audience. “Vote, vote, vote!”

Well . . . maybe just vote once.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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10 replies on “The New Non-Normal”

Any Democratic criticism of Joe Biden’s ‘semi-fascist’ rhetoric is merely window dressing. It won’t change the way they vote, either in Congress or at the polls.

“An ongoing wave of civil unrest in the United States, triggered by the murder of George Floyd during his arrest by Minneapolis police officers on May 25, 2020, has led to riots and protests against systemic racism towards African Americans in the United States, such as in the form of police violence.”

Protests against police brutality in 2020. Killing police and overthrowing the government January 6th. I don’t see the similarity!

Killing George Floyd and others. Enough was enough!!!

The only police who were killed were during the 2020 Antifa/BLM riots.

The only one killed on January 6th was an unarmed protester, by a cop.

Pam, more precisely, of which killings during those protests do you approval? of which beatings? of which lootings? of which acts of arson? Whom amongst those actually injured, physically or economically, deserved those injuries? Just how were these injuries legitimized? How was this violence against these people somehow better than that which was perpetrated at the capital?

Don’t fling more insults and run away again; make a rational case for your position.

I don’t approve of any rioting, looting or killing. And you won’t find me at these unlawful gatherings. But I understand the frustration after the police killed several blacks; those killings led to the protests that turned violent in 2020.

The rioters at the Capitol were attacking the United States. They wanted to kill Pence, Pelosi and congress men and women. They believed the lies of Trump and others. They came prepared for battle with weapons, tactical gear, etc. Over 800 rioters on Jan 6th have been charged and many have been convicted. The harsher the punishment the better for the insurrectionists.

“An ongoing wave of civil unrest in the United States, triggered by the murder of George Floyd during his arrest by Minneapolis police officers on May 25, 2020, has led to riots and protests against systemic racism towards African Americans in the United States,[10][11] such as in the form of police violence.“

None of this would have happened if Trump had admitted defeat and slithered into a hole somewhere!

Pam, as MSNBC has noted incessantly, many of the demonstrators at the capital had firearms. Yet they shot no one. They weren’t their to kill anyone; they were there to be heard. They thought that the election had been stolen, and they were there to to kick-up a fuss about it. The demonstration and the riot on 6 January were not an insurrection. Few people claiming that the events were an insurrection actually believe as much; they rôle-playing as if they do in order to license their felt need to be verbally abusive and to grab for still more power.

The fact that you and people like you can turn away from the failure to charge the actual killers, actual rapists, actual assailants, actual arsonists, and actual looters of the “mostly peaceful” BLM riots — even as you cheer the imprisonment of people who did far less egregious things — speaks to a system of values that judges people and acts differently based upon tribalism.

I know it was an insurrection. And those that believed Trump are idiots!

They tried to stop the election process and should all be incarcerated!

Pam, and so you ignore the most telling point — that the armed protestors of 6 January shot no one — so that you can continue to pretend that the riot was an insurrection which needs attention that is not given to murders, rapes, assaults, and so forth in riots supposedly on behalf of a good cause.

Outside of your bubble, no one buys it. It’s not just supporters of Trump who don’t buy it. That’s a large part of why the viewership of MSNBC and of CNN has collapsed, even though their audiences were already left-of-center.

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