Upon clinching the presidency, Joe Biden pledged to usher in a “time to heal in America.” He pledged “not to divide, but to unify.”“For all those of you who voted for President Trump, I understand your disappointment tonight,” he told the election-torn nation in his 2020 victory speech. “I’ve lost a couple myself. But let’s give each other a chance. It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, to lower the temperature. To see each other again. To listen to each other again. And to make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. They are not our enemies, they are Americans.”The media fawned over his idle promises, heralding him as “Biden the Healer.” A New York Times headline declared simply: “Biden Wins Presidency, Ending Four Tumultuous Years Under Trump.”But who said the years to come would not be tumultuous as well?Perhaps the media found favorable relief from Trump’s relentless attacks, but would the American people find relief in Biden’s promises?Nearly two years into Mr. Biden’s presidency and we now know his vows to “put away the harsh rhetoric” and “stop treating our opponents as our enemies” were as empty as we imagined.Rather than take the first step toward bridging our vast divide, the president seems to take pleasure in demonizing his opponents. Sure, Trump was not exactly genteel in his language, but as Mark Meckler pointed out, “Trump’s “rude words” were almost always directed at the political elite. Biden’s are directed at half of the American people. Trump may have called Hillary Clinton “crooked” and Joe “sleepy,” but Biden calls average Americans “semi-fascist” and “anti-American.'”With every opportunity he has had to live up to his “Healer” moniker, Biden has instead accentuated our political animosity and cynicism. SEE ALSO: Days after brutal cartel war, Mexico’s president thanks Biden for no border wall Today, for example, Martin Luther King Jr. Day would have been the perfect day to deliver a message of love and our shared American heritage overcoming political grievances. Instead, the president used his keynote remarks at the National Action Network’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast to bash Republicans.Amazingly, his insults had nothing to do with the GOP’s views on race but the party’s perspective on the economy.“They’re going to talk about big spending Democrats again. Guess what? I reduced the deficit last year [by] $350 billion. And this year, the federal deficit is down $1 trillion-plus, he whispered ominously into the microphone. He then added that “there’s gonna be hundreds of billions reduced over the next decade. But so what? These guys are the fiscally — well, they’re fiscally demented, I think. They don’t quite get it.”What happened to his pledge “not to divide, but to unify”? Apparently, even a speech purportedly honoring MLK is ripe opportunity for the president to malign his opponents. Just imagine the media fallout if President Trump had used MLK Day to bash “demented” Democrats! In this case, however, the media seems almost to concur with Biden’s crude appraisal. They certainly take no offense to it. SEE ALSO: An unserious president for an unserious people To make matters worse, his fanciful portrait of the economy shrugs off the financial struggles of millions of Americans. A CNN poll discovered that 63% of Americans disapproved of how Biden was handling the economy. More than half said it was still in a downturn and conditions were continuing to worsen. A staggering 93% expressed personal financial concerns. Biden calls those who oppose his economic policies “fiscally demented,” but who can forget that those economic policies drove up inflation and landed the nation on the brink of a recession? Are all of us “fiscally demented”?Americans are not as optimistic about our economy as the president is, but Biden has become used to bad-mouthing those who stand in his way. Not even on MLK Day can he refrain himself.We must train ourselves to see each divisive word that comes from his mouth for what it really is: an attack on the American people. An attempt not to soothe or heal or unite us, but leave us worse off than he found us.Our faux unity is coming undone. And in many ways, that’s a good thing. But for as long as “Biden the Healer” purports to be a president who “does not see red or blue states, but United States” his constant harping about the evils of the other side will betray that he is only lying through his teeth.Jakob Fay is a staff writer for the Convention of States Project, a project of Citizens for Self-Governance.
