X Close

The Left runs Joe Biden — not the other way around

Whose presidency is it anyway?

April 16, 2021 - 5:23pm

“It is the problem of the society that produces the racist,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the National Action Network this week. “And in today’s world, that’s every society.” America’s envoy in Turtle Bay then charged that ‘white supremacy’ is ‘weaved into our founding documents and principles.”

How Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield, a black woman, sees her ascent into the highest echelons of American power from the Louisiana of the segregated South, is nothing for me, a white man, to remark upon. That’s her business.

But, plainly, nearly a year after the killing of George Floyd and the international rise of Black Lives Matter, assertions that bigotry was at the core of the American founding, something that was not a mainstream view even a year ago, let alone now, are a glaring political liability for America’s new president, Joe Biden.

Indeed, the ambassador’s comments would seem manna from heaven for Biden’s various critics, with condemnatory headlines in the New York Post, National Review and all over conservative Twitter. Notably, it’s unlikely the White House will defend Greenfield-Thomas’ remark explicitly.

Biden’s team at the highest level is seen as dominated by moderates, and it is. That is, they who are loathe to wade into America’s culture war: Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Chief of Staff Ron Klain, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Senior Counsellor Mike Donillon and Senior Advisor Anita Dunn. In other words, mainly folks who have been around Biden for years, but the reality: they’re all white.

This is a tension, and an obscenely awkward one. The moderation at the very top has made the administration seemingly bend over backwards to satisfy the Democrats’ “woke” wing anywhere else. To watch a White House press briefing is to witness constant gestures toward “equity,” never, ever defined. This sentiment has become even more pervasive in corporate America. The charlatanism is big business.

Add into that: it is not at all clear that “woke” is at all politically popular. The case could quickly be made that Biden, and 2020 Democratic runner-up Bernie Sanders, were actually the least “woke” of the major candidates for president, and that it is no coincidence that they were so. More emphasising aspirants — such as Kamala Harris of California and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York — got blown out of the water.

But it seems a decade happened in a year, as old guard Marxists would say, since last May. Derek Chauvin’s prime time trial in the Land of 10,000 Lakes provides testimony to that fact. The racial-political moment is a phenomenon that has plainly captured the imagination of the American elite, if not many others in the West. This will present problems for Biden.

Earlier this week, the President announced a departure from Afghanistan, long overdue. But lest anyone still believes the fable that domestic policy stops at the water’s edge, it’s worth noting that he can’t even rejoin the Human Rights Council without being dragged back ceaselessly into a wild, wicked new religion.


Curt Mills is a senior reporter at the American Conservative.

CurtMills

Join the discussion


Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber


To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.

Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.

Subscribe
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

131 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
D Ward
D Ward
3 years ago

“ the killing of George Floyd”

Well, it makes a change from the previous ubiquitous “shocking and/or brutal murder” of that man.

Will we ever get to the stage where the simple word “death” is used in relation to this wonderful person?

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  D Ward

Apparently a lot of Americans don’t know about wonderful George’s criminal escapades that got him a large jail sentence-the press made sure of that. Just as they painted Trump as virtually crazy, Biden was the boring old reliable candidate who would bring back normality. So who is his vice-president ( the choice is usually someone dull who doesn’t take the glory from the President)-Kamala Harris , a person linked from birth with all the radicals and her and her chums are positioning themselves for the total take-over. Going to be a bit of a shock for the traditional liberal voters-but don’t they deserve it?

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

There was a shooting last year in America of two police in their car by what seemed to be a child. They survived as the woman police officer got herself and her injured partner out and radioed for help. Even then there were crowds trying to prevent the ambulance getting into the hospital. These ‘children’ are out of control.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

I think a lot of them do know about Floyd’s past and are still concerned by what happened. Your portrayal of the media approach to Trump is similar to the portrayal of the media you often see from those losing the argument/power from any political wing. In the UK MSM was blamed for Corbyn’s defeat and BREXIT. There’s usually some truth in the portrayal and usually a lot of reluctance to accept loss.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

One of the democrat senators has stated that unless the policeman is found guilty she wants people to take to the streets. Why bother with all the trouble and expense of a trial then-let the mob decide.We can all be armchair experts but as far as the evidence that has been presented he doesn’t seem to have done anything wrong-Floyd would have died anyway.People can be found ‘not guilty’ and still be unpleasant people

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

And on the same basis, if Derek Chauvin is found guilty (as I would expect), will you accept the result, or while Unherd’s “mob …. armchair experts” be claiming that it’s a miscarriage of justice?
As for your comment that “Floyd would have died anyway“, I suspect you are living on another planet. Are you seriously suggesting that it’s just a coincidence that a cop knelt on his neck for nine minutes? Get real.

Sean MacSweeney
Sean MacSweeney
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

If Chauvin is found guilty, it will be a horrendously blatant case of a miscarriage of Justice, the left wing crazy mob will riot either way, time to bring out tear gas and rubber bullets for the rioting mobs

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago

I wouldn’t like to be a member of that jury-the President has declared which verdict they should bring in-surely unprecidented interference?

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Anyone who is working as the police , bodyguards , security etc in these democrat cities should resign en masse after this verdict. Any conflict they are involved in, the state will not support them. Perhaps the politicians and/or rich people who expect to be protected , no matter what they decide, should see what they have unleashed.

Tom Krehbiel
Tom Krehbiel
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

He likely died of an overdose. So yes, the kneeling was coincidental with his death.

Vilde Chaye
Vilde Chaye
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Are you kidding? The media has degraded and disgraced itself since 2016 with its single-minded narrative of “getting” Trump irrespective of facts and evidence. It’s a betrayal of the goal of objectivity and the standard of “fair and balanced” that North American journalists like me were taught at school and on the job, back in the day. The sad truth is that Fox News, for all its faults and right-wing agenda, now appears more “balanced” — which isn’t saying much — than supposedly and once-neutral CNN, the NYTimes and the Washington Post, among others.

Last edited 3 years ago by Vilde Chaye
Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  D Ward

Come off it. When person A dies because person B has knelt on their neck for nine minutes, that’s not “death”, that’s “killing”.

Rick Sharona
Rick Sharona
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

GF died because he had ingested 2-3 times the lethal dose of fentanyl and had 90% blockage in his coronary arteries.
Probably due to his clean living.

Last edited 3 years ago by Rick Sharona
kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Except that the bodycam from the other direction shows he had one knee -more on his shoulder than neck and the other leg was in a resting position ie its like using a knee to stop a map blowing away in the wind-there were no pressure marks or bruises on the man’s neck.You either accept facts or you go along the Maxine route.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

It turned out this wasn’t allowed to be used in court as evidence

Brian Dorsley
Brian Dorsley
3 years ago

It’s pretty clear here in the United States that President Biden is a sock puppet for the Woke movement. Many of my friends are expressing remorse for having voted in the Democrat party. This poor man is of no use to anyone and needs to be put out to pasture.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

And yet he is the buffer, so put him out to pasture and what do you get. Just try and keep him going.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

I suspect we’ll see at least as much demonisation of the Democrats by the Republicans in the next 4 years as any demonisation the Republicans claimed was perpetrated against Trump in the past 4.
Just a wild guess.

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

But what we can see from the exchange above, is that there is an understanding that the Dems consist of traditional liberals and then the Woke. The vilification of the Republican voters was an accusation that they were all far right?

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Except that their comments won’t appear in the press. Is it general knowledge that there is a vote to make Washington a state , that proposals are on the way regarding packing the Supreme Court , amnesty for millions , reparatations , federalizing elections ( everyone can use those machines) getting rid of electoral college ( so democrats will always have the numerical advantage ) ending fracking ( which made America energy independent) introducing green measures to all ( that already cause power outages in states that have adopted them) and they have only been in power for 3 months!

Terry M
Terry M
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

American carnage in action.
We miss Trump already.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

I’d heard much of that, and I don’t follow US politics that closely. You missed the discussion of statehood for Puerto Rico, and the abolition of the filibuster.
You seem to be against most of it – is that because you think it’s genuinely unjust, or because you think it would hurt the Republican party?

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Well it would create a one-party state , so you would have to rely on them to do the right impartial thing for everyone-haven’t seen any sign of that. The democrats were openly antagonistic towards Trump-tearing up his speech etc and a lot of policy seems designed to hurt Trump supporters especially, but don’t seem helpful for hardly anyone.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Denying State rights for DC and Puerto Rico, and keeping the presidential election unrepresentative of the popular vote are democratic because they prevent a one party state?

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Yes I think that was the idea when the constitution was created in the 18th century with Washington as the capital

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

So you’re still stuck in the 18th century. Or pretending to be, since it sticks out a mile that the GOP oppose statehood for DC because it votes Democrat.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

America is based on a constitution, if they are going to radically change it I would have thought a referendum would be the fairest way.Last year’s election was ‘volatile’ to put it mildly & it would have probably been better to have postponed it until covid was over-there have been various elections cancelled in Europe in this way-could have run it in 2022 instead.

Karl Schuldes
Karl Schuldes
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

No, not a referendum. The constitution is amended only by approval of 38 state legislatures or state conventions.

Sean MacSweeney
Sean MacSweeney
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

DC was created to be the capital out of land from Maryland/Virginia, here’s an idea, give the land back to the states and you will rid yourself of a dem cesspool that was built on a swamp (not that it’s not a swamp now)

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago

Yes strange that they want to keep a building called the White House

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Normally when one party gets a dwindling share of the vote, it is due to their policies not matching the desires of the voters. And the normal fix is to adjust the policies to appeal to more voters.
In a normal political environment this might involve a move towards the centre, or adopting some of the other party’s policies. This is the more stable and less divisive approach. In less mature environments the response might be to double down on tribal differences and try to mobilise a party’s “core” electorate. This leads to a more divided society. A third way might be to build as broad a consensus as possible around a “new” direction.
But there is nothing inevitable about a one party state in a democracy in which parties react to what the people (as opposed to lobbyists) want.
And nobbling the electoral process to artificially favour one party (whether through voter suppression, voter fraud, or gerrymandering – or even an electoral college with winner-takes-all allocation of electors) is NOT democratic. Arguably it makes the parties less responsive to the electorate.

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
steve eaton
steve eaton
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

You may not like the electoral college, but that is tough luck for you as it is how things are set up in the constitution of the US. The explicit purpose of it is to protect the minority from a tyranny of the majority which, under a strictly democratic process can and will be bought. You seem to favor this in spite of the fact that the US is set up as a Constitutional Republic and not a Democracy. You are in infamous company. Every Socialist/Communist dictatorship on the planet calls itself a Democracy.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  steve eaton

How you guys run your country is up to you. It’s just that sometimes it seems you talk about democracy a lot, but don’t have very democratic systems – you argue about voter suppression and voter fraud, of which I keep hearing there is a great deal, and you have enormous gerrymandering of constituencies.
From the outside, I’d have thought that the tyranny of the majority would be better avoided through constitutional protections than by an arcane electoral system. Can you explain how an electoral college prevents “a tyranny of the majority” anyway? Yes it gives more power than a direct vote would to the smallest states – but that’s a different thing, isn’t it?
Besides, the electoral college always seems to hand the presidency to one of two main parties. How would a direct vote be any different in that respect?

“Every Socialist/Communist dictatorship on the planet calls itself a Democracy.”

We seem to agree than more people talk about democracy than practice it.

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

The idea is that the senate and H of R cancel each other out so nothing much gets done-thats usual for politics-but now the democrats have full control and a radical agenda. I think it is just dawning on some politicians that they aren’t there to make boring speeches , increase their bank balances and generally have a pleasant time until they retire.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

To some extent thats what we have in UK as Conservatives are doing nothing for their new voters and following an agenda that certainly wasn’t discussed in 2019

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

DC is a Federal District created by donations from VA and MD. If they wish representation the areas involved can be annexed by the donor states. Puerto Rico can’t afford to become a state given it’s debt and dependency, besides many locals don’t wish statehood.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Hardee Hodges

I thought that Peurto Rico had voted in favour of statehood? Why can’t they afford it? Is there an entry fee?

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

The US is a Republic created by sovereign states, each equal to the other. It is not a majority rule government to ensure minority rights.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Doh! Accidentally replied to myself instead of Kath, below.

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
David Stuckey
David Stuckey
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

We had over 700 separate elections to the House, Senate and White House and got a Democratic majority in all of them-so how is this leading to a “one party state”??

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
3 years ago
Reply to  David Stuckey

The believe is that mail-in voting will always magically be for one party. So if HR-1, SR-1 pass that will usurp state laws.

steve eaton
steve eaton
3 years ago
Reply to  Hardee Hodges

Which would also be unconstitutional as the states are given the right to oversee each their own elections. The president is, under the Constitution, the representative of the state’s Administrative branches and so is elected by the Governors. He is not the representative of the people. The People are represented by the aptly named House of Representatives.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  David Stuckey

Polls show that even democrats do not believe in this over-whelming majority. Perhaps over-egging things like creating more votes than people eligible to vote doesn’t help. We also have a ‘vote early, vote often’ lot here. Remarkably a total population of 5000 managed to cast 11,000 votes and all for the same candidate.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

To some of us not in the US the Supreme Court, where Judges are appointed for life by the President of the day, the electoral college system and having the leaders of States deciding who gets to vote for them next time round seem absurd and undemocratic. And I’d add filibustering to that list. Fracking is dangerous for the rest of us, too. Not just those in the USA.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Golly, fancy allowing American citizens in DC to have Senators! Surely that should be limited to wide open spaces like Wyoming, with five times as many cattle as people?

Bob Bobbington
Bob Bobbington
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Trump was easy to demonise, and I can’t think of a single politician in my lifetime who was subjected to such ire (perhaps Thatcher by her opponents at the time). Biden has already received far more positive reaction for doing some things Trump was castigated for! The demonisation of Trump was already in full swing by this stage in his presidency. Biden’s treatment bears no comparison.
Also, Biden will be demonised but “the Republicans claimed” Trump was. This semantic distinction is a little disingenuous, isn’t it?

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Bob Bobbington

I said “republicans claimed” because of the Trumpian refrain of “fake news” which greeted almost all criticism. Perhaps that was unfair.
Biden is attacked for good reasons and bad. Similarly, Trump was attacked for a range of things – some confected, but rather too many with justification. And you may remember that there were legitimate areas of concern even as early as the 2016 primaries. He was criticised back then for not releasing his tax returns. And he still hasn’t. This is most unusual – and remember he had made an issue of his business acumen, so they were germane. The rather adolescent name-calling was unusual at the time (still is) and arguably lowered the standard of political debate. Grabbing women by parts of their anatomy, however “locker room” does speak to a level of disrespect which was not normally seen in a potential president. You may remember more serious issues too – though it’s always harder to remember faults on ones own side.

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
David Bell
David Bell
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Demonisation which will be justly earned.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  David Bell

I’m curious – how bad would a criticism of Donald Trump have to be, to also be “justly earned”. Would shooting someone on 5th Avenue be enough?
To be clear, there are many valid criticisms of Joe Biden’s record.

Vilde Chaye
Vilde Chaye
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

You’re entirely mistaken. In any case, it wasn’t just “Democrats” who demonised the Trump Republicans, it was the entire media, big tech, and, since last summer, most corporations and, of course, students and faculty and most North American universities. The Republicans have nothing in their supposed arsenal to compare.

JP Martin
JP Martin
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

Your friends who voted for Biden are part of the problem. I know the type – the sort of people who muse about moving to other states to escape the consequences of their political choices but still continue to vote Democrat. They’re pathological.

Brian Dorsley
Brian Dorsley
3 years ago
Reply to  JP Martin

Yes, and on a more disturbing note, they believe that society needs to be managed by people like them.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

Joe was chosen by his masters who required everybody else to go away. They also selected Harris because they were intent on the first woman of colour and immigrant to boot to become President after Joe retires for his heath. Harris who had nearly zero voter support in primaries has all the needed qualities – no principles, proper ideological makeup they think and the right physical appearance. So far the government is doing quite well without a President.
This of course is rank speculation. Who really knows what happens at the highest levels? The media will cheer him on and then her. The media is OK with fewer Trump clicks but will need some later excitement.

Last edited 3 years ago by Hardee Hodges
Vikram Sharma
Vikram Sharma
3 years ago

Eventually the demand for ‘Racist White’ incidents to keep the racism industry going will exceed supply. As the West bends over backwards to be anti-racist, the need for racist bogeymen will rise. The Left needs a race conflict to feed this. A lot of careers and fortunes depend upon the constant drum roll of racism. I can’t see this ending. Certainly not with appeasement of the race hustlers.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

As long as people are employed to resolve overstated problems or problems that are not there, the more problems will need to be created.

D Ward
D Ward
3 years ago

The ESG industry is going similarly ballistic.

Glyn Reed
Glyn Reed
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

The demonisation of ‘whites’ and ‘whiteness’, the scape goating – ‘they are the reason for all your problems and difficulties’ – is horribly reminiscent of the narrative spun by national socialists against the jews in the early 1930s. History tells us where that led.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Glyn Reed

1. Whiteness is not being demonised – structural racism is and that happens to privilege whites in the USA
2. Comparing the two issues is belittling to the experience of Jews in 30’s and 40’s Germany and as such could be considered anti Semitic. It’s the sort of thing that has got a lot of the UK left into trouble.

David Morrey
David Morrey
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Glyn isn’t referring to the experience of Jews in Germany in the “30’s and 40’s” – that was your addition. The reference was to the demonisation of Jews in the early 1930s (so before the National Socialists came to power). The current demonisation of one ethnic group seems quite closely aligned with the experience of the early 1930s, particularly as they are both being used to drive a particular policy agenda. Of course what we have now is clearly nothing like the industrialised slaughter that eventually took place (in the late 1930s and after), but as I say again, that was not being suggested, rather it was what you added.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  David Morrey

‘Reminiscent of the narrative spun by national socialists against the jews in the early 1930s. History tells us where that led.’
What does ‘History tells us where that led’ (that was your omission) refer to then?
I read it as a suggestion that critical race theory will lead to industrialized slaughter on a racial basis. It suggests an equivalence between the anti-semitism of national socialists and CRT. I stand by my point.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

We actually don’t know where the Frankfort school of Marxist CRT leads. At the moment the intent seems to be to marginalize and cancel those not yet woke. But the question will arise regarding what to do with the now minority who refuse to be quiet.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Glyn Reed

Are you suggesting that the white population of the USA will be rounded up and sent to death camps? Seriously?

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

One of your senators suggested re-education camps for Trump supporters.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

My senators? I wouldn’t have one about the place!

George Bruce
George Bruce
3 years ago

Certainly brings a bizarre paradox into the criticism of the Chinese treatment of the Uighurs.
America : stop treating the Uighurs in unacceptable ways.
China : But you treat blacks appallingly! You are a racist nation! You constantly admit it and publicise it! On the other hand, we admit nothing regarding the Uighurs. So over to you on the human rights problem front…

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago

Are there really any people who do not see this race thing going on in USA is merely a war against the Nation its self? A Civil War whose goal is to wreck the country wile building nothing?

Who cannot think Of Johnathan Swift’s war of the big end/Little enders? They fought generations of wars, emperors brought down, death and destruction, over the two sides holding opposite, yet artificial and contrived, policies.

“The novel further describes an intra-Lilliputian quarrel over the practice of breaking eggs. Traditionally, Lilliputians broke boiled eggs on the larger end; a few generations ago, an Emperor of Lilliput, the Present Emperor’s great-grandfather, had decreed that all eggs be broken on the smaller end after his son cut himself breaking the egg on the larger end. The differences between Big-Endians (those who broke their eggs at the larger end) and Little-Endians had given rise to “six rebellions … wherein one Emperor lost his life, and another his crown”. The Lilliputian religion says an egg should be broken on the convenient end, which is now interpreted by the Lilliputians as the smaller end. The Big-Endians gained favour in Blefuscu.”

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

I suspect there are a lot of patriotic Americans who are disturbed by what they see as a disproportionate use of force against black people by the police. In principle there is no conflict between love of one’s country and wanting it to be less racist.
You may disagree with their perception of racism, but even if they are wrong, that does not make them unpatriotic.

Mark H
Mark H
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

It would make a person unpatriotic if they strove to break down the institutions of their own country, institutions that were put in place by democratically elected local, state, and national governments.
Strive to make change by persuasion and the ballot box, by all means – but then strive to build on the foundation that exists and fix the problems, rather than breaking the whole thing down.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark H

Strive to make change by persuasion and the ballot box, by all means”
The ballot box which, for Senate elections, is withheld from DC residents?

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Every year, the police in America kill twice as man white people (500) as black people (250). Yes, there are a lot more white people than black people in America. However, the police recently killed a 16 year old white kid, but nobody rioted. Nobody rioted when the white Timothy Timper was killed by a knee on the neck. Meanwhile, black people kill 7,000 other black people each year and nobody riots about that.
Daunte Wright, the one they are currently rioting about, had out-of-date license plates and there was a warrant for his arrest after he tried to rob a woman at gun point. George Floyd was a career criminal who had committed some horrible crimes and was on four different drugs at the time of this death, having engineered his way out of the police car saying ‘I can’t breathe’.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Daunte also resisted arrest.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

“Nobody rioted when the white Timothy Timper was killed by a knee on the neck.”
They should have protested at police brutality (presumably).
George Floyd was a career criminal who had committed some horrible crimes”
He was trying to pass a forged $20 bill.
So OK to kill him in the street?
If so, golly, what should British people do with the Tory bankers who brought the global economic system to the brink of collapse in 2007/2008? Oh, sorry, they are chums of David Cameron and have expensive suits and expensive lawyers, so best to bail them out and let them carry on funding the Tory party with their donations.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

You raise an interesting point about accountability for elites who cause huge harm. At least in the US some banksters were jailed – in the UK, as you alluded, moral hazard runs rampant.
Has UnHerd written about that? I’d like to read some discussion of how we can address that – preferably before the next great recession.

Peter Kriens
Peter Kriens
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

I think ‘disproportionate’ is the operative keyword here. Is it really disproportionate?

Blacks in the US are more disproportionately criminal than whites than they get disproportionately shot by the police.

Notice that all the cases that dominated this news were not very pleasant people. Of cours not a reason to shoot them, but the easiest way to not get shot is not to be a criminal. If you then also just do what the police tells you to do, your chance of being shot by the police is about the same as being killed by a meteorite, regardless of your skin color.

Poor people are als disproportionately shot by the police. You don’t need to be racist to see that as the problem.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Peter Kriens

And black people are disproportionately poor.

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

That is their choice. They have all had 12 years of more of free education – albeit a very bad state education – and they are living in one of the world’s most prosperous countries where there was full employment (until Covid) and where everyone is free to start a company. Moreover, affirmative action means that blacks and hispanics are more likely to get well paid non-jobs in the public sector and non-profits etc.

Terry M
Terry M
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

People value what they pay or sacrifice for. African-born blacks are very successful, their American cousins not so much.

Dave Tagge
Dave Tagge
3 years ago
Reply to  Terry M

The figures I’ve seen for the U.S. are that Nigerian-Americans and Ghanaian-Americans (i.e., recent immigrants from those two countries and their descendents) both have higher median household income than the overall U.S. median.

Last edited 3 years ago by Dave Tagge
Linda Brown
Linda Brown
3 years ago
Reply to  Dave Tagge

Will the `new’ black Americans, the ones who’ve just arrived in the US be forced to pay reparations through their taxes, or will the Democrats bribe them also.

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Reply to  Linda Brown

It seems to me that reparations should be paid to those who were left behind in Africa as they did not have the opportunity to, eventually, prosper in one of the world’s most free and prosperous countries.

David Bell
David Bell
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

For many of the rioters their idea of getting ahead is to burn down other black businesses.

Brian Dorsley
Brian Dorsley
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Yes, they are kept poor by the very institutions that were supposed to elevate them.

Linda Brown
Linda Brown
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

Single female headed house holds is the biggest determinator for poverty. There is a larger percentage of Black female headed households than there are White.

Last edited 3 years ago by Linda Brown
Johnny Sutherland
Johnny Sutherland
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

and will blame white privilege

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Peter Kriens

Much of that is correct, but the fact remains that the cop knelt on George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and he died. And there are too many other similar cases.

Terry M
Terry M
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Paul, the prescriptions proposed to ‘fix’ racism are more racism. The Donkeys are the race-hustlers party, nothing more.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Terry M

For any problem you’ll have suggestions of good and bad solutions. My point is that pointing out a problem in your country does not make you unpatriotic.
Arguably it’s unamerican to label americans who disagree with you as unpatriotic just because they don’t share your perception of, say, racism in the police.

Dorothy Slater
Dorothy Slater
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

As one wag put it “can you imagine a Swede being called un-Swedish” or an Italian “un-Italiam” ” We even had an Un-American Activities Committee back in the day . featuring that great American Joe McCarthy

Bob Bobbington
Bob Bobbington
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Even though black people are not subjected to any more disproportionate force that any other ethnic group, once the figures take account of suspects who are armed, refuse to cooperate or behave erratically. Wilfred Reilly’s ‘Taboo’ is very good on this.

Dave Tagge
Dave Tagge
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

As an American, I will say that the issue is not so much proposing any particular set of policies today.
The issue is stating that ““White supremacy is weaved into our founding documents and principles.”
The U.S. Civil Rights Movement that successfully worked against racial segregation and for black voting rights did so using rhetoric that referenced U.S. founding principles and documents, both explicitly and implicitly. In short, it referenced Americans’ sense of the U.S. as a country dedicated to the idea that all citizens are equal before the law, with unalienable rights, and with a government based on the participatory consent of the governed. All of that paraphrases the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
It asked the question: why are those founding principles not in fact applied to all Americans? It called out hypocrisy within a framework that was widely accepted by Americans. And that’s a big part of why it worked.
To summarize, I’d put it this way. A civil rights leader such as Martin Luther King, Jr. would say (at least implicitly) that one should look at the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Federalist Papers, etc. and wonder how a group of Americans were enslaved and then later treated as second-class citizens by law. To do so is antithetical to the principles clearly embodied in those documents, and it was a tragic mistake of history that the American Founders failed to correct that aberration.
And sometimes King would say it explicitly:
“If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong.”
That’s very different than what Linda Thomas-Greenfield is saying. And it’s a common message today from the woke Left: that the defining history of the U.S. isn’t the principles of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, but rather slavery and white supremacy.

Last edited 3 years ago by Dave Tagge
Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Dave Tagge

You make some excellent points – and some of the rhetoric from anti-racism activists can be overblown and unhelpful. Sometimes, perhaps, they seek to mobilize their own community in ways that provoke a reaction from the rest of society. For some of them that reaction may even be the point – for others it may simply be the result of a failure of empathy.
But I’m slightly puzzled by the conflict between the egalitarian principles of the founders, and (for some of them) their ownership of slaves and support for slavery. As you say, it was a hypocrisy that anti-slavery activists pointed out and used to good effect.
[I’m getting increasingly fed up by the auto-mod filters on UnHerd, which have snagged this post – apologies for any delay in my reply, Dave]

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Except that when one looks at the facts there is absolutely NO evidence that the police use disproportionate force against black men. It’s just that every incident involving a black man is exploded in the media and accompanied by riots. When the same happens to a white person there is nothing in the media and no riots.
Unfortunately it is clear that Lincoln’s words ring true: one can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. Hopefully, one can’t fool all of the people all of the time and reality will prevail. But unfortunately in the current woke state of the US that will be a long time coming. Let’s hope the woke don’t destroy the country in the meanwhile.

And incidentally, americans are far more welcoming to foreigners of all races and national origins, in sharp contrast to both the UK and the europe.

Johnny Sutherland
Johnny Sutherland
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

That’s fine, but, they do not seem to have a problem with the use of deadly force by black people against black people.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

disproportionate use of force” – please check the FBI statistics. That Blacks commit more crime likely as a result of poverty is factual thus more policing. But death by cop is not significant for unarmed Blacks.

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago

Well Jimmy Dore and others on the left would disagree with this analysis. The truth probably lies in the middle.
The fact is that Biden is, it seems, continuing to build the wall. Needless to say, the media is not reporting this. He has also sent more troops into Syria. Again, nothing from the media on this. We will see if he manages to get them out of Afghanistan. If he doesn’t, the media will cover for him. Biden has asked for a summit with Putin and Putin, quite sensibly, is just laughing in his face. Again, nothing from the media.
He has shot down the $15 minimum wage. Again, nothing from the media. And nothing from the media on the fact that he lied about the $2000 stimulus checks. And, of course, the radio silence on Tara Reid continues.
Biden and his family are the most corrupt people ever to rise to the Presidency for at least 100 years. But the media loves them.

David J
David J
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Agree with your last sentence.
Then again, the media would love a goldfish if it was anti-Trump.

Terry M
Terry M
3 years ago
Reply to  David J

Trump, and the MSM response, exposed the corruption and immorality of the MSM for all to see who are willing to look.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  David J

We would all love a goldfish for not being a liar and fantasist like Trump. That’s why Trump lost the popular vote in 2016, lost by five million votes in 2020, and is the first single-term President for thirty years.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Really worse than the Clintons?

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

I guess it’s difficult to know. The Clintons are indeed epically, almost heroically, corrupt.

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Any way, here is what I got, $2400 PPP (payroll protection, I only have small earned income from my work, most of it I make with capital gains, so they do not qualify as they are not payroll) then my wife and mother who live with me got each, $3200 stimulus (1200, 600, 1400), or a combined $12,000 free money! wohoo!

I took it to the bullion shop and bought silver ’rounds’, about 450 1 OZ 99% pure silver buffaloes. This caused zero stimulus as it sits in my safety deposit at the bank. I await the coming disastrous financial collapse.

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

Very sensible!

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

How unpatriotic of you.

J Bryant
J Bryant
3 years ago

“Woke” is the tool frightened democratic elites used to push Trump out on the back of the coronavirus pandemic. Now that Trump’s gone the beast must still be fed.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  J Bryant

And what exactly has each interest group been promised?

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago

Back in the 1980s (I think it was Andrew Young, the mayor of Atlanta, it is very hard to find the quote under current search algorithms) The Black Mayor of Atlanta bravely admitted (paraphrased) how, when walking downtown at night, when he hears footsteps behind him, and looking back sees a White man, he feels relieved.

George Bruce
George Bruce
3 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

Jesse Jackson seems to have said that.

“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps… then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved”

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  George Bruce

That will be the same Jesse Jackson who recently called Britain the mother of racism?

Jonathan Ellman
Jonathan Ellman
3 years ago

So Linda Thomas-Greefield wants the USA to join China, Russia, Pakistan, Mauritania, Venezuela, Cameroon, Somalia, Eritrea, Libya, Mauritania, Venezuela, Cameroon and Cuba on the UN Human Rights Council. Saudi Arabia was formerly on the Council and now sits on the Executive Board of UN Women. People like her have a one stick means of furthering their careers and that’s all they’re interested in. Does Biden know that he’s being danced around? Does he care? Or is he just content to have made it to the top?

Last edited 3 years ago by Jonathan Ellman
Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago

Hilarious that some of these countries and ‘human rights’ are mentioned in the same sentence.

JP Martin
JP Martin
3 years ago

It is not possible to tell the truth about race in the US. Trust me, I lived there.

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago
Reply to  JP Martin

It is not possible to in UK either, the big difference is it is not possible to tell the truth about the past in UK, in USA it is getting that way, but not there yet.

Jerry Mee-Crowbin
Jerry Mee-Crowbin
3 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

So let’s have some examples from the UK please…

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago

Apparently they aren’t allowed to 🙂

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

Actually, I do remember cries of outrage when the National Trust (who own and manage many stately homes as tourist attractions) proposed to add information about how some of the owners had made their money (and financed the magnificent mansions) at least partly from the slave trade.
Is that the sort of thing you were talking about?

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
Dave Tagge
Dave Tagge
3 years ago

No, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield, white supremacy was an unfortunate blindspot and character flaw of the men who wrote our American founding documents. They also, being both people of their time and political pragmatists building a new nation, stopped short of following their stated principles of individual liberty to their logical conclusions, most notably in the case of slavery.
The principles and documents themselves, however, point to the incongruous hypocrisy of this exception and provide mechanisms to address this failure. That indeed was a key point made by Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, and many others. It was a powerful and ultimately successful argument precisely because these documents and principles don’t have white supremacy “weaved into them”. It’s instead an ugly appendage, an embarrassment and detraction to a fair-minded person forced to examine whether the country is living up to its stated principles.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago

I am strangely intrigued by how long it took the man in the picture to fashion his beard. And why.

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago

You have a good point, it is a look which can be quite effective, with the hair, body language, and T-shirt, at conveying an underlying threat. It does not make me feel his sign holds greater validity.

David J
David J
3 years ago

Tool also has a bad haircut.
Also, I read his ‘1’ as an ‘I’ which was momentarily perplexing.

Last edited 3 years ago by David J
Toby Josh
Toby Josh
3 years ago
Reply to  David J

Same here. The misreading, I mean (although I do have a bad haircut)

George Bruce
George Bruce
3 years ago
Reply to  David J

Yes, I misread it, but give him a break, one is non-phonetic and thus quite a difficult word to spell, so he played safe with the number.

William Hickey
William Hickey
3 years ago

The Biden administration, the Democratic Party and Wall Street (including its bureaucratic and media wings) conform to the ideology of black racial revenge because that’s what black people in the US want.

It doesn’t matter that the ideology is insane, counter-productive and leaves areas governed by it a shambles and people who ascribe to it dysfunctional. That’s OK with American blacks. In fact, they are more comfortable that way.

If you doubt me, look at every black-dominated political entity in the US and see how blacks vote. Look at Maxine Waters’ district. Look at who the new mayor of St Louis is and what her policies are. Look at the Congressional Black Caucus’ positions. Look at the new head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division Kristen Clarke. Look at who won Elijah Cummings old House seat. (Hint: it wasn’t Kim Klacik.)

Look at how American blacks vote, year after year, election after election, decade after decade. Look at who they return to office and what new faces they support. Look at how even as their urban lives deteriorate in a welter of drugs, murder, dilapidated housing and inadequate services, blacks vote for the same party and the same people who oversaw that very collapse.

It’s not as if they don’t know other answers are available. They reject them. They want what the Left offers and more of it.

And because blacks are such reliable voters for crazy vengeful racial Woke-ism, those who hope to govern them must profess the same beliefs.

That’s where the votes are, Pilgrim.

Gerald gwarcuri
Gerald gwarcuri
3 years ago

i’ve been saying this for years. At the risk of repeating myself ad nauseum,: Joe Biden is a mere cipher. He is a drone. He’s never had an original thought in his life. He never met a principle he wasn’t willing to compromise in order to get ahead. He is an opportunist. There is a special place in Dante’s hell reserved for such political parasites. Come to think of it, there are a few special places reserved for Biden and his ilk.
He will do more harm genuflecting to the woke and the aggrieved in the next few years than Trump could have done in a lifetime.

Don Gaughan
Don Gaughan
3 years ago

The politicised propagandised focus on the George Floyd incident and solely on white perpetrator /black victim interactions is a violation and departure from a basic real principle publicly agreed to by both left and right that helped the various groups in our diverse societies co exist peacefully.
That principle was that we do not smear an entire group.with the acts of a few bad ones.
The left liberal woke progressives and liberal dominated media are solely focusing on any and all events that depict white on black/ minority negative interactions to deceptively makes its actual racist prosecution of the racial scapegoat in its political propaganda narrative.
Take a good look at the woke race narrative , and find that virtually all.of it takes incidentz out of context of human history and events and deceptively isolates and demonises it to maliciously defame and prosecute the racial scapegoat of their Critical Race Theory dogma.
The truthless left woke is verifiabely guilty of everything they falsely accuse, including Bidens UN uber woke rep Green Thomas Greenfield , who unjustly smears her country and the world with her racist rant in her intro .

imackenzie56
imackenzie56
3 years ago

Anyone who is of a certain age has relatives in cognitive decline. We know the signs, we hear how they speak and what they do and don’t remember. Joe Biden hasn’t been in charge of anything since he was “convinced” to run. He isn’t being dragged anywhere–he is simply being manipulated by the “team” of hard lefties around him. It is deeply sad. He was never much of anything even in his prime, but he was a somewhat patriotic American who would never of agreed to any of the crap being done in his name. Very depressing.

Glyn Reed
Glyn Reed
3 years ago

Are they “moderates” around Biden or are they simply cowards?

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago
Reply to  Glyn Reed

Moderates as they are Trotskyites instead of Stalinists.

Colin Haller
Colin Haller
3 years ago

I don’t care what wing of the Democratic party “runs” Biden in this regard — it’s a sideshow.
I only care what wing “runs” Biden where concrete material benefits for the working classes of America are concerned. They’ve been left to the tender mercies of neoliberal hyperglobalism for too long now.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Colin Haller

For a long time Presidents have been run, not by wings of their party, but by the interests of big business (which fund their election, and can threaten to withdraw their funding). Hence the “tender mercies of neoliberal hyperglobalism”.
This influence by business is even true of the previous President, where for “big business” you can read Trump Enterprises – it’s hard to point to many policies where he put the interests of the people above his own personal interests. But in the interests of fairness, and in case I’m being duped by fake news, I’m open to hearing examples where he did.
In case it’s not clear – I think the current level of influence of business on politics is a disaster,

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
Vilde Chaye
Vilde Chaye
3 years ago

The colour white is racist. We should start calling it “neutral” instead.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Vilde Chaye

Instead of whiteboards and blackboards we could have neutralboards, and boards of colour.