April 24, 2021 - 3:00pm
Moments after clear and uncompromising consequences were levied on Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, for the murder of George Floyd, the new American president made himself plain: “It’s not enough. We can’t stop here.”
Earlier in the day, Biden had explicitly conveyed his wish that the jury (while sequestered) find the “right verdict,” and after the full suite of guilty verdicts were read, Biden phoned the victim’s family: “I think in [Floyd’s daughter] Gianna’s comment, ‘my dad is going to change the world.” He’s going to start to change it now.”
For many, the Chauvin verdict would seem evidence that the system, however imperfect, actually worked. The jury threw the book at Chauvin. He is going to prison. And for a very long time. Disquieting, of course, is what would have occurred on America’s streets Tuesday if Chauvin’s jurors had decided differently.
But outside the life of Derek Chauvin, and the death of George Floyd, the White House and the ruling Democratic Party have underlined that there is unfinished business.
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, delivered an outright opera-bouffe homage to Mr. Floyd from the steps of the Capitol in Washington: “Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice.” CNN labelled her gratuity “tone-deaf.”
Biden, more appropriately if limply, hand-waved the hardliners in his ranks, decrying “agitators… who have no interest in social justice, who seek to carry out violence, destroyed property, fan the flames of hate and division, who’ll do everything in their power to stop this country’s march toward racial justice. We can’t let them succeed.”
Whatever one thinks of America’s recent reckoning, I spoke to one voter last year in Ohio in the close of the campaign, who reported voting for Biden “because I want the Black Lives Matter” moment to go away. It was a common sentiment (on background, of course). Such frank confessions were part and parcel of “the Biden normalcy” thesis. And everyone knows it.
It was this quiet hope that America could “go back,” that probably, though narrowly, delivered Biden the crown after fifty years in Washington.
But if anyone is against “normalcy,” it is, evidently, the President. “We must not turn away. We can’t turn away,” Biden said. “This could be a moment of significant change.”
The instrument of that promised change is the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which passed the House of Representatives on partisan lines. Now negotiations between the two parties have started in the Senate. Hocked onto the Policing act is also an infrastructure plan. Though fair warning: compromise between the Democrats and Republicans has a shaky history — as dealings over Iraq to financial hanky-panky have shown.
Joe Biden’s efforts to pass through such sweeping legislation have invited comparisons to Lyndon Baines Johnson. But thus far, the president has yet to show he has the horses to achieve change as comprehensive as the Civil Rights Act. Nor is it at all clear that the movement he is riding — “wokeism,” the new “antiracism,” among other names — is broadly viewed by Americans as the right course. A difficult path for the President lies ahead.
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SubscribeI’m an outsider, not in the US, but honestly think Democrats have identified the wrong revolution, and are fighting the wrong war. I would say, they should buy into the cultural protests at their peril. Politicians are not of the precariat, they are of the bourgeoisie, achingly so. Not revolutionaries, but Don Quixotes. So their understanding of being a victim of history and change will be theoretical at best, vanity at worst. And individually they are just as likely to get trampled on by the capricious mob when it randomly turns in their direction over some seemingly minor change of tone or a word out of place. We know what happened to Robespierre. Revolutions eat their children. They should be careful what they wish for.
The cop was innocent of all 3 charges, and anyone who looked at the evidence knows that, every kind of exceedingly reasonable doubt existed on every point. (Beyond a reasonable doubt is the criteria). Basically a bad cop was sent to life in prison who was innocent of the charges to make the radicals happy.
USA has entered a time of hate like it has never seen since the Civil War. This is the Democrat’s plan, to wreck the country to make all impoverished and frightened and full of hate for their fellows, so they can get all the votes. The Dems are purposefully increasing crime to allow greater electronic surveillance, like China has, and the people will go along. This is why they destroy the Courts, Rule of Law, Prosperity, and social cohesion. When evil is in power evil comes, and this is what is happening.
I didn’t watch the trial to the degree where I could form a view on guilt or otherwise, however I have asked myself if following the judge reminding the jurors that their identities would be made public following the trial and the pre-trial looting, arson, thuggery by BLM/antiFA activists would I be willingly be open about the evidence and consider reasonable doubt and not guilty verdicts or would I simply fear for my safety, my family’s safety, my job, my home and my livelihood and give the verdict that protects me from the mob. Sadly, despite being a man of integrity I know in my heart of hearts, I would have went with the verdict to keep me from harm.
I would have ‘broken’ my ankle and admitted myself to hospital , screaming with pain until the day of the verdict when I miraculously recover.
Amen sister!
I thought the extensive pre-knee videos were evidence the actions of the large, muscular, drugged and out of control Mr. Floyd demanded some method of subduing as all others had failed. And I also thought, knowing the US is now under mob rule, that a jury voting innocent would be subjected to leftest search and destroy. BLM was founded in 2013. A year later Obama ginned up the Michael Brown shooting to convince blacks that he died a saint, shot by an evil cop, and not a policeman defending himself against a giant, raging, black guy. Obama made BLM what it is today. There are those who think that’s cool.
As this group seems to have taken charge it is their form of justice the police can expect in future.
The idea is to turn everything on its head – evil is good, good is evil. Total gaslighting of an entire culture. A good time to revisit the Stones’ classic, “Sympathy for the Devil”: “Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails, just call me Lucifer
‘Cause I’m in need of some restraint.”
Oh how I agree with you, it is plain as day and it’s happening in the Uk too. Unfortunately the white supporters of BLM/Antifa have opened the door for them. What I would like to ask these supporters, particularly celebs and sports people, if they realise the clenched fist in the air, is the ANC salute. My family lived in South Africa and remember when Winnie Mandela who took over fighting for the ANC from Nelson Mandela, was accused of the necklace killings of a young black boy. How many young white people are ok about the idea of necklace killings. They should google it if unsure.
As a tribute to Winnie one of our MPs re-tweeted ‘ with our box of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate our country’-unbelievable.
Here’s the hilarious fact about the jury’s verdict:
If you look at the definitions for second and third degree murder and for manslaughter, the Chauvin jury found him guilty of BOTH intentionally killing Floyd and unintentionally killing him.
If that isn’t proof of a jury that just wanted to find somebody guilty and then run for their lives I don’t know what else is.
I also just love Judge Cahill, who said statements by public officials could be grounds for a mistrial — “But not by me. No, sir! You think I’m crazy? Some other fool will have to do that, not moi!”
(376) George Floyd, the Law, and the Absolute Necessity of Due Process – YouTube
It is just like To Kill a Mockingbird only with the roles and outcome reversed
I agree with you but sadly we have the same lot in Western Europe-they are a sort of international group of destructors. Thats why they call Eastern European countries names with their ( horrid!) insistence on traditional family , education , continuity etc which of course are the enemy of all things progressive.
Excellent point.
I mentioned many times to my fellow upper middle class friends that this case, which was a textbook example of why change of venue rules exist, should have been moved to the only places where a fair trial was possible:
Poland and Hungary.
Montana is good.
I thought the moon might be good for the retrial?
Remember when “all-white jury” was made a pejorative by our educated classes?
As Ben Shapiro pointed out in a You Tube video which has been taken down. whatever this was it was NOT a racial crime . However, of course the media played it up as such . Chauvin was a racist and represented all the other racist whites. . ‘He had the whole weight of the state on his neck” was one comment.
Not being a lawyer, I also wondered how Chauvin could be accused of all three things — wasn’t one enough?
I am hoping that outside of the WOKE American cities, people are going about their business and not listening to CNN or reading the NYTimes Thank God for James McWhorter and Glenn Lawry without whom I would go completely insane. .
Sorry, what “antiracism”? BLM and CRT are racist and totalitarian to the bone.
It is Democrat 1984 “Newspeak”. Like the fascist Marxists called antifa are called antifascists. Like calling the insanely biased ‘Welfare’ trillion money printing is called ‘Stimulus’ and worse yet, is officially called “Human Infrastructure Spending” in one of the biggest newspeak lies yet. Whites are “Institutionally Racist’ because some minorities are not being as successful in the job market, although given every opportunity all get.
Diversity is NOT Strength, it always leads to destruction of a nation as you get division. The Dutch are the only nation in history, with its three groups, that were highly successfull (and they were 3 White, Christian groups devided by language and religions sects and culture) (till now) but that still caused them all kinds of civil wars and strife. The partition of India is how reality shows its self.
Only wish I could double up-vote that comment.
Good old Joe Biden. I think BLM kissing the ass of Mr. 1994 Crime Bill is one of the most hilarious things I have seen in American Politics. If that was not funny enough, Joe picked Mrs. Abusive Prosecutor as his vice president! Biden’s crime bill helped put a staggering amount of young black males behind bars and Kamala Harris reveals herself to be an absolutely horrible person with just a curious glance at her California prosecutor record. Out of all the Democrat candidates in the 2020 election, these two were the worst picks for the values Black Lives Matter claims they are for. Now they are celebrating them. Some things you just cannot make up!
Criminals Need to be jailed, that was the Only thing good Biden has ever done.
My point is that the fact Biden was involved in the ’94 Crime Bill has been completely hidden from BLM supporters. Granted Black Lives Matter has never been the most self aware organization, but this is just new levels of irony.
That was I am saying, it was the only good thing he did.
Jo Biden is a puppet president…..Kamala Harris in waiting and will be the current force behind the decision making……I am glad I do not live in America. However I do wonder how long it will be before I feel the same about the UK.
If he stays in office until 2022 she can legally take over and still run for president twice-so ten glorious years you lucky people.
Biden’s intervention in the verdict was wholly inappropriate, and has terrifying implications. Meanwhile, according to some sources, support for Buying Large Mansions is plummeting. Meanwhile, crime and homicides etc are rocketing in those cities whee the police have been defunded at the behest of BLM/Antifa.
Happily, when God made Biden a fool He gave him a fool’s face. We watch his infrequent appearances for the joy seeing The Dupe sputter through practiced lines and misread tele-prompters. Oh! Those beady little black eyes wildly searching for the coherence that never comes! What joy!
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
― H.L. Mencken
A University of Massachusetts study found that killings by police fall by 15-20 percent in cities with large BLM protests, but black homicide rates increase by 10 percent.
In numbers that means that if BLM protests went nationwide about 60 fewer people would be killed by the police over five years, and between 100 to 600 black Americans would be killed (mostly by other blacks) in the US.
And remember these two incontrovertible facts —every leading black political figure and almost all Democrats support BLM and black people vote for those black politicians and Democrats overwhelmingly year after year, decade after decade.
Give the people what they want!
Yep. Black crime outpaces all others. Here in Marin County, CA there is a majority black area called Marin City. It looks fine, but the crime rate there exceeds the rest of the county by far.
The same is true in Great Britain, the nation which looked at America in the 1960s, saw the race riots and division, and said, “Gee, that looks like fun. Let’s import our own race problem!”
I know its strange but it has happened.And now we have all the celebs following the Meghan-I am a victim so I must be believed with their ‘awful’ tales of oppression,which hardly sit with the fact that they have been super-successful.
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
― H.L. Mencken
It is beyond rational argument that Biden is not in possession of his faculties nor in control of his words and actions; he is a political homonunculus, controlled by those who put him in power, along with his intellectually embarrassed vice-president. He says and does what he is told, no more and no less. He understands this. I can imagine the day the meeting was called to inform him and Kamala that they had been chosen to be the figureheads that would be required in order to install the regime to replace the duly elected president. Think of King Theoden of Rohan under the control of Saruman and you will understand exactly what is the situation in the White House. Criticizing Biden for his words and actions is a waste of effort, inasmuch as he is insensitive to criticism, much like the puppet is insensitive to criticism that is more appropriately directed to the puppeteer. Identify who now collectively plays the role of Saruman and you will know who is in charge of our so-called government. Hope and pray that our Gandalf arrives soon to break the spell, or I fear our fate is sealed.
Amen.
Most folks don’t truly comprehend the radical nature of the progressive agenda, which is to completely dismantle and overtake the status quo. It’s taken several decades, but the neo-Marxist’s march through the institutions is now complete. The terrorist wing of the Democratic Party, BLM and antifa, has been established, heavily monetized, and is at the beck-and-call of the Party. The white middle class (deplorables, Trump supporters) have been demonized, as have white people in general. The military is being purged of potential dissidents. The police are defanged and also demonized. Criminal activity is encouraged, which assists with the general process of destabilization. Big Tech and the media are creating a false narrative and have successfully propagandized a majority of the electorate. Major corporations and professional sports leagues are wholly behind the progressive agenda and are imposing economic sanctions on states that don’t fall in line. The borders have been thrown wide open and migrants are being transported to the heartland to dilute the electorate with the view to sway the midterm elections. Any and all voting restrictions imposed by the states to ensure fair elections are decried as racist and vehemently criticized. Schools are now indoctrination centers to cultivate young activists in the services of anti-racism. White students are taught to loathe themselves and their country. I could go on, but you get the idea.
“In Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Simon Schama argues that French monarchy in the years preceding the revolution, contrary to the common assumption, was not absolutist. The apocryphal phrase of Louis XIV, ‘L’Etat C’est Moi’, was far from the ethos of Louis XVI regime, which was constructing civic infrastructure to improve the lives of French citizens and promoting to salaried and titled, positions of responsibility commoners from the regions of France. Power was in fact being dispersed in the period before 1789 which, ironically, emboldened the bourgeoisie to stake its claim over the state and to savage the church while promoting the Cult of the Supreme Being and instigating the Terror. The prattling about the rights of men will not be accepted in payment of a biscuit or a pound of gunpower, wrote Edmund Burke as he warned that destroying the institutions of state and church to replace them with insincere notions of Liberty, Egality and Fraternity but without a coherent plan would lead to tyranny.” https://www.physicaleconomics.org/liberty-equity-wokestry
In recent decades in the USA, a black bourgeoisie has been emboldened. This new class of American citizen is staking its claim for status by using the plight of the black American working class as moral leverage. The new class, in reality, cares nothing for the black working class as evidenced by its lack of concern for innocent black victims of violence, like the nearly 80 under 13 year-olds murdered on city streets last year. It will do anything to raise its own status at a time when, like the bourgeoisie at the time of the French revolution, it has been enfranchised by a dispersal of power and its power has evolved in unison with a cult and the instigation of terror.
This seems to be a pattern throughout history. A powerful, controlling elite, disperses its grip on power and oppression, and a new class, even more powerful and brutally opportunistic, forms in the space provided.
Countries seem to like leaders who seem to be in charge-and France certainly got that with Napolean. Theres a certain void in leadership at the moment and lets hope its not filled by someone really nasty.
We just have to hope the constitution and democratic process provides the checks and balances. It’s being severely tested.
We had ours destroyed by Lady Hale – a Supreme Court judge-appointed by Blair, who basically cancelled the 1689 Bill of Rights.The Conservative government then voted in ( December 2019) is no such thing, it is the puppet of internationalists. The democrats seem to be doing the same thing to American constitution.
How on Earth did the British decide a Supreme Court would be a good new institution to incorporate into their democracy?
It’s astounding. Once again, after the British saw what ours did to America in the Sixties and Seventies how could anyone think that would be a good idea?
A Supreme Court is a device for elite control. It is undemocratic and non-pluralistic, consisting solely of the highly-educated (usually from select schools) graduates who make up administrative and legal cliques. It is not accountable and therefore a prime source for tyranny.
What were you thinking?
I know: you couldn’t trust your own simple preferences.
We didn’t -Blair did & with all apologies to Lady Hale I wouldn’t describe her as a top legal mind like for example Lord Denning.
That’s absolutely right. We weren’t consulted and had no say in this vandalism.
Amen
Yes! Let’s continue to blast the police and ignore the black-on-black murders that occur daily in US cities!
‘I was scared for me and my wife and my kids,’ says Las Vegas man who was nearly carjacked by 18-year-old now charged in the fatal shooting of 7-year-old black girl sitting in the back of her father’s car in a MacDonald’s drive-thru…”
In Chicago, 907 people have been shot this year. That is 214 more than 2020. Data through Monday, April 19. Almost all black on black shootings. Just routine.
And likely to get worse with a dispirited police force facing high numbers of resignations.
The fly in the ointment of your theory is black people.
The revolution from above by the new elite class has been going on since 1966. No one who lived through the Lindsay years in NYC (1966-73) finds anything new in the current national uproar. That’s true about Detroit and Cavanaugh or Newark, NJ and Addonizio — and several other American cities.
But no matter how bad things get in those cities for blacks they continue to vote for more of the same. No matter how awful the terror, Thermidor never arrives. The Vendee never revolts.
Look at who was just elected mayor of St Louis, a predominant black city that has been in steep decline for 40 years.
Look at who won Elijah Cummings’ old congressional seat in “Lagos on the Chesapeake,” aka, Baltimore.
No comparison of our current crisis with other Western events can be sensible unless it takes the behavior of blacks into account.
The 2020 black vote for Trump doubled from 2016. The time when the black working class gets fed up with being used by the black middle class is coming. You’re right, it’s been a long time in development. But the current situation is quantifiably different to the 1960s and 70s. This article in Quillette shows the new generation at work: https://quillette.com/2021/04/09/georgetowns-cultural-revolution/
Also check out my post here: https://unherd.com/thepost/why-the-new-liberal-elite-is-coming-for-the-wasps/
Doubled? That appears to be fake news.
“According to AP VoteCast, Trump won 8 percent of the Black vote, about a 2 percentage-point gain on his 2016 numbers (using the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, or CCES, a national survey of more than 50,000 confirmed voters, as a point of comparison).
“And he may have done even better than 2 percentage points. If you compare the CCES numbers to the results of 2020 exit polls by Edison Research, Trump actually improved by 4 percentage points.”
And that was Trump, a rather, shall we say, “unique” Republican whose appeal was stylistic as much as policy-oriented. What neo-Trump exists in the GOP to replicate his visceral appeal to blacks (and macho Hispanics)?
Nobody.
Plus, Trump offered a $500 billion dollar Platinum Plan of economic snd social development specifically to American blacks.
(To his own abandoned and unprotected voter base Trump offered tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of the corporate businesses who outsourced their jobs and fled their communities, and judgeships for Federalist Society lawyers who have not done a thing for the poor fools rounded up after January 6 — they’re probably too busy doing pro bono work for illegal alien minors in Texas detention facilities.)
But that’s another story.
Neither Radical Chic nor Mau-Mau-ing flak catchers is new. George Wiley, Sonny Carson and Albert Vann lived in NYC in the Sixties. Angela Davis was writing then too.
The difference now is that they are more powerful and financed by a much better network. Also that white self-criticism has metastasized into white self-hate.
But as the 1968 Kerner Commission Report clearly demonstrates, that’s been around for a long time too.
I couldn’t find the reference that said the black vote doubled from around 8% to around 16%. You may be right that it was less. But still, that was Trump, the ‘unique’ (apparent white supremacist). Imagine what a more personable Republican could do.
I agree with your last point about more powerful, better networking and white self-hate. Surely also more in number. Isn’t that a quantifiable difference?
Until Mr Biden gets a grip of his “failed state” and hunts down and convicts the black police killer of Ms Ashli Babbitt, he will be regarded as a degenerate, geriatric apology for the office he holds.
He has an unequivocal challenge in this matter, and sadly will almost certainly be an abject failure.
The trouble is for most of the population its like hearing ( in England ) the roar of the guns from the battle in WW1 (in France) , you know its going on , but you can’t see it and can’t really believe whats happening ( in Portland etc) if you live in a peaceful area away from the cities.
Interesting to see the parallel. In America, Biden ran as a moderate but is governing as a radical; whilst in Britain, Starmer embraced corbinism in the leadership contests, only to ditch as much as he could of it, as soon as he won.
Is it any wonder politicians inspire so little trust?
“Anti-racist” is of the same cloth as anti-fascist – it is the very thing it claims to hate.
Such stupidity deserves punishment to be fair. One can only hope they now realise what they’ve done.
I am an American. I deplore what is happening to this country as a result of progressive ideology. So, I’ll keep this simple. Let’s make one thing incandescently clear: “Anit-racism” is the most blatant form of racism to infect this culture since reconstruction and the advent of Jim Crow laws. BLM is a decidedly racist and Marxist operation and the white stooges that blindly support it are complicit in its violence and errors.
The doubling down on racial tensions most certainly will create more division. The over reach of politicians exploiting those divisions may (will) cause more harm. The backlash should expose them. Tribal divisions seem built into humans, but social order reduces that tendency allowing most to intermix and relate as people. For a culturally diverse nation, stoking division may end the great experiment after some 200 years, a loss to the world. Rational people are needed. Whether they can get a platform depends on media intent on exploiting the clicks.
Curt writes: “It was this quiet hope that America could “go back,” that probably, though narrowly, delivered Biden the crown after fifty years in Washington.” Actually, I think it was over-the-top election fraud that delivered this demented old man the presidency, not nostalgia for a more peaceful time.
The irony of the noise over racist policing is that it was never mentioned in the trial at all. Without seeing photos, someone reading the trial transcript would not even know if Floyd or Chauvin were black or white.
This article is garbled and incoherent.
If the current success of the covid-19 vaccination program is any indication of the Biden leadership then there’s cause for optimism in his administration. Biden has done more in 100 days on covid than that idiot Trump did in 12 months. In fact Trump impeded any progress.
Give Biden a fair go.
Happy with election fraud, then?
There was no election fraud. Only in your imagination.
Now folks are dying from rushed-through vaccines. Is this a fair enough go for Joe?
Unfortunately no drug is perfect. And it is a tragedy when anyone dies. But people are far, far more likely to die from covid than the vaccin. My father died from a drug that was helping him to a certain extent but not fully. Most of the deaths reported are misleading information. Read the RMIT ABC Fact Check corona check site(Australian) for real, factual and truthful information on corona/covid-19 related issues. Vaccines are effective for the vast majority who get them. Fact.
Trump was only in office while the vaccine was created. This time last year, people like you called that a pipe dream.
You are a fool. Biden has done nothing as regards the Vaccine that wasn’t already in place when he took office. Trump did that work.
Trump’s plan to vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of 2020 fell short by 17 million.
The rollout of vaccines was a shambles under Trump. Biden aimed at 200 million vaccinations in his first one hundred days. He achieved this feat with one week to spare.
You are an idiot. The vaccination ground work was done by Trump
The provision of vaccines (or lack of) happened many months ago. Trust us here in Canada, we know.
I don’t know if it is a reflex of the pandemic stress, but it certainly seems like Unherd has become an echo-box. How unfortunate. At least there is hope for improvement in the actual country.
“Unherd has become an echo-box.”
If you think that why don’t you put up a comment putting forward your alternative views,+ a reasoned argument/evidence to back them up?
Or is that not possible for you?
Agree. I started reading Unheard because of its diversity of views in earlier days, articles as well as comments. My impression is that this diversity of opinion is slowly diminishing.