Month: September 2022

President Joe Biden gave a speech last night.

Normally, I dutifully ignore his speeches because they are often full of inaccuracies and hyperbole. This is true of most speeches any President, Premier, Prime Minister, Potentate, Dictator, or whatever may make.

I would have ignored the Biden Speech as well. Except that all the sudden my phone started buzzing with News Alerts. Those too I would have ignored, except for this image.

Upon seeing this image, I pulled up the entire speech and sat through all 29 grueling minutes.

I was very annoyed at the fact that I had to keep adjusting the volume on the TV to hear him. One second, he’s whispering and the next he’s bellowing. (I feel really sorry for the sound crew. They must have been losing their minds too.)

On the one hand The President was saying some things I actually agree with. We should all be working together, political violence is wrong.

Okay, I thought, “I agree with you.”

Then The President veered into his MAGA, Semi-Fascist, rhetoric and he totally lost me.

The President wanted us to know that he doesn’t hate all Republicans. He came close to sounding like the racist who proudly tells someone he has Black Friends. The President wanted us to know he knows America’s heart. That didn’t quite ring true because he is clearly not listening to an increasing number of Americans of all stripes who say they think the country is heading in the wrong direction, (If polls are to be believed.)

I’m a visual kind of guy.

As The President and The First Lady walked out to the podium the lighting was a basic white reflecting off Independence Hall. Then as The President started talking the lighting changes to a somber angry red. This isn’t a color scheme that’s uplifting, it’s dark, brooding, and forbidding.

I found the whole image profoundly disturbing. Perhaps this is because in my visual memory are images of Adolf Hitler giving fiery speeches decrying the evil of the Juden against a background of Nazi flags.

There was something really off about The President’s speech painting Independence Hall in that somber red flanked by Marines.

Perhaps it’s just that I’m old enough that we studied Hitler and Nazism in depth, in Social Studies. Let me say, Hitler was a fantastic orator. The cadence of the words in his speeches was mesmerizing even if you didn’t understand German.

Apologies for this image of Hitler’s back, there are very few surviving color images from that time. This one came to mind but the first one I thought of was him at a podium with the Nazi flag behind him. I can’t locate that image online right now.

The more The President spoke about the threats to Democracy and the danger of MAGA Republicans. The more I felt like I’d heard speeches like this before. Thankfully President Biden isn’t the orator that Hitler or other despots were.

But by the end of his speech I was profoundly uncomfortable. I didn’t sleep well last night at all.

I’m not a MAGA Republican. That being said, Hillary versus Trump was the first time I’d never cast a vote for President.

Two questionable choices isn’t a choice. Voting for bad or worse isn’t a viable option for the future of our nation.

In 2020, presented with Trump versus Biden. I voted for Trump. It was a simple choice because Biden was such a poor candidate, and Trump was the “Devil” we knew.

By that time, Trump had survived an impeachment, the Steele Dossier had been disproven, and claims of Russian Collusion were falling apart too. Trump is definitely not a saint, but by 2020 it had become fairly obvious that something more was afoot. The man called it as he saw it, sometimes he called it wrong but at least he spoke plainly. He didn’t take any bullshit.

By 2020 we’d seen the hypocrisy of many in Congress and the double standards were being exposed. The economy was running well, at least until COVID, yet even in the face of COVID, I think people were still pretty positive given the circumstances.

Does that make me a MAGA?

I don’t think so.

I am in favor of an America first agenda. I don’t think rabid nationalism is the solution, but I have no problem thinking of my nation first. I don’t see that as a crime, or particularly selfish. We shouldn’t be feeding our enemies when people in our own country are homeless and hungry.

I’ve always appreciated the wisdom of the airline flight safety briefing.

“In the event of cabin depressurization, secure your oxygen mask before helping others.”

That concept of securing my own well being so that I have the strength and capacity to help others is just plain common sense.

The more President Biden spoke, the more my mind played tricks on me. In my mind’s eye I saw the background of speech altering. By the time The President finished speaking…

This is what was in my mind’s eye. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t sleep well. I couldn’t shake the image.

The Marines standing in the background was completely un-necessary and I took it as an implied threat. Recently President Biden has said essentially, if you’re worried about giving up your AR-15s or other guns you shouldn’t because we have F-15s and your guns aren’t going to be much use against them.

He couched that in more florid terms but that’s what his statements have boiled down to in my head.

Marines standing behind The President comes across as a threat. Those Marines didn’t appear to be armed, they were too far from The President to afford much in the way of protection. The construction of the stage, walkway, and position of the podium itself precluded either of those Marines from taking action if The President was threatened.

They were Window Dressing.

The choice of location for this speech was also disturbing. Independence Hall, the place where our Founding Fathers debated and approved both, The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution is a place that has very special meaning.

President Biden has said publicly that The Constitution is not absolute. During his speech, he singled out a group of Americans that simply disagree with he and his party. Mind you this is a group of people exercising their First Amendment right to free speech and that includes their right to disagree.

Somehow, The President’s speech and his earlier comments about The Constitution made it seem like he was intentionally defiling Independence Hall.

I want to believe that wasn’t his intention. I want to believe that his handlers and “Show Runners” just didn’t think about it in that light.

Nonetheless, it still feels like somehow The President diminished the revered status of the site last night.

As a conservative leaning Libertarian this President concerns me greatly.

This speech left a very bad taste in my mouth and I suspect that it had the same effect on millions of other people who generally speaking, are middle of the road politically.

The President may have created more MAGA Semi-Fascists last night than he intimidated.