President Joe Biden made Unity™ the theme of his Inaugural Address. He mentioned the word “unity” no fewer than eight times. That is the standard to which his administration must be held — and it is a test that Biden is already failing to meet.
(The other theme was Truth™ — a promise broken hours later, when Press Secretary Jen Psaki lied about the “Muslim ban.”)
In December, I suggested nine ways Biden could demonstrate a commitment to unity. Here are nine ways he has failed:
1. Impeachment. Biden could put a stop to Democrats’ foolish and divisive impeachment effort, which seeks to hold a trial for former President Donald Trump even though he is no longer in office. Some experts say that such a trial would violate the Constitution. But even if it did not, the article of impeachment ignores the fact that the Capitol riot was pre-planned by extremists and did not result from Trump’s speech. All it will do is let Democrats carry out political revenge.
2. Smearing opposition as racist. Biden claimed in his Inaugural that Americans were divided because of “racism, nativism, fear, and demonization.” He did not mention any of the left-wing forces that divide us, such as the anarchist rioters of Antifa, the “democratic socialists” of the Squad, or the “cancel culture” in general. Hours later, Antifa — which Biden had dismissed during the campaign as just “an idea” — attacked Democratic Party headquarters in Portland.
3. Supporting the “cancel culture.” In his speech, Biden supported what he called the “right to dissent peaceably,” but he also attacked what he called “[l]ies told for power and for profit,” calling on Americans to “to defend the truth and to defeat the lies.” As Biden knows — since he pushed for it — there is an ongoing attempt to censor conservatives on social media and in general, on the faulty pretext that they are guilty of misinformation. His attack on “lies” supports that effort.
4. Vetting members of the National Guard for political loyalty. The incoming Biden Administration had the National Guard soldiers assigned to protect the Inauguration vetted for their political views. Twelve of them were removed from their posts after investigators discovered what were described as “inappropriate” messages online or in personal texts. There was never any indication of an actual threat to the President-elect. Politicizing the military sets a terrible precedent.
5. Issuing an executive order on transgender athletes in sports. The participation of biological males in women’s sports is highly controversial, even on the left, because it makes it more difficult for female athletes to compete on a level playing field. It is an issue that Americans are still debating. Rather than allowing each institution to make its own decisions about this divisive issue, the president imposed his will — and the will of LGBTQ activists — on communities across the nation.
6. Falsely accusing Trump of implementing a “Muslim ban.” Jen Psaki claimed, falsely, that President Trump’s “travel ban” on terror-prone countries (previously identified by the Obama administration) was a “Muslim ban.” She added that it was “a policy written in religious animus and xenophobia.” That is not only false; it is divisive. The idea for the ban came up after the Bataclan massacre in Paris in 2015, amid legitimate concern that terrorists would infiltrate refugee inflows.
7. Making immigration the top priority of government. As Byron York of the Washington Examiner noted, Biden’s many executive orders on Day One tended to emphasize the common theme of radical immigration reform. Just as Obama used the pretext of an economic crisis to introduce health care reforms that actually slowed economic growth, Biden is using the pretext of a crisis to enact Democrats’ divisive ideological agenda, as millions of Americans are out of work.
8. Canceling the Keystone XL pipeline. The Keystone XL is a win-win project. It creates tens of thousands of jobs on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. The Obama administration found that it would be safe for the environment. And it brings Canadian oil to the U.S. rather than to China. Yet Biden canceled it to appease the radical environmental base of the Democratic Party, killing jobs and creating upheaval in the relationship with one of America’s most important allies.
9. Removing the Winston Churchill bust. President Biden can decorate the Oval Office as he wishes — including with a bust of Cesar Chavez, a Latino leader with whom he had no known previous association. But in removing the Churchill bust, after President Barack Obama triggered a national uproar by doing the same in 2009, Biden has deliberately poked a finger in the eyes of Republicans — and the British. Biden also removed the flags of the branches of the U.S. armed forces.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is How Not to Be a Sh!thole Country: Lessons from South Africa. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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