President Joe Biden plans to host a “Unity Summit” at the White House last month, after telling Democratic donors last week that Republicans who support Donald Trump were guilty of “semi-fascism.”
His comments came after New York Governor Kathy Hochul told Republicans who don’t like the job Democrats are doing in her state to “just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, OK?” (She later claimed she was just talking about Republican candidates, not ordinary voters.)
And if Democrats had their way, Republicans would not be welcome in Florida, either. Charlie Crist, the party’s nominee to challenge Governor Ron DeSantis, said last week: “Those who support the governor should stay with him and vote for him and I don’t want your vote. If you have that hate in your heart, keep it there. … Those who are haters: you’re gonna go off in your own world.” The unified message from Democrats is that Republicans — not just politicians — are not wanted in society.
Democrats’ rhetoric is not new: then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton drew criticism in 2016 for telling donors that Trump voters were a “deplorables.” But now the hatred is out in the open, and is being repeated by candidates up and down the ticket. Democratic pundit Juan Williams tried to justify Biden’s rhetoric on Fox News Sunday by citing the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, but Karl Rove noted that Biden’s Inaugural Address, promising “Unity,” was delivered in its aftermath.
The political danger of the Democrats’ hateful rhetoric ought not be underestimated. Republican voters are already feeling threatened — by “cancel culture” in the workplace, for example, and by the sense that there is a double standard of justice, allowing left-wing activists to riot while imprisoning ardent Trump supporters for trespassing at the Capitol.
The backlash could show up at the ballot box in November; but regardless of the election result, the wounds will take a long time to heal.
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). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. 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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