President Biden, in his remarkably dilatory and perfunctory statement about the murder of a Trump supporter and the attempt to murder his rival, called for “Unity”.
It was a chanting point that a lot of Democrats took a break for claiming Republicans were “threats to democracy” to gravely intone.
Let’s talk about it.
Back before they called online talk shows “podcasts”, I appeared on one. There was a panel of guests talking politics. There were online “phone callers”. It was sort of like a talk show, only without the radio.
The host introduced a caller. He identified himself as from Detroit. He had a very African-American accent; I say this to describe the sound, not to caricature the person.
He said “What this country needs is unity“.
Eventually, I asked the caller “So, let’s talk about this ‘unity’. True unity has to be consensual. That means everyone is going to compromise a little bit to achieve this ‘unity’. So tell me – what Republican principles are you willing to accept to achieve the ‘unity’ you’re talking about?”
“Oh”, he responded. “Republicans are BUUUUUL-shit”.
Democrat calls for “unity” seem about as perfunctory as someone who’s said the Lord’s Prayer so many times they’ve disconnected their brain from the act. Unity good. Disunity bad.
It’s empty. There is no effort behind it. It has no meaning.
As usual, Walter Hudson puts it better than most:
Until they give on something, it’s all just words.
And they don’t have to give on much. Like, “all that yapping about ‘threats to democracy’ and ‘literally Hitler’ and ‘this could be our last election’ was a little overheated. We’re all on the same team. Let’s have a solid American-style election, here”.
You’d be crazy to hold your breath, of course. Dennis Prager says “being a leftist means never needing to apologize”. It’ll never occur to them.
Just like when they say they want to have a conversation. Of course by conversation they mean they talk(rant), you listen. Favorite topic being gun crime, they never want to discuss who’s doing the majority of it.
Unity negates their entire platform for the past 9 years. Hitler/Dictator is the only message they seem to have.
There was unity in Stalin’s Soviet Union, but there were those who argued that it wasn’t all for the good. I like Thatcher’s comment; first you win the argument, then you win the election. Unity assumes a principle that large majorities can assent to, and the minorities can tolerate.
There’s no intent to promote unity in the sense of reaching across the aisle. It’s a message to their own people. The most gullible will think of it as proof of their moral superiority. But it’s all just a rhetorical trick to be later used as propaganda when the “bullshit republicans” refuse to go along.
I’m waiting for the Biden campaign to announce that due to the increased division and hostility in our political process, for safety reasons Joe will have to campaign from a secure basement again.
My wife follows one her relatives on Facebook for comic relief. The woman is an unhinged TDS patient whose latest delusion holds that right wing fanatics use AI to hack into online period trackers (they can’t figure out calendars apparently) in order to somehow interfere with abortion planning. I’m not making this up.
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First of all, that’s a great delusion, dcs.
Second, apropos unity, Leaked Trump/RFK Jr. Call Shows Path to Unity! This is merely informational, I’m not advocating anything.