BRETT: One big component of the speech last night was obviously the discussion of the spending and the taxes and the fiscal transformation that President Biden and Vice President Harris are seeking to do in this country. But another big one was certainly the role of identity — identity politics and those considerations — especially vis-a-vis a discussion on race, and the contention by President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris that America is a systematically racist nation.
Now, this is fraught with a challenge here in terms of the conversation for a number of reasons. First of all, Tim Scott offered the rebuttal to the Biden address last night, to the president’s address last night. And within moments of him offering a rebuttal, he was the recipient of slurs and invective, especially out on Twitter.
People were using all kinds of horrible language describing a sitting senator in the United States Senate. One term, one ugly term that was being used to describe him was “Uncle Tim,” a play on the phrase “Uncle Tom.” It got very ugly out there in the social media, as it always does. We know what social media is. It’s the lowest common denominator of people who feel no compunction saying things about each other that they would never say in person to another human being.
That’s the genius and the beauty of what Rush built here with this program. And none of the cable news media outlets, none of the TV news anchors, none of the bloggers or the morning shows that you see, are gonna take your phone call. They’re just going to tell you what you need to think and ignore your reaction to that.
But we take phone calls here, and that’s the hallmark here of an open and healthy conversation. So where’s the risk? The risk is actually with the president of the United States. The risk is with President Biden. Let me let you hear what it was that President Biden said last night on rooting out systemic racism.
BIDEN: We have a giant opportunity to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice, real justice. And with the plans outlined tonight, we have a real chance to root out systemic racism that plagues Americans and others lives in many ways.
BRETT: Joe Biden has been a part of the body politic. With the exception of the last four years before he was elected to the presidency, he’s been a part of the body politic since 1972. He has had a role in the direction of United States of America and a profound one at that, as one of the most influential senators in government and a sitting vice president of the United States.
So if America is suffering from systemic racism, one would wonder what you did to do away with that over your years in the Senate and in the vice presidency. Tim Scott, Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina said, “Race is not a political weapon.”
This is not about civil rights or our racial past.
It’s about rigging elections in the future.
And no: The same filibuster that President Obama and President Biden praised when they were senators — the same filibuster that the Democrats used to kill my police reform bill last year — has not suddenly become a racist relic just because the shoe is now on the other foot. Race is not a political weapon to settle every issue the way one side wants.
BRETT: It’s a profound layout by Senator Scott in a very reasoned way. The idea that the system is racist, and you are now going to turn over the elections to the national government — to the federal government — to dictate terms to the 50 states says what about those elections? When a sitting president declares that this law coming out of Georgia is Jim Crow Part 2? What’s going on here? It’s because it’s being used as an attack.
Rush spoke about this and spoke about America being under attack from within.
RUSH: If enough Americans can be persuaded of all that — that America is inherently racist, that America is and has been a lie — then it’s over. That is the objective, and we are in the midst of it. Sometimes you’re so close to the forest you don’t see the trees. That’s what we are in the midst of here: An ongoing effort to erase America by discrediting the entire premise, our culture, our history, our founding. The objective is to create in as many American minds as possible that America as founded is not worth defending. Serious times.
This is a very, very serious effort that’s underway. Sadly, it has a lot of allies. It has a lot of people helping it that ought to be opposing it, but they are choosing what they think is the path of least resistance, which is defined by the media. You’ve got several Republicans who I believe are unwittingly participating in the effort to cast America as indefensible, particularly with Donald Trump as president. Trump as president is, in their view…
The attacks on Trump, the characterization of his presidency, is designed to show how really flawed America is. That somebody like this could be elected, that means it’s time to get rid of the Constitution. That means it’s time to get… Whatever made Trump possible, it’s time to change it and get rid of it. This is very, very serious stuff happening here, and it has the aid and support of the media, which means it has the aid and support of the worldwide left and the Democrat Party.
America’s profound morality, kindness, widespread prosperity, and design for equal opportunity should be self-evident. But that assumes that factual, historically accurate reporting in education is taking place, and we know that it isn’t. It is a shame and a near crime that the profound morality and greatness and kindness and widespread prosperity and equal opportunity that is America isn’t known. It is a crime that those characteristics of our country are in the process of being recast and erased. We are getting hysterically inaccurate reporting.
We have been in the midst of hysterically inaccurate education for generations. America is unique. America copied no other country. Every other country was a copycat of others, with governments that denied individual freedom, denied opportunity, denied sovereignty. That’s what was copied. Tyranny was copied, nation to nation, people to people. That is the history of humanity: Living in tyranny, living under authoritarianism, living in poverty, living in sickness — until the United States came along, which copied nothing.
The United States and its founders rejected all of that tyranny, oppression, poverty. In America, the individual was the supreme power. That is being erased under the premise that the individual is corrupt. The individual is likely a racist or a transphobe or a homophobe or some other ill-prepared sack of humanity, and so we need to overcome the corruption that is the individual, that incomparable embrace of humanity that is the United States of America.
They accomplish it with one lie after another. The lies being told today are the lies designed to convince people their country is not worth maintaining as it is, their country is not worth maintaining as founded because it was founded as racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic (you know the drill), immoral and illegitimate. Ignorant people will not remain free for very long. The media is working on a path parallel with school systems to actively and passively distort information to wipe out from the vestiges of our history and our memory any collection of stories that testify to the greatness of America and her people.
BRETT: And they’ll call it the new curriculum to educate your kids in a better way.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
BRETT: So we’ve got a little bit of… What’s the word I’m looking for here? A little bit of self-editing taking place with the vice president of the United States. This morning on Good Morning America, cohost George Stephanopoulos was talking to the vice president, Kamala Harris.
And they were talking about all these issues that are right up front and center and out there, and essentially the issues of racism and America being a racist country came up. And this was the answer from the vice president, Kamala Harris, earlier today on Good Morning America.
HARRIS: First of all, no. I don’t think America is a racist country. But we also do have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country, and its — and its existence today.
BRETT: Okay. Okay, wait. So she doesn’t think “America is a racist country, but we do have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country and its experience today.” That was in response to the question that George Stephanopoulos asked, which was, “You know, Senator Tim Scott said last night that America is not a racist nation. Do you agree with that?” And that’s her response.
Well, this sort of stands in contrast to President Biden last night talking about the systemic racism of America. This is the clip we played earlier in the program.
BRETT: This guy going to be a challenge for the administration, because now we’re getting into measures of degree — measures of degree — with the amount of racism that exists in America or the amount of racism that America suffers from or the amount of racist culture or what have you that is present in America right now. I am not joking about this.
I’m saying this is fraught with danger because they are on the record — the two of them are on the record — speaking extensively about this a little over a week ago when the Floyd verdict came in. And Joe Biden declared that America was a racist country, and then the vice president, Vice President Harris, amplified his point.
So now you have last night President Biden referencing that again. Tim Scott, the senator from South Carolina, denying that America’s a racist country, and now you have Vice President Harris this morning on Good Morning America saying, “Yeah, I don’t think America’s a racist country.” Play me the Kamala Harris clip again here. Go.
HARRIS: First of all, no. I don’t think America is a racist country. But we also do have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country, and its — and its existence today.
BRETT: This is an interesting little hedging, because, “We have to speak about the history of racism in our country, and its existence today.” The existence today? “Its existence today” is racism or “it’s existence today” of the country? I’m gonna take it to mean that she means racism. So it becomes a discussion of degrees.
Remember, last night President Biden also spoke about the men and women of law enforcement in this country and did not write them off as entirely racist. What this means is, they’re starting to see — I believe, they’re starting to see — deterioration in poll numbers. They’re starting to see that there’s separation on the public safety message, on the message of unity that he ran on and all those sorts of things.
That combined with a border crisis and a stalled agenda — if he’s not able to say pack the court, bring two states to become part of the union, and of course spend $6 trillion — could be a disaster for this administration with an eye towards 2022.
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