If you paid any attention to Joe Biden during his presidential campaign, in particular, the latter part of it, you will know that unity is supposed to be big on his list of accomplishments for his first term in the Oval Office. And one could say that this idea served him well. After all, he is now in the White House.
Americans everywhere have pretty much agreed that our nation is severely divided at the moment and that changes need to happen to unify us if we are to last as a free and independent nation. Biden claims he can make those changes.
But how many of us actually believe that he can?
Well, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll, only about one-fifth of us.
When asked, “How much confidence do you have in Joe Biden to make progress on unifying the country?” only about 22 percent chose “a great deal” as their answer.
About 32 percent of Americans asked said “a good amount.” Nineteen percent chose “not so much,” and another 24 percent selected “none at all.”
The poll was conducted between January 22-23 and asked 504 American adults.
It also asked about Biden’s inaugural address, which, of course, highlighted unity as its main component. The poll wanted to know how convincing the new president’s call for unity was, based on a short clip of the address.
In the clip, Biden is noted to have said, “We can see each other not as adversaries but as neighbors. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury.”
And he added, “No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward. And we must meet this moment as the United States of America.”
Sounds nice, doesn’t it?
Forty-four percent of America would agree, as they said it was “very convincing.” However, 26 percent only saw it as “somewhat convincing,” another ten percent found it “not so convincing,” and 19 percent said it was “not convincing at all.”
However, I’m not sure the numbers would have been the same should the complete inaugural address or even just a few lines more had been added to the clip.
Just a few lines before these really nice sounding ones about unity and coming together are ones that imply that America has never been one for either honesty or equality.
He said, “Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we are all created equal and the harsh, ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear and demonization have long torn us apart. The battle is perennial.”
And then he stated, “And now, a rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat.”
Did you catch that? He just said that the “American ideal” of peace and equality is nothing but a dream, that we’ve never been a nation built on liberty or justice for all.
So how then have not managed to fall apart at the seems before now?
Well, according to Biden, our “better angels” have taken the reins whenever we needed it the most, such as during the Civil War, WWII, and in the days following the 9/11 attacks.
But those days are apparently behind us, as we have let hate and division take over. And we are to believe that Biden alone can pull us out of the mire and raise us up to what we once were.
Wait, didn’t he just say America was never all that great? You know, kind of like Andrew Cuomo said in 2018.
Not quite so convincing now, is it?
And neither were any of his first acts as our Commander-in-Chief.
Within hours of taking the Oval Office, Biden managed to create more division than ever before with all his executive orders.
You know, like nixing a contract that employed over 11,000 Americans. Or what about when he put a freeze on deportations and stopped the building of Trump’s border wall, taking even more contracted jobs? Of course, there is also his insistence that men now be allowed to play in female sports.
Still believe he’s out to unify the nation? Or simply undo everything Trump did to make the political left happy?