Friday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson argued that the seemingly non-threatening nature of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was being used by Democrats to downplay the aggressive nature of the American left.
Carlson contrasted Biden’s speech to the rhetoric from the Democratic National Convention other speakers. He also noted the approving response Biden received from the left-leaning media.
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: After three tries, more than three decades of attempting it, Joe Biden last night finally got his party’s nomination. A year ago, virtually no one would have predicted this moment. For most of the long primary season, Biden floundered near the bottom of a crowded field. He got so few votes in New Hampshire he didn’t even bother with a concession speech. He fled the state on a late-night charter flight and tried to pretend it never happened.
In the end, Biden won anyway, the last kid picked for kickball somehow wound up captain of the team. So, no matter what you think of him, that is an undeniable achievement. And yet still, even now, very few people take Joe Biden seriously. Why is that?
Well, if you’ve seen Biden talk, you know why. He is fading. That’s not a partisan point. It’s not intended to be cruel. It’s true. Seventy-seven- year-olds generally are not meant to lead large countries, 77 is not the prime of life, and it is old age. Vigor declines over the course of a lifetime, particularly in men.
Joe Biden has grown weak. That’s why we don’t take him seriously.
But as it turns out, there’s another way to look at Joe Biden’s decline. It’s a perspective that hasn’t occurred to most Republicans. But clearly, it’s at the center of the Democrats’ election strategy.
Yes, Joe Biden is slowing down. For 50 years, he couldn’t stop talking; now, he has trouble starting sentences. He forgets words. He misnames states. Occasionally, he mistakes his sister for his wife.
Every time he gets confused, Biden grins in that charming way old people do when they know they’re losing it.
So yes, Joe Biden has gotten a little daffy, but for that very reason, he is not going to hurt you. There’s nothing threatening about him. He’s not aggressive or overly ambitious.
In a time of chaos and shouting, it might be comforting to be led by a man who talks about record players and wears slippers with the socks attached.
That’s the actual message, the subtext of the Biden campaign. No one in the Democratic Party will say it out loud, no one ever will. But Biden’s handlers understand that his punchiness could be his biggest asset.
Because Biden is so obviously ineffective, he is harmless. Because he is passive, you assume he is well-meaning. You wouldn’t put Joe Biden in charge of your dinner reservations, but on the other hand, he is probably not going to send you to an internment camp.
In that way, Biden is the mirror image of say Elizabeth Warren. Warren’s eyes gleam with the menacing promise of Germanic efficiency. Biden’s eyes are like windows onto an empty sky. There’s nothing there. Just a placid void.
Democrats see an advantage in this. A party that no longer represents the mainstream needs a leader who won’t scare voters. Joe Biden’s job is to soothe your fears about what the left will do if they ever take power.
Stacey Abrams or Beto O’Rourke could never do that. Their plans for you are too obvious.
Joe Biden has no plans.
The most radical mass political movement in American history has found a frontman who seems like he should be feeding pigeons. Democrats are happy about that.
If you didn’t see Biden speak last night, you may not fully appreciate this dynamic. Some Republicans in Washington will tell you that Biden’s acceptance speech was scary. It’s their job to say things like that.
But in this case, that’s not true. Watch this clip and ask yourself what you disagree with.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: But while I’ll be a Democratic candidate, I will be an American President. I’ll work hard for those who didn’t support me, as hard for them as I did for those who did vote for me. That’s the job of a President, to represent all of us, not just our base or our party.
This is not a partisan moment. This must be an American moment. It is a moment that calls for hope and light and love, hope for our future. Light to see our way forward and love for one another.
America isn’t just a collection of clashing interests of red states or blue states, we are so much bigger than that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: An American moment, an American President, an American leader, who represents everyone, regardless of party, a country that’s more than just a collection of clashing interests, a future with hope and love for our fellow Americans.
That’s what Joe Biden promised last night. Is there anyone who doesn’t want that? Well, the leaders of Joe Biden’s party for one thing.
What you just heard does not represent the DNC’s vision for America. It’s not even close. Read their platform. Watch their speeches. We just spent all week doing it.
Democratic leaders are not calling for unity. They’re demanding division. They staged an entire convention that amounted to an extended tribute to the zero-sum viciousness of identity politics. This group gets this, that group deserves that. Give it to us now.
A nation of 350 million people splintered into countless warring tribes united by nothing, apart from a common loathing of their own country.
It was an orgy of anti-American grievance-mongering and from start to finish, it was relentlessly savagely partisan even by the standards of a partisan political convention.
Watch the Reverend Freddie Haynes explains the Jesus hates Republicans, too.
REVEREND FREDDIE HAYNES, FRIENDSHIP-WEST BAPTIST CHURCH: You had the nerve to build a wall, while at the same time you have in the harbor there in New York, the Statue of Liberty saying, give me your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Jesus will say, America if you don’t get your act together, you can — you may well go to hell.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: America is headed to hell says the Reverend Freddie Haynes, damned for eternity. Flames, smoke, pitchforks, gnashing of teeth — the whole thing. That’s not speculation. It is a straight Red Letter prediction from Jesus himself.
And also, by the way from the Reverend Jeremiah Wright of Chicago. Jeremiah Wright was the Reverend Freddie Haynes’s spiritual mentor, he and Barack Obama have that in common.
Jeremiah Wright didn’t actually speak at this week’s DNC, but he was certainly there in spirit, Kamala Harrised Jeremiah Wright in her primetime speech.
Watch Harris diagnose America with a fatal case of racism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: There is no vaccine for racism. We’ve got to do the work for George Floyd, for Breonna Taylor, for the lives of too many others to name.
We’ve got to do the work to fulfill that promise of equal justice under law because here’s the thing, none of us are free until all of us are free.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: There’s no vaccine, explains Dr. Harris. It looks like the patient won’t make it, sorry.
America is dying from the virus of racism and there’s nothing we can do. We’ve reached the limits of modern medicine. We’re going to have to let this country go and start over.
Kamala Harris was hardly the only one to say that. Speaker after speaker this week hit the same theme, America is beyond redemption. Tear it down and build a new country with us in charge. There’s just no vaccine for America’s sin. It’s terminal.
It’s unlikely that any major political party has ever had Speakers say anything like this from the podium. Attacking the country or trying to lead is a radical move. And typically, it’s not a good way to win a majority.
But this message wasn’t aimed at the majority. In fact, they would rather you didn’t hear it. That’s why they tried it out Joe Biden.
The job of the President is to represent all of us, Biden reassured the country last night, not just our base. Everyone is for that. And yet virtually every word of the convention other than Biden’s speech was aimed directly at the left’s base, the coalition of the miserable that is the engine of the Democratic Party.
Needless to say, the base loved it. Here’s the single dumbest talking head on the single dumbest cable news clapping her hands in infantile glee because Democrats managed to exclude an entire racial group from this week’s proceedings.
She’s grateful for that. She just couldn’t bear to look at them anymore.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It was all about representation. My little myelinated cynical heart, my immigrant myelinated woman heart felt so full last night.
Actually, today is — today with David and John is the first time I see a white man like in eight hours. This — you know, other than then Joe Biden last night, and that’s OK. They’ve had 240 years of representation. They’re going to be OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: What kind of person would say something like that or even think it? If you ever catch yourself feeling thrilled that you don’t have to see certain racial groups.
If you find people who look different from you that horrifying, that repulsive, then you can be certain that you are indeed a racist, a nasty one, too, and that’s exactly the sort of person the Democratic National Convention was aimed at.
Meanwhile, outside the convention, the base stayed busy. Thousands of Biden voters worked to help the Democratic ticket in the ways they know best, by hurting people and destroying things.
[VIDEO CLIP PLAYS]
CARLSON: None of that was hidden. Anyone who lives in an American city or can navigate a computer knew exactly what was going on.
But if you got your news exclusively from the Democratic message machine, you would have no idea, you’d have no clue that your country was being completely reshaped by violence in the streets.
There was no mention of that at all from Democratic leaders at the convention this week. Antifa wasn’t allowed to send delegates.
Various speakers made BLM sound like a branch of the United Way. The media did not contradict this message. They simply refused to cover the violence outside. It was like it all never happened.
It’s possible that Joe Biden never found out about it. Biden doesn’t get outside much. He knows only what they tell him. Judging from his speech last night, Biden has come to believe that he is Mahatma Gandhi, leading a movement to restore love to the human heart.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: We can choose a path to becoming angrier, less hopeful, more divided. It a path of shadow and suspicion, or — or we can choose a different path and together take this chance to heal, to reform, to unite – – a path of hope and light.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: A path of hope and light. It sounds like a Beatles lyric from their acid phase. But actually it’s a beautiful sentiment, if we are being honest. Who doesn’t want hope and light? We all do. All decent people want that, and that’s why it’s a winning message in a national election.
Unfortunately, it’s also a deeply dishonest message. Unity is not what the Democrats are promising. Unity is not what they plan to deliver.
The media understand that very well. They’re committed Democrats themselves. Hope and light, please. These people cheered when they thought Roger Stone was going to die in prison for some made-up crime. They cried when he was spared.
These are hardened partisans and not just the ones whose brothers are sitting governors. They know perfectly well that what Joe Biden said on stage last night was absurd. But they also know that many Americans will believe it. So, they loved the speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: It may have been the best speech that Joe Biden ever delivered.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I think this may be the best speech Joe Biden has ever delivered.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was one of the strongest speeches of Joe Biden’s career.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was probably the best speech I’ve ever heard of Joe Biden.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Whoever wrote that speech needs to get a cookie and a hug and a flag and a puppy. That thing was crafted so well.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: He came ready, Chris.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: He absolutely did.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He spoke passionately and from the heart.
CUOMO: It is a tale of two visions of what this country is about. One is about anger. Joe Biden gave you something very different tonight. He said and I quote, “I will draw on the best of us.”
JENNIFER GRANHOLM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He –I am just like, if I could jump out of the chair, I mean this is the best night for Joe Biden ever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: The best night for Joe Biden ever. Jennifer Granholm might be right about that. Unfortunately, in the short term, lies often work.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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