The undeniable racism of Biden and the Democratic Party
Yes it's true, the dang Cheeto is bad - what's harder to spot is Biden and the Democratic Party's own brand of racism, xenophobia, and divisiveness
It wasn't difficult to see the racism of Donald Trump: brazenly saying The Others coming from the southern border were inevitably "rapists", "drug dealers", "gang members", "murderers", while only "some" may be “good people”. There was the time he and his administration sooner called Colin Kaepernick a “son of a bitch” for taking a knee to protest systemic racism than actual white supremacists raising hell in Charlottesville, white supremacists who Trump characterized as "some fine people", and somehow morally equivalent to those protesting against them. There was the family separation policy, his tax scam (a handout to the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and working class who are disproportionately people of color), and other overtly racist nonsense that caused even his most devout supporters (and, let’s be real, he’s got devout supporters) to admit, “OK, so he’s not perfect.”
As long as you're not one of the millions of dedicated fanatics who agree that Trump could indeed go on 5th Avenue and "shoot someone and not lose any support", it was relatively easy to see, even if the media hadn't incessantly covered his candidacy and presidency explicitly through this lens (and to be fair, the corporate media would at times undeniably grasp at straws to paint this picture, ultimately undermining other evidence to support the general premise.)
What's a lot harder to spot, and this time I would argue it's a result of corporate media silence in their refusal to cover this pressing matter, is the racism of Joe Biden, liberals, and the Democratic Party. More difficult as it may be to identify, it is imperative that more Americans realize this truth and conduct themselves accordingly, because it seems to me the GOP is slowly shriveling and dying while power is further compounding in private capital at the behest of a Democratic Party that, like Donald Trump, is not nearly as good and decent as millions seem to believe.
When Joe Biden took office, immigrants were suddenly held in "temporary holding facilities", not "kids in cages". Recently, through executive action Biden has, according to the ACLU, “severely restricted people’s legal right to asylum” putting “thousands of lives at risk”. The media barely batted an eye when Biden told radio personality Charlamagne Tha God (a Black man) that he "ain't black" if he didn't support Biden 2020. Biden's abysmal record in proudly writing the crime bill that ultimately disproportionately incarcerated people of color, championing the so-called "War on Terror", or other policy that blatantly disregarded, dehumanized, and degraded black and brown people, was basically not discussed. Even his support of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza has received far less attention than it should. Making these inconvenient facts disappear comes in many forms: corporate media can ignore these facts completely, publish a bootlicker columnist haplessly claiming this sort of bloodshed is necessary evil, banning a site like TikTok, shadowbanning leftist personalities and publications on social media, etc. Finding out the truth of these matters really comes from "doing your own research" (not the dumb guy type, but like actually getting a library card, reading scholarly research, consuming critical independent journalism, etc.)
It's tempting to speculate that had Trump been in office, and inevitably held similar views and policies regarding Israel/Gaza, the media would have lambasted him, but I am not so sure. It seems as though a lot of foreign, military, and economic policy is simply at this point a given, regardless of what party is in office. These bipartisan policies enjoy the complicity of the media (just look at how the media has handled the student protests regarding the genocide of Gaza) and nothing changes because all of this is in service of the same private capital that funds Biden and his power, and growing those stock portfolios - including the media itself, which is far more concerned with entertaining than informing the populace. I, for one, will not be entertained by petty squabbles between these two corporate-owned parties as the world slowly climbs to a critical boiling point both literally and figuratively. We are turning other countries into a living hell, all to, at most charitably, supposedly “spread democracy and liberalism” at the barrel of a gun, and at worst literally solely to enrich a handful of psychopaths invested in war.
Esteemed academic and public intellectual Adolph Reed once commented that liberals don't really believe in politics anymore, but rather in "bearing witness to suffering". Boy do they bear witness. As the genocide in Gaza continues, Biden has witnessed this suffering many times, leaking his feigned displeasure to the press, and yet somehow apparently remains completely helpless to actually do something that would stop the massacre, despite presiding over the most powerful country in human history. He and liberals everywhere are aware of economic woes, but chalk it up to unforeseen side effects, the evil GOP or Joe Manchin hobbling their supposed plans, or even the standard conservative line, "maybe that individual just made bad choices". Their hearts will bleed at a story like the murder of George Floyd, but, even among the most powerful liberals, the reaction begins and ends with kente cloths, renamed streets, and largely pointless spectacles rather than actual sweeping systemic change to address the issues. The reason we get the spectacles rather than actual "change", the reason Biden promised "nothing will fundamentally change" or billionaires aren't the problem, is because the actual changes could only come from tackling the problem that is the dominance of private capital. The Democratic Party, like the GOP, is owned by these gigantic companies, and so is the media. The GOP leans into the nationalism while the Democratic Party gestures towards “solving racism” or “saving democracy” but completely drops the ball when it’s time to do something that might actually help those causes. It's going to be up to the people to stop being pacified by the spectacle and finally organize to force the powerful to meaningfully address these and other issues.
There's plenty of additional examples of xenophobia and Othering within the Democratic Party - the rallying cry for years now has been to essentially fear and hate Russia. Russia supposedly "rigged the 2016 election" (we could never blame self-inflicted wounds like capitalism, the milquetoast candidacy of Hillary Clinton, a corporate DNC, the electoral college, etc.) by buying Facebook ads, many of which were simply accurate criticisms of America that happened to be bought by a Russian (example below). The Russian invasion of Ukraine - horrific as it may be, is a pittance compared to the sheer blood and destruction of the US-backed, Biden-supported "War on Terror" and the genocide of Gaza, neither of which receive(d) such critical coverage - became the Most Important Issue In Human History for years (not because the powers that be cared about Ukrainians, but to “weaken Russia” and sell weapons). Rallying against this Other, I have literally heard Democrats from the most powerful among them to rank and file Facebook foot soldiers, say this is supposedly the way to "bring the country together" by uniting against this “common enemy”. In an age of nuclear weapons, anything short of demanding cooperation and peace regarding other countries is not only inevitably predicated on racist and xenophobic notions of some degree, but suicidal insanity.
What are the linguistic differences between Trump's brazen racism (about immigrants for example) and the passive voice used to marginalize the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians? Both have the effect, if not the outright intention, to marginalize, degrade, diminish, dehumanize, Otherize, and ostracize an entire group of people. As Reed pointed out, the only difference is liberals will acknowledge "oh this is terrible" while the conservative will give a tough talk about how it's just the way it is, or it's not actually racist, it's actually for everyone's own good, or “oh well, that’s war”. Though the GOP is mean and nasty about it while the Democratic Party’s heart bleeds at these “tough” or “complicated” choices, they’re both doing the same thing when it comes to foreign policy and the military industrial complex.
Why wouldn't this stuff be classified as racist? The common response from Hamas fear mongers (for example) is that they would somehow do a Holocaust to Jewish people if Palestinians (note that Palestinians and Hamas are two separate groups in the same way you are an American but not necessarily a Republican or Democrat) weren't being surveilled, tortured, harassed, randomly killed and imprisoned, etc. for decades by the Israeli government. There is no thought regarding the capacity, capability, or even desire for Hamas to carry out such an attack (hint: without a standing army, let alone navy, air force, etc. they couldn’t even if they wanted to), it's just an ignorant assumption that Holocaust will happen if Gaza and the West Bank aren’t preemptively brutalized (furthermore, Jewish journalists such as Aaron Mate report visiting Gaza with no issue, the local Gazans only question being “can’t you do something to stop this occupation?”) The same justification was used in the so-called "War on Terror" - a preemptive massacre and destruction of Muslim people and communities, apparently before they could do something even worse (and never mind how the 9/11 attack itself was a response to other such terror unleashed by the US empire - it’s as though peace - not domination - keeps everyone safer.)
What is the underlying notion behind all of this? That they’re crazy bloodthirsty Others who, if left unchecked, would kill and destroy... so we go on to kill and destroy before they can (supposedly) kill and destroy, but our doing so is OK because freedom and democracy; any retaliation from The Other, however, is not OK because they can't or don't live up to these ideals... because they're not as good, not as intelligent? They have to be beaten into “democracy”? Utterly incoherent, racist hogwash, yet isn’t this essentially the story peddled by Washington insiders, War on Terror architects, New York Times columnists, the Biden administration, etc.? It seems to me if you follow justification of war, a gigantic military budget, or any imperialist project to its bitter, logical conclusion, it ends with a brazenly racist assumption and explanation at the expense of the vast majority of human beings who would much rather live their lives in peace, cooperating with one another opposed to domination.
From Genocide Joe Biden, to Henry Kissinger idolizer Hillary Clinton to the Deporter in Chief drone butcher Barack Obama the Democratic Party has shown its true colors if you care to actually value human life rather than join a side and exclusively blame the Bad Party while ignoring your own team's complicity. Though the media coverage is indeed half-baked, negligent, and ignorant, there are ways to find out the truth, and if the truth is known there is a choice to say "enough" and organize, protest, or vote accordingly. Do what you'd like, but don't use the excuse “Donald Trump” (or vice-versa) for supporting this sorry excuse of an alternative to him, this sorry excuse of an “inclusive” party.