Joe Biden rips racist Trump to shreds

In a column for The Atlantic, Biden writes that “when it comes to race in America, hope doesn’t travel alone,” pointing out that the backlash to Martin Luther King, Jr., and the presidency of Barack Obama have a common theme and refrain.

Describing the pro-Trump elements who marched with “crazed, angry faces illuminated by torches,” with chants that echo “the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the 1930s,” Biden declares that, “We are  living through a battle for the soul of this nation.”

And he finds Donald Trump and his presidency to be completely missing in action.

Citing Trump’s statement that “many sides” were involved in the white supremacist killing in Charlotesville, Virginia, and his remark that some “good people” marched with the neo-Nazis, Biden makes his opinion of Trump clear:

Today we have an American president who has publicly proclaimed a moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and Klansmen and those who would oppose their venom and hate.

We have an American president who has emboldened white supremacists with messages of comfort and support.

Yet Biden notes that there is still hope in America. He makes note of the massive anti-racism protest that happened in Boston in response to Trump and his neo-Nazi allies. At that event, thousands marched peacefully while chanting slogans like, “No Trump. No KKK. No racist USA.”

Biden’s assessment of the march is simple and direct: “Those with the courage to oppose hate far outnumber those who promote it.”

Already rejected by a plurality of voters at the ballot box last November, Trump’s support has dwindled across the board nearly every day he has been in office. He has reacted to this reality by pursuing the hardcore racists in the Republican base, not caring about excluding and offending the rest of the country.

He has decided to be a leader for only a small, extremist, fringe of the country — and the leaders and rank and file within the Republican Party continue to support and back him.

At the conclusion of his column, Biden says that ordinary Americans have to “do what our president has not” by upholding values of inclusion, not exclusion, in order to “win this battle for our soul.”

Finally, the former vice-president notes, “If there’s one thing I know about the American people, it’s this: When it has mattered most, they have never let this nation down.”