Too often in politics, elected officials call for “unity” and “coming together” when they really mean “shut up and do what I want.” If President-elect Joe Biden’s early plans for a left-wing policy push from day one are anything to go by, his calls for bipartisanship and unity are similarly empty.
Biden has certainly talked the talk.
“I will work to be a president who seeks not to divide but unify,” Biden promised in a Nov. 7 speech, his first speech after winning the presidential election. “I won’t see red states and blue states. I will always see the United States.”
“They are not our enemies,” the president-elect said of Trump voters. “They’re Americans. … Now, let’s give each other a chance.”
Biden is reportedly going to emphasize unity in his inaugural address on Wednesday. “Aides have said his speech will be in keeping with the major themes of his campaign, including unity, bipartisanship and optimism,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
“He wants to use the moment to call Americans to unity,” incoming Biden press secretary Jen Psaki said.
This is great to hear. I remember sitting by the TV with several other disaffected young conservatives watching that November speech. We all nodded along. The tone was refreshing after years of such harsh partisanship and tribalism. But the cynicism and swiftness with which the incoming Biden administration is already pursuing a left-wing agenda reveal all this “unity” rhetoric for the superficial signaling it apparently always was.
A president who seeks “unity” does not include a hot-button partisan policy like a national $15 minimum wage in his proposal for an “emergency” COVID-19 relief package. A president who “doesn’t see red states and blue states” does not push for $350 billion in COVID-19 funding to bail out poorly managed liberal state budgets at the federal taxpayer’s expense. A president who wants to bring people together does not openly promise to allocate COVID-19 relief money on the basis of race.
Are we supposed to believe Biden’s words, or his actions? And it’s not just the issue of pandemic response policy where Biden has aggressively pursued left-wing priorities at the expense of any semblance of unity or bipartisanship.
Biden is planning a vast flurry of executive orders in his very first few days in power. He will reportedly immediately change federal policies on climate change, immigration, environmental regulation, foreign policy, student loans, and more. These abrupt reversals will ignite debates over some of the most heated issues in our politics.
Biden will also introduce massive immigration reform on his very first day. And he continues to flirt with drastic assaults on our political system, such as eliminating the filibuster and packing the Supreme Court. So, as Ben Shapiro wrote, “Unity looks a lot like ‘sign onto our agenda, or be lumped in with the Capitol rioters.'”
When Biden says it’s time to unify, it’s clear he really means that it’s time for you to shut up and be quiet while he pushes through a sweeping liberal overhaul of our country.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a Washington Examiner contributor and host of the Breaking Boundaries podcast.
