Scott J. Lawson
June 28, 2024
How can it be that Joe Biden, a man running for President of the United States, during a nationally televised debate, peddled the same seven-year-old blatant misinformation and character assassination that has been fact-checked countless times and proven out of context to the point of being deliberately dishonest?
During the first 2024 Presidential debate against Donald Trump, Biden again claimed then-President Trump called the Nazi white supremacists that perpetuated violence at a 2017 incident in Charlottesville, Virginia “very fine people.” He did the same thing during his Presidential run in 2020 and was called out for it, yet he is still doing it. What is worse, if you talk to real people out in the real world about politics, many of them actually still believe this and other obvious distortions too. As the saying goes, “A lie travels the world before the truth gets its shoes on.”
It is not hard to find out that the claim is false. The transcript of the relevant conversation from 2017 shows not only did Trump not call that group “very fine people,” he also repeatedly condemned them. Fact checking websites have all debunked the claim by indicating the quote is out of context. The context of the conversation leaves little doubt to what Trump actually meant, but in order for that to be clear, one needs to actually read it, not just hear the sound bites put out by political talking heads. This entire ongoing affair is a great example of the pervasiveness and long-term negative impact propagandized misinformation can have on our politics and our culture. This was not even the only such instance of Biden doing this in the debate, as he also brought up other debunked and unsubstantiated claims such as the notion Trump told people to inject bleach during the COVID debacle, and the claims Trump called military members “suckers and losers.” But the Charlottesville smear is so old and so debunked that it warrants special consideration yet again.
First, let’s review the relevant part of what Biden recently said during the June 26, 2024 debate:
TAPPER: President Biden, you have said, quote, Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy. Do you believe that the tens of millions of Americans who are likely to vote for President Trump will be voting against American democracy?
BIDEN: The more they know about what he’s done, yes. The more they know about what he’s done. And there’s a lot more coming. He’s got a lot of cases around the road coming around. He’s got – he’s got a whole range of issues he has to face. I don’t know what the juries will do, but I do know – I do know he has a real problem. And so the fact that – could you ever think you’re hearing any president say that, I’m going to seek retribution? Do you ever hear any president say that, I thought it would write some good ideas? What got me involved to run in the first place after my son had died, I decided – in Iraq – because of Iraq. I said, I wasn’t going to run again, until I saw what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia. People coming out of the woods carrying swastikas on torches and singing the same anti-Semitic bile they sang back in Germany. And what did – and the young woman got killed, they spoke to the mother. And she – they asked him, they said, what – well, what do you think of those people? The people who wanted to get killed, the ones who tried to stop it, and the ones who said, I think they’re fine people on both sides. What American president would ever say, Nazis coming out of fields, carrying torches, singing the same anti-Semitic bile, carrying swastikas, were fine people?
Next, let’s review the relevant part of the transcript from 2017 in which Trump was responding to questions about the Charlottesville incident with a reporter. After a long exchange in which Trump clarified to the reporter he had waited for the facts of the incident to come in before making statements and that he understood the motivating issue for the incident was the taking down of historical statues, Trump and the reporter continued;
Reporter: “Do you think that what you call the alt-left is the same as neo-Nazis?”
Trump: “Those people — all of those people – excuse me, I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue of Robert E. Lee.”
…
Reporter: “Mr. President, are you putting what you’re calling the alt-left and white supremacists on the same moral plane?”
Trump: “I’m not putting anybody on a moral plane. What I’m saying is this: You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs — and it was vicious and it was horrible. And it was a horrible thing to watch.
“But there is another side. There was a group on this side. You can call them the left — you just called them the left — that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that’s the way it is.
Reporter: (Inaudible) “… both sides, sir. You said there was hatred, there was violence on both sides. Are the –“
Trump: “Yes, I think there’s blame on both sides. If you look at both sides — I think there’s blame on both sides. And I have no doubt about it, and you don’t have any doubt about it either. And if you reported it accurately, you would say.”
Reporter: “The neo-Nazis started this. They showed up in Charlottesville to protest –“
Trump: “Excuse me, excuse me. They didn’t put themselves — and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group. Excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.“
…
Reporter: “Sir, I just didn’t understand what you were saying. You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly? I just don’t understand what you were saying.”
Trump: “No, no. There were people in that rally — and I looked the night before — if you look, there were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I’m sure in that group there were some bad ones. The following day it looked like they had some rough, bad people — neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them.
“But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest, and very legally protest — because, I don’t know if you know, they had a permit. The other group didn’t have a permit. So I only tell you this: There are two sides to a story. I thought what took place was a horrible moment for our country — a horrible moment. But there are two sides to the country.”
Trump’s meaning was clear, Biden’s misinformation is clear
Given the context and his exact words, it is crystal clear Trump was not referring to the violent Nazi white supremacists as “very fine people.” He specifically condemned those people. He was referring to some of the people that were intent on protesting the removal of certain historical statues as “very fine people.” He even made clear he thought some of the people in the counter-protest (those that were there to oppose the people defending the statues) were “very fine people’ as well. And this ought to be common sense; this is indicative of the larger culture war battle over the meaning of the statues given our history and how to address it going forward. There is a lot of nuance and many other considerations in this debate. To blindly assume everyone on the other side of every important debate is morally corrupted and evil is to poison the debate and destroy any hope for fostering mutual understanding and compromise.
Biden is a great example of this mentality that is shared by many Democrats. The assumption is that Republicans have evil, racist, hate-filled motives. Republicans, on the other hand, sometimes tend to view Democrats as well meaning but naive, and the harm comes not from pure evil intent but from poorly conceived, unwise policy. The merits of such assumption would depend on the issue and the arguments made, and the people making them but at least there is always a hope for a reasonable debate when the underlying motives and character of the opposition in general is not automatically in question. Too many Democrats truly believe in the evil disposition of Republicans and such incidents as this false Charlottesville claim by Biden are both the cause of this belief and the reason this belief perseveres. It is a vicious circle of misinformation and deception.
The other part of Biden’s response is equally concerning as it follows from the same logical error and nasty assumption. Biden truly believes most Republicans are a threat to Democracy because he does not properly understand real “American Democracy.” He believes many Republicans are “semi-fascists” because he is mistaken about the nature of our Constitutional Republic and any political orientation that is intent on preserving it. I have written about the contemporary misuse of the term “fascist” before; here I would only like to point out how this type of demonization of people and their political movements helps weaken the protection and preservation of American Constitutionalism, fundamental rights, and a liberty-oriented society. This ironically destroys unity, creates disorder, and makes the rise of authoritarian systems more likely. This is a form of true extremism. Arguably, we have seen a shift in that direction over the decades precisely because understanding of the virtues of our Founding ideals and the inherent worth of our system of government have declined.
We must always call out and debunk the transgressions of divisive misinformation peddlers like Biden. The struggle to “keep” the Republic envisioned by our Founders, as Benjamin Franklin noted, depends on our constant vigilance.