Historians meet Biden for a White House lunch, urge him to speak out more forcefully
President Joe Biden hosted a small group of scholars and historians for lunch on Wednesday as he gears up for a speech framing the upcoming election as a battle for the nation’s democracy.
The discussion revolved around “ongoing threats to democracy and democratic institutions both here in America and around the world, as well as the opportunities we face as a nation,” the White House said in a statement.
Princeton’s Eddie Glaude Jr. and Sean Wilentz, Harvard’s Annette Gordon-Reed, Yale’s Beverly Gage and Boston College’s Heather Cox Richardson were among the attendees, as well as presidential biographer — and occasional Biden speech writer — Jon Meacham.
Attendees were tight-lipped about what was discussed at the gathering. One would only go so far as to say they “talked about American history and its bearing on the present — a lively exchange of ideas.”
Another person in the room, who like the others was not authorized to speak publicly about a private meeting, said the historians urged the president “to call out the moment for what it is.” In blunt terms, the academics discussed looming threats to the nation’s democracy and warned about the slow crawl of authoritarianism around the globe.
That doesn't mean I support everything everyone else in the chain says. I jumped in because you were acting like Democrats are interested in the slightest in stopping genocide. I pointed out why that no longer holds water.
If you want to credibly claim that a party will even try to protect anyone from genocide, that party should not be actively supporting genocide when you make that claim.
Democrats have supported one genocide. Democrats are governed by political expedience. When it becomes politically expedient, they will support another. Who do you suppose it will be?
I suppose you have lots of calls to make. Nearly every member of congress supports Israel. I have made my phone calls to tell my representatives to stop. Have you? This is the time to protest in the streets.
My representative is a maga chud. No amount of calling her will make the Democratic Party support genocide less. A Democrat would be more likely to move that particular needle, but the candidate who ran against the maga chud was a progressive, so the party cut her funding a month before the election.
Both of my senators are Republicans. Calling them won't change Democrats' enthusiastic support for genocide either.
My governor's only involvement in foreign policy has been to dump refugees in blue cities. Needless to say, he's also a Republican. Even if it were possible to change his hateful closed mind, changing him won't change Democrats.
My president is Joe Biden.