Last week, President Biden spoke in Georgia in support of his voting rights bill. It was offensive on many levels. He claimed those opposing the bill were effectively in bed with Bull Connor, George Wallace and Jefferson Davis. He went on to say the opposition is “Jim Crow 2.0.”
Apparently his memory is such that he doesn’t recall that George Wallace, the governor of Alabama, was a Democrat. He doesn’t recall that Bull Connor was a Democrat. He doesn’t recall that the states that enforced segregation were controlled by Democrats. He doesn’t recall that Democrats actively opposed the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. He doesn’t recall that Ross Barnett, the Democratic governor of Mississippi in the early 1960’s when the civil rights movement was beginning, was an avowed segregationist and white supremacist. He doesn’t recall the Democratic Party of the southern states actively supporting the Ku Klux Klan and the denial of civil rights to black citizens. He doesn’t recall that many of his close associates in the Senate were avowed racists and segregationists.
The Civil Rights legislation would never have been passed in Congress without the Republican Party supporting it. Yet in today’s climate Biden has the gall to accuse those who oppose a federal takeover of the voting procedures as the equivalent of those former members of his political party.
The opposition to this legislation is because it allows ballots to be counted even though not received for many days after the election is over. It permits “ballot harvesting.” It permits people like Mark Zuckerberg to give 430 million dollars to “assist” voting in principally highly Democratic precincts.
Our country deserves better than this. Biden’s speech was disgraceful and wrong on so many levels. It certainly did nothing to heal the divide in this country. In fact it did just the opposite. Good people can disagree and that they do does not make them evil nor align them with people like George Wallace. Biden should know better.
—John L. Lengemann,
Imlay City
