Pollak: Joe Biden Thinks the Rioters Are Very Fine People

Former Vice President Joe Biden supports the ongoing demonstrations around the country, repeatedly referring to them as “peaceful protests” when they plainly are not.

Last week, he claimed that federal law enforcement officials were “brutally attacking peaceful protesters” in Portland, Oregon, ignoring the fact that the “peaceful” protesters had vandalized a federal courthouse and attempted to set it on fire. Several federal officials defending the courthouse have been seriously injured.

Biden has not condemned the ongoing riots, nor have most Democratic leaders. Instead, they have praised the “protests.”

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler — who is also his city’s police commissioner — joined the violent demonstration last week, offering support to a crowd that swore at him and assaulted him as he left. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti — an early Biden supporter — claimed the following day that the Portland riots “represent the best of our democratic ideals.”

Moreover, Biden and the Democrats have condemned the federal government’s response to the riots, describing federal law enforcement officers as Nazi “stormtroopers,” “Gestapo,” or terrorists.

In so doing, they are justifying the violence used against law enforcement officers who are simply trying to protect public property.

In Portland, the mob’s target is a federal courthouse — the home of justice itself. Yet Democratic leaders cannot bring themselves to condemn the riots.

Instead, they continue to disparage federal law enforcement. On Sunday, former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanual — a so-called “moderate” — referred to them as “paramilitary troops.”

Such claims are based on “fake news” about “secret police” in military fatigues without ID randomly arresting civilians. Those claims quickly unraveled in federal court on Friday, where a judge noted that at most two people had been “seized” (briefly), and that officers’ uniforms were clearly marked.

Meanwhile, the violence continues. Democrats are fond of throwing the term “fascism” around, but it is worth noting that almost every fascist regime begins with organized street violence. Mussolini had the Blackshirts in Italy; Hilter had the Brownshirts in Germany. Long before they took power, these future dictators sent well-trained mobs to foment violence and to intimidate political opponents. In silencing their critics through fear, they softened resistance to their future rule.

Ordinary law enforcement is not “fascism,” and it is worth noting that Democrats, including Joe Biden, have been trying to delegitimize law enforcement long before the Department of Homeland Security showed up in Portland.

In June, when the George Floyd protests were at their peak, Biden accused police of provoking riots by “escalat[ing] tension.” He denies that he wants to “defund the police,” but his proposals to “redirect” police funding to other uses would do exactly that.

Ironically, Biden claims that the reason he is running for president is that President Donald Trump supposedly referred to neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, as “very fine people” after a riot in August 2017.

In fact, Trump said the neo-Nazis and white supremacists should be “condemned totally.” The “very fine people” referred to non-violent protesters for and against the removal of a Confederate statue. Trump condemned the extremists — repeatedly.

Biden’s silence is deafening by comparison. He and his fellow Democrats refuse to condemn the violence. When they are challenged — which they rarely are — they say the goodness of the underlying cause should outweigh “individual” acts of violence.

To put it in another context: Biden, Garcetti, Wheeler, and the rest believe there are very fine people in those riots. They will not condemn extremists, as Trump did; and they will not condemn violence, as Trump did.

And so the riots go on.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.