October 22, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Former president Barack Obama released a video message Tuesday in support of his former vice president, Joe Biden, during which he described as “inspiring” this year’s wave of left-wing activism that has been characterized by violence.
“One of the most inspiring things about this year has been to see so many young Americans fired up, organizing, marching, and fighting for change,” Obama said. “Your generation can be the one that creates a new normal in America, one that’s fairer, where the system treats everybody equally, and gives everybody opportunity.”
Obama framed the impending presidential election as a “tipping point” for this movement, and stressed that “to change the game on any of the issues we care about, Joe Biden needs your vote.” After praising his former running mate, Obama closed by declaring that “your generation is going to change the game entirely.”
For months, Americans have watched Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests become “fired up” in a much more literal sense, as arson, looting, and violence have swept through major cities across the country in response to the death of a Minnesota black man at the hands of a white police officer. The officer was quickly charged with murder, but the incident still revived BLM’s narrative of “systemic racism” in law enforcement and throughout American society more generally.
As detailed by the U.S. Justice Department, New York shootings “have been on the rise since looting and protests began on or about May 28, 2020” (a 177% increase in July from the year before, and a 166% increase in August from the year before); prosecutors in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx refused to prosecute crimes stemming from the protests; city and state leaders “have forcefully rejected federal law enforcement support”; and city leaders “cut $1 billion from NYPD’s FY21 budget” during a time of “increased unrest, gun violence, and property damage,” causing “cancellation of the new police recruiting class, cuts to overtime spending, and the transfer of certain police functions, including school safety, out of the NYPD.”
Portland, the DOJ continued, has seen “100 consecutive nights of protests marred by vandalism, chaos, and even killing,” including arson, injuries to police, and a 140% spike in shootings from the previous year. Amid it all, the city “cut $15 million from the police bureau, eliminating 84 positions” including the Gun Violence Reduction Team and emergency response personnel,” and Mayor Ted Wheeler also rejected federal law enforcement assistance.
One of the most inspiring things about this year has been seeing so many young people organizing, marching, and fighting for change. And to change the game on any of the issues we care about, we've got to vote for @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris. pic.twitter.com/vfHnP4XPxK
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 21, 2020
And in Seattle, officials notoriously “permitted anarchists and activists to seize six square blocks of the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood” and renamed it the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ) or “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest” (CHOP). Police were “ordered to abandon their precinct within the CHOP,” leading to a 525% increase in crimes such as homicide, robbery, and assault. While all this was going on, city and state leaders also refused federal law enforcement.
Biden eventually condemned the violence following pressure to do so, but has endorsed its underlying grievances by claiming that “systemic racism” is “not just in law enforcement, it’s across the board. It’s in housing, and it’s in education, and it’s in everything we do.” His running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), said in June that the protests are “a beautiful sight” which are “not gonna let up. And they should not.”
By contrast, President Donald Trump has unequivocally condemned the rioters as “sick and deranged Anarchists & Agitators.”