Biden in Kenosha: Trump has 'legitimized a dark side of human nature'

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Biden in Kenosha: Trump has 'legitimized a dark side of human nature'
By Jonathan Easley - 09/03/20 03:48 PM EDT

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Thursday said President Trump has "legitimized a dark side of human nature” in remarks at Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha, Wis.

Speaking at a community gathering to address the recent civil unrest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, Biden said the unrest is not entirely Trump’s fault, but that the president had emboldened racists and inflamed racial tensions at a time when the nation is deeply divided.

The former vice president told a story about how protests had destroyed his home town of Wilmington, Del., years ago following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He said he recently looked out over Wilmington and was briefly encouraged to see how it had been rebuilt.


“I said, don’t tell me things can’t change…but I made a mistake about something,” Biden said. “I thought you could defeat hate. It only hides. And when someone in authority breathes oxygen under that rock, it legitimizes those folks to come on out from under the rocks.”

Biden brought up Trump’s response to the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville as evidence of the president’s failed leadership on race.

“It’s not all [Trump’s] fault,” Biden added. “But it legitimized a dark side of human nature. What it did though, was also expose what had not been paid enough attention to. The underlying racism that is institutionalized in the United States that still exists and has for 400 years. So we end up with a circumstance like we have here in Kenosha.”

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https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/515019-biden-in-kenosha-trump-has-legitimized-a-dark-side-of-human-nature