Sharpton says Democrats must 'brag about' Biden's accomplishments, not wallow in election 'trauma'
MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton warned Democrats Monday that not bragging about President Biden’s accomplishments would allow President-elect Donald Trump to "dictate the narrative."
When Biden relinquished the Democratic nomination and passed the baton to Vice President Kamala Harris, amid pressure from his political allies, many Democrats imagined it would be an easy victory for her over Trump. Now that Trump has won a resounding victory, however, some are looking back at the current president, the only candidate who has defeated Trump in a presidential election, in a new light.
An MSNBC panel on Monday reacted to a recent Washington Post opinion piece headlined, "Progressives should defend Biden’s legacy to protect their future." The author, E.J. Dionne Jr., argued that the "far more pressing" imperative, rather than figuring out a new electoral strategy, is preventing Trump’s victory from discrediting Biden’s domestic policy legacy.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough recalled a conversation with former President Bill Clinton about how the election went. Scarborough had explained that he was concerned about "fascist rhetoric" and "democracy," but the former president replied that, ultimately, many Americans are more focused on practical issues like the price of gasoline.
Clinton, famously a great communicator, particularly with the working-class, told him, "You’ve got to meet them where they are."
"You’ve got to meet them where they are," Sharpton agreed. "You have to address their concerns and then raise the other economic issues. You can’t go macro without dealing with the micro concerns."
"But at the same time," he continued. "I think that the Democratic Party and the progressives need to really do a better job at amplifying what Biden did. Because if they don’t agree with ‘The Times’ column, that if they don’t, they are also dislodging themselves to be able to come in the midterm elections and other things."
Sharpton then argued that Biden had a series of major accomplishments, especially for the Black community.
"Joe Biden did some very solid things, transformative things. Even I was saying to fellow civil rights leaders, Black unemployment is lower than it’s been in decades. He just appointed more Black women as federal judges than anybody in the history of this country. Nobody is talking about that.
"He just gave clemency for 1,500 people in one day. That’s never happened. And 39 pardons. And I hope he continues that," Sharpton said, adding that he wants pardons for former Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby and former Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
"But if nobody’s talking about this, we would let Donald Trump dictate the narrative that this was all four years of failure," he said.
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The news host concluded, "We made more progress for working-class people and communities of color under Biden — not everything we wanted, not nearly everything we wanted, but more than we’d gotten under preceding presidents. And we need to brag about that rather than sit in the trauma unit that we lost an election by less than 2 percent."