When I heard President Biden use that word that I had hoped Democrats had ceased using, I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was mocking republinuts’ use of it while making the point soon after that migrants are not the cause of crimes in the US. He responded with this after MTG screaming, “By an illegal!”
By an illegal. That’s right. But how many of thousands of people are being killed by legals?
President Joe Biden, SOTU
He had been smacking the republinuts around on other issues, so why not mock them for this. Thus far, the White House hasn’t tried to explain their way out of this.
Congressman Castro is correct about how incendiary this term is. But a day after seeing many like Castro and immigration reform activists call out President Biden for the use of “illegal” and the use of MAGA talking points, it was the silence from Democrats–especially those I know personally–that was even more hurtful. I guess the rest of the speech was too good for them to criticize the President on one particular thing. It just happened to be a group of people escaping violence and poverty.
As I stated in my previous post about a poll on Latino attitudes toward Biden, he has a 47% approval rating and a 44% disapproval rating among Latinos. Experts cited in the article also stated that while Latinos don’t rank the immigration reform issue at the top of their priorities, they do use the issue to gauge attitudes toward Latinos by both political parties.
Maybe the President didn’t read the poll. But he does need to respond for the use of this bigoted term. If he wanted to be “balanced” on the issue to satisfy the bigots in the audience, he could have talked policy to convince those that matter more right now–the voters–that compassionate reform is needed. Since this was the equivalent of a stump speech.
Perhaps he was frustrated as he was constantly reminded about one crime by a migrant, as buttons and racist rhetoric about the criminal were flung at him as he walked to the dais. One thing one does not do is use the opposition’s rhetoric simply to satisfy them while hurting a large swath of supporters. And one definitelly doesn’t respond to a fucking loud-mouth clown wearing a MAGA hat.
Yeah, it was a good speech. But nothing Biden wants happens without a coalition that is respected.
Update 3/10/2024: Looks like President Biden regrets his use of the rhetoric.
During an interview with MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart, airing at 6 p.m. ET on Saturday, Biden said he regrets using the term “illegal” when referring to Ibarra during his SOTU speech.
“I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal,'” the president said. “‘It’s undocumented.”
Well, it’s something.
doscentavos.net 
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