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Biden Heads to South Carolina to Appeal to Black Voters
Posted
January 8, 2024
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January 8, 2024
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0:20Now PlayingPresident Joe Biden wants Americans to grasp the extraordinary stakes of this year's presidential election, as he sees them. As part of that effort, he's revisiting some of the nation’s worst traumas to highlight what can happen when hate is allowed to fester.
On Monday, Biden heads to Charleston, South Carolina, to Mother Emanuel AME Church, the site of a 2015 racist massacre in which nine Black churchgoers were shot to death during Bible study.
The event comes after a blunt speech by the Democratic president on the eve of the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, in which he excoriated former President Donald Trump for “glorifying” rather than condemning political violence.
It's a grim way to kick off a presidential campaign, particularly for a man known for his unfailing optimism and belief that American achievements are limitless. But his campaign advisers and aides say it's necessary to lay out the stakes in unequivocal terms, particularly after a few years without the cultural saturation of Trump's words and actions. And it's an effort to set up the contrast they hope will be paramount to voters in 2024.
It was June 17, 2015, when a 21-year-old white man walked into the church and, intending to ignite a race war, shot and killed nine Black parishioners and wounded one more. Biden was vice president when he attended the memorial service in Charleston, where President Barack Obama famously sang "Amazing Grace."
Biden's aides and allies say that episode was among the critical moments when the nation's political divide started to sharpen and crack. Though Trump, the current Republican presidential front-runner, was not in office at the time and has called the shooting “horrible,” Biden is seeking to tie Trump’s current rhetoric to such violence.
Trump, who faces 91 criminal charges stemming from his efforts to overturn his loss to Biden and three other felony cases, argues that Biden and other top Democrats are themselves seeking to undermine democracy by using the legal system to thwart the campaign of Biden's chief rival.
South Carolina is the first official Democratic nominating contest where Biden is looking to flex his political muscle this year, and it’s where his turnaround in 2020 began on his way to the White House.
Biden is expected to meet with the families of the victims of the church shooting, and it's in these moments when his aides believe he's most effective.
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