President Joe Biden hosted a small group of scholars and historians for lunch on Wednesday as he gears up for a speech framing the upcoming election as a battle for the nation’s democracy.
The discussion revolved around “ongoing threats to democracy and democratic institutions both here in America and around the world, as well as the opportunities we face as a nation,” the White House said in a statement.
Princeton’s Eddie Glaude Jr. and Sean Wilentz, Harvard’s Annette Gordon-Reed, Yale’s Beverly Gage and Boston College’s Heather Cox Richardson were among the attendees, as well as presidential biographer — and occasional Biden speech writer — Jon Meacham.
Attendees were tight-lipped about what was discussed at the gathering. One would only go so far as to say they “talked about American history and its bearing on the present — a lively exchange of ideas.”
Another person in the room, who like the others was not authorized to speak publicly about a private meeting, said the historians urged the president “to call out the moment for what it is.” In blunt terms, the academics discussed looming threats to the nation’s democracy and warned about the slow crawl of authoritarianism around the globe.
I’ll give you that that is a fair point, but the impact of my action doesn’t outweigh my conviction.
Hopefully more people aren’t like me I guess?
There is no way Israel would’ve had the balls to go as hard as they did. If they did not have us sitting there to make sure no one else got involved.
We supported the bully, or at least someone it turns out it was just as bad as the fucking other guy, and then we continue to do it after we saw all the dead children.
I’ve said it before I’ll say it again, I understand where they’re coming from but they’re still wrong, they’re still the bad guys in this, it just turns out there’s no good guys, but they keep calling themselves the good guys.