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(L) Supporters of US President Donald Trump protest outside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. \u00a9 ALEX EDELMAN \/ AFP; (R) People watch as the Stonewall Jackson statue is removed from Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia on July 1, 2020. \u00a9 Ryan M. Kelly \/ AFP<\/p><\/div>\n
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Micah Curtis
\nRT.com<\/p>\n
The US president took political exaggeration to the extreme when he said the Capitol rioters were worse than the Confederates. With this historical ignorance, he seems intent on framing all his opponents as enemies of the state.<\/p>\n
Hyperbole is often commonplace within political theater. Many politicians know the worth of being able to tell a story or fashion an argument by using terms that will cause an emotional reaction. There are those who consider it dirty, but some of the best presidents in history were wonderful at framing things with the sort of storytelling that might have employed some poetic license.<\/p>\n
However, there is a limit to what\u2019s acceptable. And Joe Biden comparing the January 6 riot at the Capitol to the\u00a0Civil War<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 as he did on Tuesday \u2013 is far too many bridges past being reasonable.<\/p>\n According to Biden, \u201cThe assault on free and fair elections is just such a threat \u2013 literally. I\u2019ve said it before. We\u2019re facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. It\u2019s not hyperbole \u2013 since the Civil War. Confederates, back then, never breached the Capitol as insurrectionists did on January 6<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n He then rather puzzlingly signed off by saying, \u201cI\u2019m not saying this to alarm you. I\u2019m saying this because you should be alarmed.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Biden\u2019s words go well beyond acceptable hyperbole. They come across as if he is laying what happened on January 6 squarely at the feet of the Republicans. Indeed, you might even think he is suggesting the entire party is worse than the Confederates.<\/p>\n This is patently absurd, and a look at the numbers proves this. First, there was only one person who was actively killed during the January 6 riot: a woman named Ashli Babbitt, who was shot in the left shoulder. Four others\u00a0passed away<\/a>\u00a0due to medical emergencies. Let\u2019s compare that to the 364,511 Union soldiers who died and the 281,881 who were wounded in the\u00a0Civil War<\/a>, bringing the Union casualty numbers to 646,392. If you look purely at fatalities on both sides, the total number of deaths was 624,511.<\/p>\n So, if I do my math correctly, for the Capitol riot to be comparable, 624,510 more people would need to have died. Now, it might be my bias talking, but I\u2019m of the opinion that more than half million fatalities is far worse than a bunch of heads of state being rushed out of the building while a rabble of goofballs make a mess.<\/p>\n But then this isn’t the first time that President Biden has used such insane rhetoric. During the 2012 election cycle, he\u00a0claimed<\/a>\u00a0that Mitt Romney and the Republicans were going to put black people \u201cback in chains<\/em>\u201d by unshackling Wall Street. (As a side note, the president should check his history books: it was the Republicans who freed the slaves, and if he wants to criticize anyone for the sins of slavery, maybe he should look at his own party first).<\/p>\n Obviously, the sort of rhetoric used by Biden is absolutely unacceptable. There is no logical reason to start comparing Republicans to the type of people who would want to actually own another human being. Statements such as this are so ignorant of history and so disrespectful to all of those who died securing freedom that any American should be disgusted by them. And as a side note, why aren\u2019t the Big Tech fact-checkers pulling Biden up for their blatant inaccuracy? Is it only Donald Trump whose speeches are policed?<\/p>\n