So I sat down and watched the President Biden speech less than 24 hours after it original aired live. I did my best to avoid comments, tweets, and the like before watching it and reading the transcript. After watching it, I have been perusing Twitter and YouTube and I cannot help to think that the speech has fallen on deaf ears from both sides of the aisle.

            I see too often on twitter when something politically happens (and let’s face it if it is on Twitter it is political no matter what it is.) you can see the two extremist sides start firing shots, then the various degrees of less extreme until it gets to the more main stream, a.k.a. the average person. It is here were you start to see people questioning what is going on in the world. Why is there so much hate and angst in society? Why can we not compromise?

            Well, why can we not compromise? Do you have an answer? I’ll wait. Okay. If you complained about the extremists on the other side politically then you are why we cannot compromise. You are not willing to discuss the issues fairly and honestly. You are dealing with yourself in a morally superior way that does not allow for you to be wrong. You claim to be willing to be wrong and corrected, but no one has ever proven you wrong. Am I correct? You are correct in your point of view on topics ranging from abortions to gun control, to animal rights, to climate change, to (insert topic here).

            Now back to the speech, you have conservatives and people on the right claiming how villainous President Biden looks with a backdrop of red lighting on Independence Hall and two Marines in their Class A uniforms. How it strikes a symbolism of the First Order in Star Wars: The Force Awakens or in the real world a Nazi rally. I can see how they can and would feel like that. I watched C-Span’s coverage as well as scrubbed through CNBC, Washington Post, CNN, and NBC and none changed camera angles during the speech other than C-Span. Even then it was not until the end of the speech when President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden were walking away did CNBC pan the zoom back to capture Independence Hall in the Red, White, & Blue motif. A few seconds of research would show you that the images that the media shows you are manipulated to either get your ire or to get your sympathies. Yet when challenged with a different perspective they cannot see it that way.

            Those on the left in response are calling it a brave and uplifting speech and how it is our path forward away from potential conflict. And here to I can see that message ringing true to them as well. Here we have a speech meant to convey that we need Americans to band together and be strong as a nation. What is a strong nation to the left? Yet when challenged with a different perspective they cannot see it that way. There is still one piece of the message that I think many people glossed over, either in doe-eyed expressions of joy or the rage of red, President Biden and his speech writer for this was not just talking about MAGA Republicans, they were also talking about Antifa on the left.

            Whenever the mention of extremists was used in a sentence or phrase and he was talking about MAGA, he would mention MAGA Republicans. Whenever the mention extremists broadly he was also talking about Antifa. He could not mention Antifa by name, no, but they could insinuate Antifa’s role in the propping up of violence in cities across America. These two extremes are using an us-vs-them mentality that has to stop.

            That is what this speech is meant to be. We can come back from this “If you aren’t a support of (insert group identity here) then you have to be a part of (insert other group identity here)” mentality. We cannot come together as a nation if we are too busy dividing ourselves up, we will never unite and we will never reconcile any issues we have and yes, we have issues that need to be resolved. The saying “Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.” is one I have tried to live by, but now it seems to need to be “Those who choose to relive the past shall never enjoy the future and what it brings.”

            If this has struck a nerve with you and you are pissed off at me, fine that’s good. That means you are on one of the extremes or are supportive enough of them that you think I am wrong and that the other side is horrible and should be shut down. If are still thinking about the words or have re-read this multiple times, good for you. You are coming to understand that we cannot survive as a fractured nation and that we do not need Civil War 2 – Electric Boogaloo.

            Just remember, there are more average Americans than there are extremists or politicians that work with those extremists.