President Joe Biden claimed Monday that the United States has “never” lived up to its founding principles.
“We’ve never fully lived up to the founding principles of this nation, but our Administration is committed to finishing the work left undone. It’s long past time to confront deep racial inequities and systemic racism and fulfill the promise of America for all,” Biden tweeted.
We’ve never fully lived up to the founding principles of this nation, but our Administration is committed to finishing the work left undone. It’s long past time to confront deep racial inequities and systemic racism and fulfill the promise of America for all. #BlackHistoryMonth
— President Biden (@POTUS) February 2, 2021
Last week, Biden made a nearly identical claim, during the signing of executive orders on racial equality: “We have never fully lived up to the founding principles of this nation, to state the obvious, that all people are created equal and have a right to be treated equally throughout their lives,” he said.
Biden had made the claim before, notably during the 2020 presidential campaign, when he used it as a line in his stump speech. His point appeared to be that the United States had embraced principles of equality in the Declaration of Independence, but that American society remained unequal, even after the achievements of the civil rights movement.
That refrain led to one of Biden’s most infamous flubs: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, all men and women are created by, go, you know, you know the thing!”
More ominously, Biden told an interviewer in October: “America was an idea.” He later tweeted:
America was an idea. We've never lived up to it but we've never walked away from it before.https://t.co/VRCnKI0rfQ pic.twitter.com/xLuhhGyJVp
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 22, 2020
Biden linked his latest criticism of the United States to his celebration of Black History Month.
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