WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden had starkly different answers on how to combat racial injustice in America during their first debate Tuesday night. Trump refused to condemn white supremacy, while Biden praised “peaceful protests,” but opposed defunding the police.
Recent polls show that most Americans view this summer’s protests as justified.
“The way this question was framed in the debate was inherently problematic,” Danielle Kilgo, University of Minnesota professor who studies how the media covers racial and social justice. “Race is not the problem, police violence is. The question deflected from this altogether.”
Early in the debate, Biden invoked Trump’s 2017 equivocations about white nationalists fighting Black protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, when he said both sides had “very fine people.” Biden has pointed to this rhetoric as being the catalyst for his presidential bid.
But Trump was quick to point out Biden’s support as a U.S. senator for the 1994 crime bill that greatly expanded funding for prisons and policing. Biden has opposed the idea of defunding the police, calling police brutality the work of “a few bad apples.” Many of the policies he supported as a U.S. senator had direct consequences for Black Americans.
While some of his proposed criminal justice reform directly repudiates the sanctions set by that 1994 crime bill, Biden did not directly address the cause of violence in American cities in Tuesday’s debate.
“Violence is always sparked by something; it’s a response to a failure in democracy,” Kilgo said. “Neither candidate has acknowledged that source.”
Moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump if he would be willing to condemn white supremacist and militia organizations that have incited violence in cities like Kenosha, Wisconsin. He refused, saying, “Proud Boys – stand back and stand by.” The Proud Boys are considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Trump also asserted that suburban life is being destroyed while crime rates are rising because those areas are run by Democrats,
“If (Biden) ever got to run this country and they ran it the way he would want to run it, we would have — our suburbs would be gone,” Trump said. “You would see problems like you have never seen.” However, a study conducted by Quinnipiac University found that only 35 percent of voters felt more safe with Trump as president.
Struggling to reign in the candidates, mainly Trump, Wallace redirected the debate to Trump’s ending of federal racial sensitivity training and attempted removal of critical race theory from schools.
“We were paying people hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach people very bad ideas, very sick ideas,” Trump said. “They were teaching people that our country is a horrible and racist place.”
The Pew Research Center found that nearly two-thirds of white voters say acknowledging the United States’ historical flaws makes the country stronger. Larger majorities of Black and Hispanic voters said the same.
As policymakers on both sides weigh in on the debate, most have focused on Trump’s refusal to condemn white supremacy. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass) tweeted, “Donald Trump won’t condemn white supremacists because he is one.”
But, racial justice activists caution overlooking Biden’s position.
“We gotta hone in on Biden’s longing to expand policing and push back, even if you vote for him,” Chicago-based activist Eva Lewis said on Twitter. “I’m not going to gloss over that just because I don’t want Trump to win. I care about us too much.”