Here's Biden's ad, three and a half minutes, via Twitter.
The core values of this nation… our standing in the world… our very democracy...everything that has made America -- America --is at stake. That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States. #Joe2020 https://t.co/jzaQbyTEz3
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 25, 2019
Here's the text, extracted from YouTube's captions:
Charlottesville Virginia is home to the author of one of the great documents in human history. We know by heart. We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. We've heard it so often it's almost a cliché but it's who we are.
We haven't always lived up to these ideals. Jefferson himself didn't. But we have never before walked away from them. Charlottesville is also home to a defining moment for this nation in the last few years. It was there on August of 2017 we saw Klansmen and white supremacists and neo-Nazis come out in the open. Their crazed faces, illuminated by torches, veins bulging and baring the fangs of racism. Chanting the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the thirties. And they were met by a courageous group of Americans. And a violent clash ensued. And a brave young woman lost her life.
A "violent clash ensued" means that peaceful right-wing protesters were attacked by Antifa because of their opinions.
And that's when we heard the words the President of the United States that stunned the world and shocked the conscience of this nation. He said there were quote "some very fine people on both sides." Very fine people on both sides? With those words the President of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it.
Trump wasn't presenting either Antifa or Unite the Right as very fine people. Scott Adams likes to use this as a prime example of Fake News:The President was saying that you could oppose or defend Confederate statues in princiiple, and as Adams says "But the way it’s been presented as if the sitting president not only said that antifa was fine people — I’m sure he didn’t say that — but he also said the white supremacists were fine people in front of America and thought it was a good idea,” Adams added. “That clearly never happened.”"
Of course, now you have an ex-Vice President saying Antifa was "fine people", so...
And in that moment I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime. I wrote at the time they were in the battle for the soul of this nation. Well that's even more true today. We are in the battle for the soul of this nation. I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all the embraces as an abhorrent moment in time but if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation. Who we are.
And I cannot stand by and watch that happen. The core values of this nation, our standing in the world. Our very democracy, everything that has made America, America, is at stake. That's why today I'm announcing my candidacy for President of the United States. Folks America is an idea.
An idea that's stronger than any arm, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant. It gives hope to the most desperate people on earth. It guarantees that everyone is treated with dignity. And gives hate no safe harbor. It instills in every person in this country the belief that no matter where you start in life there's nothing you can achieve. If you work at it. That's what we believe. And above all else that's what's at stake in this election. We can't forget what happened in Charlottesville. Even more important we have to remember who we are. This is America.
Biden thinks he's running against racism: White racism. Actually, he's running against America.