Look, as much as I think Juneteenth as a national holiday of dubious provenance pushed into the national consciousness simply because of white guilt during the summer of George Floyd, I would have given a pretty penny to attend the concert to commemorate the holiday at the White House on Monday — provided, of course, that I didn’t have to listen to anybody talk about politics.
For those of you who are unaware, Juneteenth — now a federal holiday — marks the day when Union Gen. Gordon Granger informed the slaves of Galveston, Texas, that all indentured persons in the Lone Star State were free on June 19, 1865. The holiday has become symbolic of the wider freedom of those kept as slaves in the South and their emancipation at the closure of the Civil War.
The holiday remains controversial not because we don’t want to celebrate the emancipation of slaves but because white Democrats love to use the day as a cudgel.
Speaking at the White House event, President Joe Biden told the audience that “black history is American history” and “old ghosts” (read: Republicans) want to take black freedoms away, according to The Associated Press.
However, if you ignored the political posturing, the event was a pretty good show. The South Lawn is a great venue — one that’ll be even better when there’s a new resident in the Oval Office next year, but hey — and there was a great lineup of musicians.
Gladys Knight, Patty LaBelle, Kirk Franklin, Raheem DeVaughn, Doug E. Fresh, Trombone Shorty and Charlie Wilson were just some of the bucket-list acts I could have caught on the White House lawn if I were willing to sit through the interminable electioneering.
It was enough to make even those in a state of near-terminal torpor get on up and dance.
Unless, of course, you were Biden, whose torpor is indeed apparently terminal.
Why isn’t Biden moving? pic.twitter.com/DA78820xcd
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 11, 2024
This is the gait and the gaze of a man wondering when Hank Williams Sr. is going to take the stage. Four more years! Four more years!
And many on social media took notice.
Joe Biden appears to freeze during White House Juneteenth celebration 🤦♂️
— Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld_) June 11, 2024
Elder Abuse.
Biden has no idea where he is.
— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) June 11, 2024
I can’t stop laughing 🤣😂 pic.twitter.com/65gnctzV8S
— Derek Utley (@realDerekUtley) June 11, 2024
Nor, in fact, was this the only time that the president looked very, very lost:
Biden’s response to Trump going to the Bronx was a Juneteenth concert at the White House and tbh he just looks lost and terrified 😂
pic.twitter.com/Em0I5md7nM— Savanah Hernandez (@sav_says_) June 11, 2024
: President Biden slurs his words while giving remarks on the South Lawn of the White House during the Juneteenth concert.
🔊
“ ! *slurs words, ”Juneteenth celebrates… pic.twitter.com/LHW27yvfRT
— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) June 11, 2024
Come for Gladys Knight, stay for the unintentional hilarity.
Now, it’s not just that this is yet another senior moment for a president who racks them up the same way that Aaron Judge racks up home runs. Although, granted, it is that.
Biden’s weakness with black voters going into this election year was always an irksome concern for Democrats; even though most strategists believed the African-American vote would come home to the president and Vice President Kamala Harris, the consistently problematic poll numbers that showed them losing huge chunks of the black electorate doubtlessly stuck in the back of the Biden campaign’s head.
Is Joe Biden losing support among black voters?
Now that the election is moving ever closer and the president’s black support isn’t budging in polls, irksomeness has given way to low-level panic. Especially when the election hangs on states Biden narrowly won in 2020 with large urban areas and a black voting bloc that Democrats generally count on being monolithic, any sort of 10- to 15-point swing would be catastrophic to Biden’s re-election chances.
That’s exactly what we’re seeing play out in poll after poll.
If you’re wondering why the president is ramping up the divisive rhetoric and visiting urban areas he used to be able to take for granted, like Philadelphia, that’s why.
And so, the Biden campaign brought out the big guns for Juneteenth.
Do you realize how much most of us — even this millennial, who was born long after these artists’ primes — would shell out for a concert featuring Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle? And we, along with every other physically and mentally able human in existence, would be shaking our rhumba.
And here’s our senescent president: eyes glazed, unmoving, mind elsewhere, appearing to hazily ponder why we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway.
Forget merely turning off black voters; this display should turn off anyone with eyes and a working brain.
