US President Joe Biden called on Thursday to
“silence”
extremist, racist ideas and incitement to violence during a conference organized by the White House.
“We cannot remain silent.
There are those who say that when we talk about
(extremism)
, we divide the country
,” said the 79-year-old Democrat, who the Republican opposition has criticized for fueling divisions after a recent virulent speech against the radical right.
“By evoking it, we silence it, rather than shutting ourselves up.
Silence digs the wounds
, ”said Joe Biden who had been announced on stage, in a very symbolic way, by the mother of a young girl killed during a demonstration of white supremacists.
Heather Heyer, 32, died in August 2017 in Charlottesville, East Virginia, when a neo-Nazi sympathizer drove into a crowd of anti-racist activists.
The latter were protesting against a march of hundreds of members of the ultra-right, a demonstration which Joe Biden said again on Thursday that she had convinced him to come out of his political retirement to embark on the race for the White House.
“Hate is never defeated, it only hides, and if given oxygen it comes out of hiding.
In recent years, we have given him too much oxygen in politics, in the media and on the Internet
,” said the American president.
Ending social media 'special immunity'
On this last point, Joe Biden intends
to "hold social networks responsible for spreading hatred and inciting violence"
, he said.
He called on Congress to
“end the special immunity”
they enjoy through contrary legislation, which, unlike news publishers for example, does not hold them responsible for published content.
If Joe Biden resumed on Thursday the call for unity and reconciliation that has marked his mandate since the beginning, the president also occasionally adopts a more virulent tone, as the legislative elections approach, in eight weeks. mid-term.
On September 1 in Philadelphia, he denounced, in a rare direct attack on his predecessor, the
"extremism"
of Donald Trump and his supporters, accusing them of shaking the very
"foundations"
of American democracy.