On the campaign trail in Philadelphia surrounded by the support of numerous members of the Kennedy family — American political royalty — President Joe Biden returned to one of his favorite themes: American Exceptionalism. Biden contends, as have presidents as different as the Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat John F. Kennedy, that America is more than merely a country — that it is also an idea.
Notably, in an election season suffused with religious rhetoric from the far-right and enduring racial division, Biden spent the beginning of his speech emphasizing that the American idea supersedes religion and race — and everything else.
“We’re the only nation founded on an idea,” Biden said, “Every other nation in the world is founded on geography, ethnicity, race, religion — except us. Think about it. The idea was we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal, in the image of God, and deserve to be treated equally throughout their lives.”
President Biden: Today, we face another inflection point about two fundamentally different visions for America. Trump’s vision is one of anger, hate, revenge, and retribution. He embraces the January 6 insurrectionists. He’s running on it. He promised to be dictator on day one pic.twitter.com/TnhpBCQn44
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) April 18, 2024
In the passage Biden subordinates religion’s role in the founding of America — with the direct implication that the United States is not strictly a “Christian nation” as many claim, even if a majority of its citizens identify as Christian.
In the same breath, Biden asserts that every person is created in the “image of God,” implying a place for faith in interpreting America’s founding principles.
Adding his “image of God” ad lib to a direct quote of the most famous line in the Declaration of Independence (“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”), the President also asserts that those acknowledged by law to have been created equal “deserve to be treated equally throughout their lives.”