Biden Seeks To ‘Bring Together’ Strife-Torn City in Visit To Wisconsin Battleground

Democratic presidential nominee 👤Joe Biden will make his first campaign venture into a strife-torn American city on Thursday when he travels to Kenosha, Wisconsin, which has become the latest battleground over police brutality and racial injustice.

President Donald Trump, his opponent in the Nov. 3 election, has increasingly made civil unrest a central theme of his re-election campaign. Biden’s camp says his visit to Kenosha, however, will aim to “bring together Americans to heal” by convening a community meeting in the city where tensions remain high following the shooting of 👤Jacob Blake, a Black man, by police last week.

The visit marks a distinct change in tactics for the former vice president. Biden has largely avoided traveling far from his Delaware home, arguing the coronavirus pandemic required caution.

Trump visited Kenosha to back 🚓Law Enforcement earlier in the week against the wishes of local leaders who worried he would inflame the situation. He did not meet with Blake, who was paralyzed from the waist down after a white police officer fired at his back seven times on Aug. 23, or with Blake’s family.

Instead, Trump suggested that Democrats like Biden condoned the violent protests, which has at times disrupted peaceful demonstrations, even as Biden has condemned violence several times.

The president also defended the actions of a 17-year-old Trump supporter who has been charged with killing two people and wounding another with a semi-automatic rifle during a clash in Kenosha with anti-racism advocates.