Biden uses Charlottesville to talk about political violence. But he hasn't been there

Transcript

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

It's been more than six years since images of a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Va., shocked the world. Hundreds of people with tiki torches chanted antisemitic slurs and a counter-protester was killed. And though the events of August 2017 motivated Joe Biden to run for president in 2020, he has not visited the town. NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram traveled there and brings us this report.

DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: In August 2017, Joe Biden wasn't in elected office for the first time in a long time. He had mostly stepped away from political life. But he says the violence that unfolded in Charlottesville pushed him to jump back into politics. Here's how he put it in 2019.

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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: We can't forget what happened in Charlottesville. Even more important, we have to remember who we are.

SHIVARAM: It's a line that he's come back to again and again in his first term. Now that his reelection campaign for 2024 has ramped up, Biden's been reminding voters of that day and how former President Trump responded to the violence, saying there were, quote, "fine people on both sides." But for how pivotal of a moment Charlottesville was for Biden, he hasn't visited the town since then, not during his campaign or as president. And some residents of Charlottesville are pretty surprised by that.

CARLA HUNT: That's weird, isn't it? (Laughter) Yeah, come on down, President Biden.

SHIVARAM: Carla Hunt is a retired educator. She says the neo-Nazi rally left a mark on the whole country, and there are still signs of it in the town today on the street where Heather Heyer was run down by a car. Tributes to her cover the street, which has now been named after her.

HUNT: But the impact, I mean, you can still see it, you know, when you go down Fourth Street. If that made an impact on him - he said that was one of the reasons he ran - then why wouldn't you, right? I mean, that would be something you'd do.

SHIVARAM: Other residents, like Amy Little, agree. She thinks it's important for the president to come in person.

AMY LITTLE: I think there's a certain gravity in coming and seeing where those kind of things happen and really kind of getting a sense and breathing the air and seeing the sights. And I think he should absolutely do that.

SHIVARAM: But there are others, like Kelly Vo, who says she thinks Biden has more pressing things to focus on.

KELLY VO: 2017 was a long time ago now. There's a pandemic, there's a whole bunch of other places that have happened since then. He's going where the news is, so it is what it is.

SHIVARAM: Presidential historian Barbara Perry works at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. She agrees political memory is short, which is why she says that even though Biden hasn't visited Charlottesville and 2017 can feel like a long time ago, it's important he still remind the country of what happened here.

BARBARA PERRY: It's certainly a responsibility, it seems to me, of an incumbent president of the United States to remind Americans what we are fighting for, to maintain our democratic republic.

SHIVARAM: With the election less than a year away, Trump is still the apparent frontrunner on the GOP side, and polls show voters are still deeply concerned about the state of democracy. Biden has been sharpening his attacks on Trump, saying Trump is campaigning on a platform of violence. And Biden says Trump is a threat to democratic norms, so he's been asking voters from all parties to make that a central issue in 2024. The Biden campaign says the president plans to push the message of combating political violence in the run up to the election. But what they won't say is whether Biden will make a trip to Charlottesville, the place he says inspired his run.

Deepa Shivaram, NPR News, Charlottesville. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.