"If you read his speech and listen to it carefully, much of it is thinly-veiled innuendo calling us white supremacists, calling us racists, calling us every name in the book, calling us people who don't tell the truth."

Said Rand Paul on Fox News last night, quoted in "Power Up: Unity in Washington will be harder than Biden makes it sound" (WaPo)("Some Republicans such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) even trashed Biden's speech itself, which was widely-lauded for its appeals for Americans to set aside their political differences and work together for a better country"). 

If I had a little more time at the moment, I'd go through the speech line by line and look for every phrase that can be interpreted as saying that Rand Paul and whoever he thinks of as "us" are white supremacists, racists, liars, or whatever other names might be in that book. 

I'd do something like my post "The 7 most violence-inciting statements in Donald Trump's speech to the crowd on January 6th." Maybe later.

ADDED: Here's Rand Paul's Fox News segment with the "thinly-veiled innuendo" charge:

 

Paul cites a particular line in the speech: "And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured." According to Paul, the "gist" of what Biden was saying there is that his political opponents manufacture and manipulate the truth.

AND: Without yet going through the comments to see your suggestions, I have read the speech to look for what can be characterized as the "thinly-veiled innuendo" Paul was talking about. Here's what I found:

And now arise a political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat.

Literally, Biden is not calling anyone a white supremacist, a racist,  a domestic terrorist, or a political extremist. He identifies the quality — extremism, supremacy, terrorism — and vows to fight the abstractions, not the actual people. These things don't exist without people, and yet, it's clever, because who wants to say That's me? Rand Paul's "us" can't say That's about us unless they cop to being racists, white supremacists, or domestic terrorists. 

Uniting to fight the foes we face: anger, resentment and hatred, extremism, lawlessness, violence, disease, joblessness, and hopelessness.

I note the use of the word "fight," the word that Trump was denounced for using in his January 6th speech. Trump stands accused of — impeached for — inciting an insurrection for saying, "We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore." 

But Biden says "fight" — "fight the foes." And yet his "foes" are not human beings. His foes are abstractions: "anger, resentment and hatred, extremism, lawlessness, violence, disease, joblessness, and hopelessness." 

Is he really referring to people? You can't have any of those things without people, and some of those things come from within people and characterize those people as The Other, most notably the first 4 things on that list: anger, resentment, hatred, extremism. And yet Biden did not say the angry, resentful people are foes. He takes a hate-the-sin-love-the-sinner position. 

But there's no expression of love for these angry, resentful people. And I don't get the sense that he means to say all anger is wrong and needs to be stamped out. He expressed support for the racial justice movement, and it certainly involves a great deal of expression of anger —  anger, resentment, hatred, extremism. Those angry people are respected in their anger. Their anger is justified. So anger per se is not the foe.

We can deliver racial justice and we can make America once again, the leading force for good in the world.

He almost said "Make America great again." 

I know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days. I know the forces that divide us are deep and they are real. But I also know they are not new. Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal, that we all are created equal, and the harsh ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart.

Again, the literal attack is on the abstraction: "racism, nativism, fear, demonization." But these are things that only exist within human beings. So it is a thinly-veiled attack on racists, nativists, fear-mongers, and demonizers. And, again, who wants to say That sounds like you're talking about me? 

Well, Rand Paul does. It's hard to admit, but Biden will get away with demonizing his opponents if no one admits it. Obviously, a small set of Americans will openly take on the label of "racist" or "nativist," but Paul isn't talking about them. He's saying, I believe, that Biden is stoking hostility that is aimed at the millions of Americans who agreed with the Trump policies that Trump's opponents have denounced as racist. 

Let’s begin to listen to one another again, hear one another, see one another, show respect to one another. Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn’t have to be a cause for total war. And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.

I included that because Paul himself cited that line. I observe that Trump himself continually denounced "the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured." But Trump didn't pontificate about unity at the same time. Trump forthrightly attacked his foes. 

It's important to acknowledge that Biden doesn't demand that his opponents shut up entirely:

To all those who did not support us, let me say this. Hear me out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart. If you still disagree, so be it....

You can keep fighting, but fight within a system of good order:

That’s America, the right to dissent peaceably within the guard rails of our Republic is perhaps this nation’s greatest strength. Yet hear me clearly, disagreement must not lead to disunion.... 

 No insurrection, please. 

 [T]he answer is not to turn inward, to retreat into competing factions, distrusting those who don’t look like you or worship the way you do, or don’t get their news from the same sources you do. We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal… 

I need to give this my tag "civility bullshit," because I think that means now that my side has the power, let's be nice. Your side did not play nice when it was out of power. Did you ever tell your people to stand down when it was not in your political interest?

***

And let me quote one more thing, because I want to quote an annotation that appears in The Washington Post's copy of the speech transcript. From the speech:

There is truth, and there are lies — lies told for power and for profit, and each of us has a duty and a responsibility as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders, leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation to defend the truth and defeat the lies.

The WaPo annotation:

This is one of the prominent features of Biden's speech: While calling for unity, an acknowledgment that some of his opponents aren't on the level and that their influence must be dealt with. Biden didn't use his speech to call out individuals who purveyed the theory that his win wasn't legitimate, but he seems to recognize that, without addressing the proliferation of falsehoods, his agenda will be difficult to enact. For a man who emphasizes conciliation, it was certainly a notable choice.