Joe Biden is going to give a prime-time address to the nation Thursday evening in order to warn us that Republicans want to destroy America.
What does he mean by that? Last week, the president addressed a Democratic National Committee event in Maryland where he spelled out exactly the line of attack against Republicans he will deliver on Thursday night.
“They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace — political violence. They don’t believe in democracy,” he said. “This is why, in this moment, those of you who love this country — Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans — we must be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving America than the MAGA Republicans are to destroying America.”
Sheesh. Laying it on kind of thick, isn’t he?
Related: Did Biden Just Call for Warfare Against Republicans?
“Vote for Democrats or you’re dead” is kind of a silly campaign slogan. But it’s what Democrats have been saying for months — ever since it became clear that Biden had so trashed the economy and tarnished our reputation overseas with his incompetent botched withdrawal from Afghanistan that Democrats were going to get a huge shellacking in the midterms.
A White House official said Thursday’s address at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia would focus on “the continued battle for the soul of the nation” and show how the president sees the central argument of his 2020 candidacy remains as salient as ever with the midterm elections coming into clearer focus.
The president will lay out how America’s standing in the world and its democracy are at stake, the official said. Biden will highlight what he sees as progress over the past two years to protect our democracy but note that rights and freedoms remain at risk.
“He will make clear who is fighting for those rights, fighting for those freedoms, and fighting for our democracy,” the official said.
What “rights”? Which “freedoms”? Who is threatening “democracy”? You will be struck Thursday night by Biden’s lack of specificity in describing how Republicans are putting rights, freedoms, and our democracy at risk.
But don’t stop Biden now. He’s on a roll.
Biden will deliver the speech outside Independence Hall, another echo of his 2020 candidacy, which began with a rally in Philadelphia. In that campaign, Biden repeatedly drew upon the message of not just the nation’s Founding Fathers but other great leaders in highlighting how he viewed then-President Donald Trump as someone who would risk changing the character of the nation if given another term in office. He later drew on Abraham Lincoln with a major speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and Franklin Roosevelt in Warm Springs, Georgia, in the closing weeks of the 2020 campaign.
Naturally, Republicans are a little miffed that Biden wants to accuse them of destroying the country.
“Biden has pitted neighbors against each other, labeled half of Americans as fascist, and tarnished any idea of his promise of ‘unity.’ Families are left with a recession, high gas prices, and a nation on the wrong track,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Emma Vaughn said in an email statement.
You would think that if you’re going to make such incendiary claims about Republicans that a little bit of proof might be in order. The last big “end of democracy” claim made by Democrats sort of fizzled. They claimed that voter integrity measures in Georgia and other red states were actually “voter suppression” measures designed to keep black folks from voting.
Instead, there was a massive increase in voters in the 2022 Georgia primary — including minority voters. That left the end of democracy crowd to claim the real suppression will come in November.
Biden called the Republican efforts to improve voter integrity “Jim Crow on steroids.” What will he say about Republicans on Thursday night?
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