The Biden campaign's hair-on-fire, "democracy will die if Trump is elected" attack is proving to be a yawner for many voters.
In fact, the attack has boomeranged and has come around to smack the president in the buttocks.
A new swing-state poll by the Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University says that a little more than half the voters who are likely to decide the election say threats to democracy are extremely important.
Biden's problem is that more people trust Donald Trump to handle those threats than Biden.
Tens of millions of dollars in advertising, the ungodly amount of free coverage on news programs that repeat ad infinitum this ludicrous charge, and swing state voters still think Trump would be a better candidate to "save" democracy.
"In speeches and campaign ads, Biden points to Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, his incitement of an angry mob that ransacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and the former president’s boasts that he will use the powers of his office to punish his political enemies," writes the Washington Post.
Trump questioned the results of the 2020 election. Are we now no longer going to be allowed to question the electoral process? Someone, quick, tell Biden that because if he loses, he is already planning a post-election legal blitz.
Donald Trump can't put his political enemies in jail even if he wants to. There's a little matter of due process. While Trump has threatened to do just that, he can't make good on the promise unless he can get a federal prosecutor to trump up charges against his political enemies; it's not going to happen.
But it's a useful tool for Biden to terrify Americans into voting for him. It's all Biden has at this point.
“Many Americans don’t recognize Biden’s custodianship of our democracy, which is a bad sign for his campaign,” said Justin Gest, a professor of policy and government at George Mason University.
The poll surveyed the views of 3,513 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in April and May. Of those surveyed, 2,255 were classified as “Deciders” — those who fit into one or more categories: They voted in only one of the past two presidential elections; are between ages 18 and 25; registered to vote since 2022; did not definitely plan to vote for either Biden or Trump this year; or switched their support between 2016 and 2020.
For many voters, democracy is an abstract idea, less tangible than issues like the economy, abortion or immigration. Still, most voters, regardless of party, report that the issue matters to them. Gest noted that “the vast majority don’t want to tip toward more authoritarian control,” with systems of representative or direct democracy polling far more favorably.
According to Ballotpedia, "As of June 24, 2024, President Joe Biden (D) had signed 139 executive orders." And there are still six months to go in the Biden presidency.
Executive orders bypass Congress and weaken democracy. But we won't mention that to Biden as he continues to portray Trump as a "threat to democracy.
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