Unfinished Business: Biden Intensifies Attack on Trumpism

WASHINGTON — Nearly two years after defeating Donald Trump, President Joe Biden has unfinished business in coming to terms with the forces of Trumpism.

The president is set to use Thursday’s prime-time address to challenge his 2020 campaign themes as part of the ongoing battle for the “soul of the nation” in the upcoming midterm elections. According to the terms they sent to the Oval Office two years ago.

Biden, who avoided referring to “the old man” by name during his first year in office, raised his voice by calling Trump personally, which White House officials said showed the urgency with which they view Trump and his threats. devotees.

President Joe Biden in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. He spoke on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at the Arnaud C. Martz Center on the campus of Wilkes University. Ivan Vucci / Associated Press

With less than 10 weeks left in an average session, Biden’s speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia comes as he feels buoyed by a string of legislative victories. He’s framing his attack on Republicans as an “ultra-MAGA” party — a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan — that opposes his agenda, embraces conservative ideological propositions and spreads Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

“What we’re seeing right now is the start or death of the high MAGA philosophy,” Biden told Democrats at a Maryland fundraiser last week. “It’s not just Trump, it’s his whole philosophy — I’ll say one thing, it’s like semi-fascism.”

In a speech on Thursday, White House officials said Biden had come out of political retirement to challenge Trump by returning to a white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. They argue that the country will face a similar crossroads in the coming months.

“The president thinks there is a radical threat to our democracy,” White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday. “It’s not stopping. It’s going on.”

As the president prepares to denounce “ultra-MAGA” Republicans, Biden’s allies have used his rhetoric to completely reject the GOP and call on mainstream Republicans to join forces in condemning Trump and his followers. Still, more than 74 million Americans voted for Trump in 2020, so he faces a balancing act.

“I respect conservative Republicans,” Biden said last week. “I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans.”

Larry Diamond, an expert on democracy and a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said Biden faced a difficult situation when facing Trump. Calling for an attack on democracy can be “manipulated or framed by partisanship.” And if you don’t call, you’re missing out on the crucial challenge of protecting democracy.

“To covet it, or to shy away from the challenge for fear of appearing biased, in my view, is of no use,” he said. “The threats are very serious and very imminent.”

Even this week, Trump has been posting on the crowded social media platform that nullifying the results of the 2020 election and holding a new presidential election would violate the Constitution.

Timothy Natali, a presidential historian at New York University, said that disagreements between a president and his successor are not unusual, but “it is unprecedented for a former president to actively try to undermine the US Constitution.”

“The challenge for President Biden is to move forward with his agenda while doing what he needs to do to uphold the Constitution,” Nafali said. “This is not easy.”

The White House has made an earnest attempt to remove the president from legal and political entanglement by obtaining classified Justice Department documents at Trump’s Florida home. Biden has used some Republicans’ scathing condemnation of federal law enforcement.

“You can’t be law enforcement and be an insurgent,” Biden said Tuesday in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He added: “I am against defunding the police. “I also oppose defunding the FBI.”

Biden’s appearance as an official, taxpayer-funded event is a sign that the president sees defeating Trump’s agenda as a political goal. The major broadcast television networks are not expected to carry the address live.

For his part, Jean-Pierre said Biden held the event in prime time because he believes “we need to save our country’s core values.”

“They don’t respect the rule of law,” she said of the “mega-republicans.” And they are promoting an agenda that deprives people of their rights.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced Thursday afternoon in Scranton, Pennsylvania that he would address “Biden’s assault on the American soul,” accusing the president of planning to “continue to denigrate hardworking Americans.”

“Joe Biden is the ultimate distributor and epitomizes the current state of the Democratic Party: divisive, offensive and hostile to half the country,” said RNC Chairwoman Rona McDaniel.

Biden’s trip to Philadelphia will be one of three presidential visits to the state in a week, underscoring his importance in the midterms, along with competitive Senate and gubernatorial races. Trump will hold a rally there this weekend.

The White House hopes to use the Philadelphia speech to unify under one banner some of the familiar themes of a Biden presidency: proving that Democrats can “deliver” bipartisan legislative victories on guns and infrastructure, pushing “extreme” GOP policies on guns and abortion that are out of touch with most people, and Rejecting efforts to undermine confidence in the country’s elections or undermine its standing abroad.

“The difference is clear, while the MAGA wing is focused on weakening the custodians of our democracy to undermine the will of the people, the president is fighting to protect our democracy and deliver real results for working families,” said Daniel Melfi. An executive behind the building, which coordinates communications between Democratic groups on behalf of the White House.

Biden said, “It shows how that contrast is flipped in the minds of all voters,” from abortion to guns, to keep American elections free and fair.

In the year After the upheaval surrounding the 2020 presidential election, the challenges to democracy are mounting.

Fraud surrounding the 2020 election has led to harassment and death threats against state and local election officials and new restrictions on mail-in voting in Republican-dominated states. County election officials have been pressured to ban the use of voting devices, fueled by conspiracy theories that voting machines are somehow being used to steal the election.

Candidates opposed to Trump’s defeat have been motivated to run for state and local elections, promising to restore credibility to a system tainted by false claims and conspiracy theories. Some have supported widespread fraud and efforts to ensure Biden’s victory.

There is no evidence of rigging or manipulation of voting machines. Judges, including Trump appointees, have dismissed dozens of lawsuits filed since the election, and Trump’s attorney general has dismissed the claims as bogus. However, the AP-NORC poll shows that two-thirds of Republicans support Biden in 2016. He said they don’t think he is legitimately elected president in 2020.

Heading into mid-November, election officials face not only the threat of outside interference, but also ransomware, politically motivated hackers and insider threats. In the past year, there have been security breaches at a handful of local election offices, where officials are investigating whether office workers improperly accessed or misused sensitive voting technology.

AP reporter Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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