In an incendiary speech Wednesday at historic Union Station, located next to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., President Joe Biden warned that if Republicans win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate next Tuesday, it would be an “assault on democracy.”
While one might understandably wonder how it could be an “assault on democracy” if the American voting public cast their ballots for one political party over another political party, Biden used the recent attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, in crime-ridden San Francisco, to make that very argument.
Noting that when a mob entered the Capitol on January 6, with some shouting, “Where’s Nancy?” Biden cited media reports that the man who assaulted Pelosi’s husband with a hammer shouted the same thing.
“Those were the very same words used by the mob when they stormed the United States Capitol on January the 6th, when they broke windows, kicked in doors, brutally attacked law enforcement, roamed the corridors hunting for officials and erected gallows to hang the former Vice President Mike Pence,” Biden said.
He added, “We don’t settle our differences with a riot, or a mob, or a bullet, or a hammer. We settle them peaceably at the ballot box.”
“This is no ordinary year,” Biden insisted. “In a typical year, we are not often faced with the question of whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy or put it at risk. But we are this year.”
Why is this? According to Biden, “You know, American democracy is under attack because the defeated former president of the United States refused to accept the results of the 2020 election. He refuses to accept the will of the people. He refuses to accept the fact that he lost. He has abused his power and put loyalty to himself before law under the Constitution.”
And, Biden claimed, it is not just Trump who is the problem, but a majority of the Republican members of Congress, whom he dubbed “Extreme MAGA Republicans.” He called attention to Republican candidates for other races, as well. “As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America: for Governor, for Congress, for Attorney General, for Secretary of State who won’t commit to accepting the results of the elections they’re in.”
Biden failed to mention the history of Democrats who have refused to accept the results of elections that they lost. When Donald Trump won his surprising victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, Clinton insisted that Trump was “illegitimate.” She was joined by several other Democrats — including members of the House of Representatives — who challenged the certification of the electoral votes on January 6, 2017.
He also failed to mention the refusal of Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams to accept the outcome of the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race after her defeat by 50,000 votes.
And, Biden neglected to condemn the violent assaults on Republican officeholders, such as the attack on Senator Rand Paul on his own front lawn by an angry supporter of socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, or the attempted murder of Representative Steve Scalise by another devotee of Sanders.
Senator Paul questioned Biden’s remarks, arguing that “for all the attack upon democracy,” Biden is ignoring the threats to the right of free speech, protected in “our constitutional republic.” Paul accused Biden’s party of being the “party of authoritarianism,” as the government — under Biden — colludes with social-media giants to suppress free speech.
Yet, Biden’s allies at the Brookings Institution have charged that more than 340 congressional candidates on the November 8 ballot have expressed what it — and their corporate media allies — has repeatedly called “false claims” that the 2020 election was flawed.
Biden’s references to the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol — for which he blames Trump for challenging the outcome of the 2020 presidential election — also ring hollow, when he has never issued one word of condemnation of the deadly riots that swept the country in the summer of 2020, riots that included an attempt to storm the White House itself. The attack on the White House was unsuccessful only because scores of Secret Service agents fought off that mob, suffering multiple injuries.
House Minority Leader — almost certainly soon to be Majority Leader — Kevin McCarthy referred to Biden’s speech as a diversion from the real issues facing the nation. “President Biden is trying to divide and deflect at a time when America needs to unite — because he can’t talk about his policies that have driven up the cost of living. The American people aren’t buying it.”
