Joe Biden did not speak those truths without qualifications or exceptions. Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course. Toward that end, it rejects the rule of law, truth, reason and human decency, and is clearly willing to use corrupt and unrestrained power to achieve its goals. It is engaged in what it understands as an existential revolutionary struggle to destroy multiracial pluralistic democracy and return the country to a fictional golden age when "people like them" ruled uncontested over virtually all aspects of American society. It is deeply hostile to nonwhites, Muslims, immigrants, LGBTQ people, feminists, progressives of all kinds and other groups deemed to be "un-American".
It rejects the core democratic principles of freedom of the press and free speech. It blends fake populism and extreme nationalism and white supremacy. It endorses or condones political violence, including terrorism and an attempted coup. It has officially embraced Trump's Big Lie and a range of related conspiracy theories and assaults on truth. The examples are numerous: Today's Republican Party is organized around the Great Leader principle and a political personality cult. In fact, today's Republicans are not "semi-fascists," as the president has said, but actual fascists, increasingly allied with a global authoritarian movement.Īmerica is finally waking up to the fascist danger: Let's hope it's not too late But there's no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. I know, because I've been able to work with these mainstream Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology. Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Now, I want to be very clear, very clear up front. This was remarkable truth-telling, yet at crucial moments the president was simply too generous toward those who refuse to respect democracy or the rule of law: They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fanned the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.Īmerica, Biden said, was "at an inflection point" and must choose "to build a future or obsess about the past, to be a nation of hope and unity and optimism or a nation of fear, division and of darkness." It was impossible, he said, to be "pro-insurrectionist and pro-American," calling for the rejection of "political violence" and a willingness to accept "the results of free and fair elections" rather than seeing politics as "total war." MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards, backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love. They refuse to accept the results of a free election, and they're working right now as I speak in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself. They do not recognize the will of the people.
MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic. Too much of what's happening in our country today is not normal. A flame that lit our way through abolition, the Civil War, suffrage, the Great Depression, world wars, civil rights." After insisting that the "sacred flame still burns," Biden shifted his tone dramatically: Speaking in front of Independence Hall, Biden spoke of the "flame of liberty that was lit here. For an American president to issue such a warning is virtually without precedent: Matters are that dire.
Last Thursday in Philadelphia, Biden delivered a careful, statesmanlike and truly historic speech warning the American people that the Republican Party and the "conservative" movement have been taken over by Donald Trump and his MAGA-fascist followers.
Biden's kindness and generosity of spirit, not to mention his patience, reasonableness and belief in the better angels of America's nature may lead to the downfall of democracy. Joe Biden may be too damn nice for his own good - and for the nation's.