US President Joe Biden invited a group of scientists and historians to lunch at the White House on Wednesday to discuss current threats to democracy and institutions. Biden has turned to history several times in his crusade to defend democracy. In 2022, he gave a speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the 1776 Declaration of Independence was signed. This Friday he visited Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where General George Washington regrouped his troops in the winter of 1777-1778 in preparation for the counteroffensive against the British in the Revolutionary War. Shortly thereafter, he held his first rally of 2024 near Blue Bell, where he made it clear that he is portraying his re-election in November's presidential election as a fight to save democracy from the threat posed by Donald Trump Power has come. saying that if he wins he will be a “dictator” for a day.
However, the former president returns the ball with accusations against Biden, saying he is the real threat to democracy, although he does so on the basis of hoaxes and lies.
The dialectical struggle took place on the anniversary of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, which continues to shape American political and legal life three years later. In view of the counter-accusations, citizens are now losing trust in the system. A Gallup poll released Saturday shows only 28% are satisfied with how democracy works. That's a new historic low, even below the 35% in the weeks following the attack on Congress to stop the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election.
“Americans are preparing to elect the next president at a time when they are less satisfied with the state of American democracy than at any time in at least 40 years.” “The 2024 election is expected to have a historically unpopular incumbent president running against a former president whom voters previously rejected for a second term,” Gallup summarizes.
Although Trump counterattacks, Biden is the one who made the defense of democracy the focus of his speech. The president has failed to convince voters on the economy, despite creating many jobs, or on his legislative achievements that have boosted industrial and infrastructure investment. Abortion rights continue to mobilize Democratic voters, but it is not an issue that Biden, a practicing Catholic, feels particularly comfortable with. The Gaza war has reduced his support among young people and Arab Americans, two groups that allied with him in 2020. And at 81, voters consider him too old. Biden's means of re-election consist largely of mobilizing voters to prevent Trump from winning.
Perhaps that explains why Biden, after avoiding quoting Trump at all costs for most of his time in office, has decided to enter the fight. Until his speech Friday at the Blue Bell, on a stage draped with American flags and adorned with four columns of Ionic capitals, he had never cracked down so harshly on his rival, whom he even blamed for the deaths of several police officers in the attack. to the Capitol. “They died because of Donald Trump’s lies, because those lies brought a mob to Washington,” he said.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without restrictions.
Subscribe to
Crossed insults
Unusually for Biden, he called Trump a “loser” and “sick” and described his stance as “despicable.” Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, President first went to Valley Forge as a Boy Scout. This Friday he recalled the words of George Washington when he said his mission was a “sacred cause” in the pursuit of freedom and democracy. Given this, Trump's stance in attacking the Capitol was “one of the worst derelictions of duty by a president in the history of the United States: an attempt to overturn a free and fair election by force and violence.” “It was the day we almost lost America, we lost everything,” he added.
And he made it clear that defending democracy will be a key focus of his campaign. Because, according to the president, this threat is still very much alive: “Trump’s attack on democracy is not just part of his past. This is what it promises for the future. He is direct. He doesn't hide the ball. His first rally for the 2024 campaign began with a choir of January 6 insurrectionists singing from prison using a cellphone while images of the revolt were played [el asalto al Capitolio] on a huge screen behind him. “Can you believe this?” Biden said, recalling that Trump had promised a presidency of “vengeance,” “revenge” and the role of “dictator” for one day.
The president recalled that Trump called those who opposed him “vermin” and that he spoke of immigrants poisoning the blood of Americans, “repeating the exact same language used in Nazi -Germany,” he said, also underlining his admiration for the presidents of Russia, Vladimir Putin and North Korea, Kim Jong-un, among others.
What the president once again avoided is mentioning the four charges leveled against Trump for a total of 91 crimes. Biden has distanced himself from these prosecutions while respecting the Justice Department's independence; Attorney General Merrick Garland and special prosecutors. He also made no reference to Trump's preliminary disqualification from the state primaries in Colorado and Maine, the same day the Supreme Court allowed the former president to appeal the Colorado decision, which he will rule on in February.
Trump is using his legal troubles to portray himself as a martyr and get the Republican base to join him. Additionally, he accused Biden of initiating these prosecutions without evidence. “Yesterday, in one of the most ridiculous speeches I have ever heard, the corrupt Joe Biden compared himself to George Washington and compared his re-election campaign to the war of freedom that Washington waged to secure our independence,” the former president said this Saturday in a statement to his followers.
“This is the same Joe Biden who is actively trying to erase your sacred right to vote by removing my name from the 2024 ballot. The same one whose main political opponent (official) was illegally arrested four times and who is trying to imprison me for living as an innocent man,” he adds. “When I look at the villain currently occupying the White House, I see no difference between Joe Biden and a Third World Marxist dictator desperate to stay in power,” he added.
Such serious allegations between candidates are not common in U.S. presidential elections. As Biden says, “Democracy is on the ballot.” The 2024 election campaign is being portrayed as the most tense in recent United States history.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_