President Biden plans to raise the stakes of the 2024 election in the coming days, sharpening claims that former President Donald Trump is a danger to democracy.
The move will build on Biden's frequent references to “extreme MAGA Republicans” who he says are outside the American mainstream. Back in 2020, Biden ran to “restore the soul of America,” he said.
From a political perspective, Biden could energize a Democratic base that seems restless and dissatisfied with everything from student loan debt to the conflict in the Middle East by re-emphasizing President Trump. You would expect that.
Biden will speak Friday near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where George Washington was based during the Revolutionary War. The speech comes a day before the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
The effort reached its nadir on January 6, when Trump was impeached by Congress and criminally indicted by a federal grand jury for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Within the past three weeks, the Colorado Supreme Court and Maine Secretary of State Shena Bellows (D) ruled to exclude Trump from Republican primaries in those states.
Their argument is rooted in the 14th Amendment, which prohibits persons who have “participated in rebellion or insurrection” from holding public office.
President Trump has appealed both decisions, which are deeply controversial even beyond the former president's base. Some Democrats have expressed concerns about the precedent they have set and the potential to further destroy the nation's infrastructure.
On Monday, Biden is scheduled to speak to mark another solemn occasion. He plans to visit Emanuel AME Church (also known as “Mother Emanuel”) in Charleston, South Carolina. In 2015, a white racist gunman shot and killed nine people at a historic black church.
Although the Mother Emanuel shooting occurred during Obama's presidency, Biden will almost certainly address the broader dangers posed by politicians who incite racial hostility.
Biden campaign aides have made it clear in particular that they view the Valley Forge speech as part of a renewed effort to highlight the existential threat they believe posed by President Trump.
“We're running the campaign as if the fate of our democracy is at stake, because it will happen,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a media conference call.
The Biden campaign is also focusing on President Trump's recent statements that reinforce this claim.
In recent months, the former president has called his political opponents “pests”, mused about using the justice system to thwart future rivals, and told supporters he would be their “vengeance”.
There are also media reports that the second Trump administration will seek to install allies throughout the government to reduce the chance of slow progress on his policies.
“While he and his MAGA supporters encourage and celebrate political violence across the country, he rules as a dictator and uses the government to serve his political opponents,” Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign's communications director, recently said. “I promise to retaliate,” he said. In the Washington Post.
Of course, Trump and his supporters vehemently disagree.
Trump has long portrayed himself as the victim of Democratic partisans and a shadowy “deep state” bent on his destruction.
Trump campaign spokesman Stephen Chan announced Wednesday that he is appealing the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling, saying that Chan was “incited by crooked Joe Biden allies, including the Colorado Supreme Court and the courts.” “Election interference,'' he said. [Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington], a radical left-wing activist group. ”
These groups are “doing everything in their power to disenfranchise all American voters by seeking to exclude President Trump, a leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election, from the primary ballot,” Chan said.
But on the Democratic side, it's clear that the Biden campaign is eager to put the future of American democracy at the forefront.
The argument that Trump is totally unacceptable is “an argument that is highly motivating for the Democratic base,” said Democratic strategist Tad Devine.
“One of the key challenges for President Biden is to encourage Democrats to go vote,” Devine added. “But this is a very powerful argument that resonates emotionally with voters.”
Biden's low poll numbers are causing anxiety among many liberal Americans.
But some Democrats are wary of suggestions that Biden may have a better shot at running against Trump than against other Republican candidates, particularly former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley. It's tightening.
Of course, Trump is the overwhelming favorite as the Republican candidate.
Democrats say it gives Biden a fighting chance.
Democratic strategist Basil Smickle cited a famous optimistic political ad from 40 years ago to illustrate how much the game has changed.
“When I got into politics, it was President Reagan's 'Morning in America' ad that said, 'Are you better now than you were four years ago?' That's the standard. It was a reference point,” Smickle said.
“But that's not the question now. This election will be about not just what Americans have gained over the past four years, but what they have to lose.”
Whether that will be enough to propel Biden to re-election victory is still being debated. His approval rating is just 43 percent, according to the polling average maintained by The Hill and Decision Desk Headquarters.
But Democrats know that running to save America from Trump is the best argument Biden can make.
The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.
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