Biden presents his re-election as a battle to save democracy from Trump

United States President Joe Biden invited a group of academics and historians to lunch at the White House on Wednesday to discuss current threats to democracy and institutions. Biden has turned to history on several occasions in his crusade in defense of democracy. In 2022 he gave a speech in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence of 1776 was signed. This Friday he visited Valley Forge (Pennsylvania), where General George Washington regrouped his troops during the winter of 1777-1778 to prepare the counteroffensive. against the British in the War of Independence. Shortly after, he held his first rally of 2024 near there, in Blue Bell, in which he made it clear that he presents his re-election in the November presidential elections as a battle to save democracy from the threat posed by Donald Trump, who has come to power. to say that if he wins he will be a “dictator” for a day.

The former president, however, returns the ball with accusations against Biden and says that the real threat to democracy is him, although he does so based on hoaxes and lies.

The dialectical battle has occurred on the anniversary of the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, which continues to mark American political and judicial life three years later. Faced with cross accusations, citizens, meanwhile, lose faith in the system. A poll published by Gallup this Saturday shows that only 28% are satisfied with the way democracy is working. It is a new historical low, even below the 35% of the weeks after the attack on Congress to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 elections.

“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 pit a historically unpopular incumbent president against a former president whom voters previously rejected for a second term,” summarizes Gallup.

Although Trump counterattacks, the one who has made the defense of democracy the axis of his speech is Biden. The president fails to convince voters with the economy, despite the record of job creation, nor with his legislative achievements, which have promoted industrial and infrastructure investments. The right to abortion continues to mobilize the Democratic electorate, but it is not an issue on which Biden, a practicing Catholic, feels very comfortable. The Gaza war has reduced his support among young people and Arab Americans, two groups that closed ranks with him in 2020. And, at 81, voters see him as too old. To a large extent, then, Biden's assets to achieve re-election consist of mobilizing voters to prevent Trump from winning.

Perhaps that explains why, after avoiding at all costs quoting Trump for most of his term, Biden has decided to enter into the fray. Never until this Friday's speech at Blue Bell, on a stage full of American flags and decorated with four columns of Ionic capitals, had he been so harsh against his rival, whom he even blamed for the death of several law enforcement officers in the assault. to the Capitol. “They died because of Donald Trump's lies, because those lies brought a mob to Washington,” he said.

Crossed insults

Unusually for Biden, he called Trump a “loser” and “sick” and called his attitude “despicable.” The president, born in Scranton (Pennsylvania), first went to Valley Forge when he was a boy scout This Friday he evoked the words of George Washington when he said that his mission was a “sacred cause” in the pursuit of freedom and democracy. Faced with that, Trump's attitude in the assault on the Capitol “was one of the worst derelictions of duty by a president in the history of the United States: an attempt to annul free and fair elections by force and violence.” . “It was that day when we almost lost America, we lost everything,” he added.

And he made it clear that the defense of democracy will be a main axis of his campaign. Because, according to the president, that threat is still very much alive: “Trump's assault on democracy is not just part of his past. This is what he promises for the future. He's being 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 with a mobile phone while images of the revolt were played [el asalto al Capitolio] on a giant screen behind him. “Can you believe it?” said Biden, recalling that Trump has promised a presidency of “revenge”, “revenge” and being a “dictator” for a day.

The president recalled that Trump has called those who oppose him “vermin” and that he has spoken about immigrants poisoning the blood of Americans, “repeating exactly the 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 did avoid once again is to mention the four charges against Trump for a total of 91 crimes. Biden has distanced himself from these prosecutions, respecting the independence of the Department of Justice; of the attorney general, Merrick Garland, and the special prosecutors. Nor did he refer to Trump's provisional exclusion from the primary ballots in the States of Colorado and Maine, the same day that the Supreme Court admitted the former president's appeal against the Colorado decision, on which it will decide in February.

Trump is using his judicial problems to present himself as a martyr and get the Republican base to close ranks with him. Furthermore, he has accused Biden of instigating these prosecutions without evidence. “Yesterday, in one of the most ridiculous speeches I have ever heard, corrupt Joe Biden compared himself to George Washington and compared his re-election campaign to the war for freedom that Washington led to ensure 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 who had his main political opponent (servant) illegally arrested four times and is trying to imprison me for life as an innocent man,” he adds. “I look at the scoundrel currently occupying the White House and I see no difference between Joe Biden and a Third World Marxist dictator desperate to stay in power,” he adds.

Such serious accusations between candidates are not frequent in US presidential elections. As Biden says, “democracy is on the ballot.” The 2024 campaign is presented as the most tense in the recent history of the United States.

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