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In a prime-time speech with just days to go before the midterm elections, President Joe Biden last night warned that American democracy could be at risk if election deniers and supporters of political violence and intimidation get into office. The speech, motivated by recent acts of voter intimidation and the horrific hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul, called on Americans of all parties to reject the Big Lie and its proponents, saying that refusal to accept the outcome of elections “is the path to chaos in America. It’s unprecedented. It’s unlawful. And it’s un-American.”
As he did in his September speech in Philadelphia, Biden warned that the future of democracy is on the ballot in these elections, and that political violence and election denial both have their roots in Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of the election in which voters overwhelmingly rejected him.
American democracy is under attack because the defeated former president of the United States refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election. […] He’s abused his power and put the loyalty to himself before loyalty to the Constitution. And he’s made a Big Lie an article of faith in the MAGA Republican Party, the minority of that party.
As the pundits said, it just might be a speech that’ll show up in history books someday, depending on whether the votes Americans cast next Tuesday help preserve democracy or, like the January 6 insurrection, mark another stage in a slide into authoritarianism.
Biden spoke at Washington DC’s Union Station, at a political event sponsored by the Democratic National Committee, and noted that the location is just blocks away from the Capitol — the scene of the mob violence on January 6 aimed at overturning the 2020 election. Some of the people running for office on an election denial platform were even at the Capitol that day, like Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano.
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Opening his speech by recounting the attack on Paul Pelosi, Biden almost choked up in disbelief that the attacker had used the same words as some of the Capitol invaders: “Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?” Biden noted that Trump’s Big Lie had fueled threats of violence well before January 6, as poll workers and Republican officials in Georgia, Arizona, and elsewhere were subjected to death threats for doing their jobs and making sure all the ballots were counted. The threats, Biden said, all grew out of Trump’s lies, “repeated over and over to generate a cycle of anger, hate, vitriol and even violence.” What America needs, Biden said, is a good dose of reality:
In this moment, we have to confront those lies with the truth. The very future of our nation depends on it. My fellow Americans, we’re facing a defining moment, an inflection point. We must with one overwhelming unified voice speak as a country and say there’s no place, no place for voter intimidation or political violence in America. Whether it’s directed at Democrats or Republicans. No place, period. No place ever.
Biden noted that as with any election, there are many important issues at stake, but that voters must above all recognize that democracy and autocracy are also on the ballot: “We must vote knowing who we have been, what we’re at risk of becoming.” He pointed out that attempts to subvert the elections are already underway, in the form of attempts to intimidate voters and election officials.
To underline what Biden was talking about, Reuters reports today that in several states, groups of self-appointed voting fraud hunters have gone canvassing door to door scaring voters with intrusive questions, some of the Bad Samaritans wearing “reflective orange vests and official-looking badges that read ‘Voter Taskforce.'” In Shasta County, California, canvassers in such gear
grilled residents on their voting history and who lived in their homes, probing questions that might have violated state laws on intimidation and harassment, according to the county’s chief election official.
At one house, they interrogated a couple about the whereabouts of their adult daughter. At another, they listed names of registered voters and demanded to know if they still lived at the address.
Shasta County Clerk Cathy Darling Allen said she only learned of the weird canvassers after seeing posts about them on Facebook; when she called the people to get more information, they asked her if the busybodies worked for the county, because they looked and acted like they had some kind of authority.
Apparently they stopped short of flashing fake police badges, although we hear those are easy to purchase if you’re an aspiring political ratfucker, too. Allen warned voters in the county that
canvassers’ actions amounted to intimidation and violations of election laws. “I was very concerned that it would have a chilling effect on people’s willingness to be registered to vote, and that’s not OK,” she said in an interview.
And in fact, Reuters reporters have identified at least 23 similar canvassing efforts at a state or county level, in which civic-minded MAGAs are going around banging on doors to check on people’s voting habits and eligibility.
Some carried weapons, wore badges, asked people who they’d voted for or demanded personal information, election officials said.
That’s OK though, because they have a holy mission to compile lists of voters they want removed from the voting rolls. Fox News, Mike Lindell, and Donald Trump say fraud is rampant and the Deep State won’t stop it, so they’re just taking care of fraud on their own. Who cares if some residents feel intimidated? If you’re not doing anything wrong, why are you so nervous, punk?
So anyway, Joe Biden said stuff like that is wrong and un-American, shame on him for being so divisive. Also, Republicans are very upset that Biden would dare suggest there’s anything untoward about denying the legitimacy of elections or making sure voters aren’t secretly frauders or Democrats, and why is he even giving a speech from a “slum” in DC where decent people don’t even live?
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But the real scandal, according to National Review editor Rich Lowry, is that Biden is blaming political violence on people who keep talking about civil war and eliminating domestic enemies, instead of recognizing the real problem is mentally ill people who listen to QAnon people talking about civil war and eliminating domestic enemies. Don’t you see?
Why, it’s almost enough to make a Patriot take up arms and talk about the need to cleanse America with purifying fire. Or at the very least, to make sure no mentally ill Democrats are at the local polling place.
[CNN / NYT / Reuters / NPR / NYT Speech transcript]
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