As midterm elections in the US draw nigh and Democrat forecasts remain pessimistic, Joe Biden has apparently decided it is time to deliver a new jab against the 74 million Trump supporters, decrying all who share the former president’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) views as "extremists" who threaten "the very foundations of our republic".
The speech was "tiresomely predictable", according to political analyst and Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred Dr. Nicholas Waddy. Waddy pointed out that given the few successes Biden had to report, he opted for the “standard brew of alarmism" and to "go negative" against Republicans. The analyst explained that the POTUS sought to distract voters and those still sitting on the fence from the situation in the country, its economy and in the world.
"In essence, he's peddling the same line of attack that the January 6th Committee has been pursuing for months: the idea that the GOP is violent, extreme, and beyond the pale, and that only Republicans who disown Trump are true patriots and decent human beings. Democrats and their media allies want 2022 to be a referendum on Trump (yet again), when it ought to be a referendum on their leadership of the country," Waddy explained.
Biden came to power on the promise of "uniting" the country. However, he has since changed his tune to a more dangerous one in which some Republicans are labeled "fascists", "racists", "white supremacists", or "extremists", Waddy pointed out.
According to Waddy, it is Biden and the left-leaning Democrats supporting him who present the gravest danger to US democracy. The political analyst alleged that they have undermined respect for the opposition – a key for the lasting existence of a free society – by coining those who disagree with them “Nazis”.
Waddy went on to argue that Biden's September 1 speech is unlikely to sway independents and GOP voters, rather solidifying the latter's support for Trump and MAGA in a similar way to the FBI raid on Trump's estate in Florida last month.
2 September 2022, 09:41 GMT
No Way Out of 'Basket of Deplorables', Political Division?
The analyst argued that Democrats currently attempt to convince Republicans that their only way out of the "Basket of Deplorables", as Hillary Clinton notoriously described Trump supporters, is to renounce the former GOP president.
"Biden leaves it to voters' imaginations to decide which Republicans aren't ‘fascists’. The implication of his remarks is clear enough, though: voters who love America and its values have no choice but to vote for Democrats in November and beyond," he argued.
However, even those, whom Trump and other mainstream GOP call RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), won't get much out of distancing themselves from the former president, Waddy believes. He concluded that Democrats are unlikely to paid heed to anti-Trump Republicans such as Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney, but will simply use these them to their own benefit.