Biden fears for Democracy, but it might not matter in midterms
WASHINGTON >> Sometimes, politicians actually say what they mean. Doing so isn’t always convenient for the official, and these moments aren’t guaranteed to galvanize the public. But the rare occasions when political calculation falls away are always revealing.
So it was on Wednesday, when President Biden gave an address to the nation. The speech probably wasn’t the closing argument Democrats need in advance of this week’s midterm elections. Rather, it was a stark and sober warning that our democracy itself is under unprecedented assault, and a reminder of why Joe Biden is president at all.
Biden has been in politics for half a century and knows how to read opinion polls. He might have used this last moment before the election to make a broad case for his party, or to try to swing crucial groups such as suburbanites, young voters or seniors. But rather than focusing on inflation and the economy, or the Republican threat to reproductive rights, Medicare and Social Security, Biden opened with a narrative.
“Just a few days ago, a little before 2:30 a.m. in the morning, a man smashed the back windows and broke into the home of the speaker of the House of Representatives, the third-highest-ranking official in America,” Biden said soberly. “He carried in his backpack zip ties, duct tape, rope and a hammer. As he told the police, he had come looking for Nancy Pelosi to take her hostage, to interrogate her, to threaten to break her kneecaps. … The assailant ended up using a hammer to smash skull.”
That’s not the vibe most presidents would try to conjure at a moment when unemployment is at just 3.5 percent, the economy is growing again after a brief lull and gasoline prices have come down, according to AAA, “like the falling leaves.”
Biden did not mention any of these things. Instead, choosing Union Station near the Capitol as his venue, he devoted the entire speech to what he called the threat to “democracy itself.” He called on “all Americans, regardless of party” to recognize that the health of our democracy is more important than any specific set of progressive or conservative policies.
That might not be the most convenient message for the moment. After all, a New York Times-Siena College poll from October made headlines when it suggested that even when voters believed democracy was under threat, they prioritized other kitchen-table concerns.
Biden has fought hard to meet those concerns over the past two years. But the idea that the U.S. political system is endangered is the core reason Biden is in the White House.
Recall that he had served his two terms as vice president and was retired, with no intention ever to run for anything again. But following the 2017 march by white nationalists in Charlottesville, the killing of an anti-racist protester and President Donald Trump’s declaration that there were “very fine people on both sides” in that clash, Biden decided that Trump had to be denied a second term — and that, if necessary, he would be the one to do it.
No wonder, then, that Biden delivered a major speech on the subject at Independence Hall in Philadelphia just two months ago, and no wonder he essentially repeated it this week. But if Biden’s focus on the state of the American experiment reveals his basic decency, it also suggests a political problem.
Not only do many voters who care about democracy not put the issue first, but Biden is probably too optimistic in his belief that “extreme MAGA Republicans” — or at least those who question the validity of Trump’s defeat — are a minority faction.
I share Biden’s desire to believe that Trumpism is an aberration, or perhaps a mass hallucination, and that someday the GOP will recover its senses. But I don’t share his faith that the fever is likely to break anytime soon.
Biden delivered Wednesday’s speech with great conviction but without much fire. The president will be 80 later this month, and on occasion he looks tired. He flubs lines in speeches that he once would have nailed. Even accounting for these stumbles, his commitment to the mission that propelled him to the presidency has not diminished.
He has brilliantly organized the West’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; brought the nation out of the COVID-19 pandemic; pushed through legislation that dramatically reduced child poverty; signed a much-needed, trillion-dollar bipartisan infrastructure bill; and returned the United States to a leadership role in the global effort to address climate change and design a cleanenergy future.
But this week’s speech showed what is most important to Biden — and what keeps him up at night. If it turns out that neither his accomplishments nor his conviction end up being enough to secure victory for his party on Tuesday, it would reveal more about the public than the president.