Biden’s fighting talk ignites most Dems

In recent days, President Joe Biden has sharpened his attacks against Donald Trump and the so-called MAGA Republicans for posing a threat to democracy. He’s likened the philosophy undergirding the dominant strain of the modern-day GOP to “semi-fascism”.

And Democrats are noticing. The new gloves-off, no-holdsbarred approach from Biden has emboldened Democrats across the country, rallying the party faithful ahead of the November elections even as his harshest rhetoric makes some vulnerable incumbents uncomfortable.

At a Democratic National Committee meeting in Maryland yesterday, Biden said, “Extreme MAGA Republicans just don’t threaten our personal and economic rights, they embrace political violence,” referencing the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

“They refuse to accept the will of the people,” he said. “They threaten our very democracy.”

Biden’s increasingly stark warnings about Trump-fuelled Republican Party elements are making up the core part of his midterm message, combined with repeated reminders about recent Democratic accomplishments and a promise democracy can still produce results for Americans.

But it’s the blistering statements about his predecessor and adherents of the “Make America Great Again” philosophy that have given many Democrats a bolt of fresh energy as they campaign to keep hold of Congress.

“Folks want us, want people to show there is a clear contrast in the election between where Democrats are and Republicans have been,” said Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, who leads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm of Senate Democrats.

Representative Ro Khanna, D-California, noted “politics is somewhat like a team sport, and the president is the quarterback. The team is not going to fight hard if they don’t see the team leader fighting hard.”

Biden’s forceful posture comes as Democrats feel more optimistic about the midterms, when the party controlling the White House has usually had losses in Congress.

A mix of legislative successes, polarising Republican candidates and voter fury stoked by the overturn of Roe vs Wade have Democrats feeling they could see smaller losses in the House than initially expected and keep their barebones Senate majority.

Biden began road-testing his midterm message at a rally in the Washington suburbs late last month, as he railed against a Republican ideology he said largely resembled “semi-fascism”.

The White House chose Philadelphia’s Independence Hall as the backdrop for last week’s address that outlined the danger

Trump’s “extreme ideology” posed to the functioning of U.S. democracy.

And in a pair of Labor Day events in critical midterm battlegrounds, Biden continued to hammer the contrast while becoming even more comfortable in invoking his predecessor, whom he had avoided referring to by name for much of his presidency.

“You can’t call yourself a democracy when you don’t, in fact, count the votes that people legitimately cast and count that as what you are,” Biden said Tuesday before a union crowd in Pittsburgh. “Trump and the MAGA Republicans made their choice. We can choose to build a better America or we can continue down this sliding path of oblivion to where we don’t want to go.”

Biden will headline an event today in Ohio, a state where the Senate contest between Democrat Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. Vance is becoming increasingly competitive.

Those close to Biden say he has never shied from a political fight.

“He’s always made the case very aggressively when he thinks the other side is wrong,” said Senator Bob Casey, D-Pennsylvania, who has known Biden since the 1980s.

“I think he’s always tried to lift up the country and tried to appeal to our better angels while at the same time, making the case for when he thinks the other side is on the wrong track.”

Senator Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, said issues of democracy, as well as Trump himself, were increasingly becoming topics of concern for voters.

“More and more people are feeling that, you know, this former president broke the law over and over and over again, and people around him are still doing his bidding to undermine our democracy,” she said.

Still, the sharper-edged posture from Biden has been more complicated for Democrats competing in some of the most contested Senate races this cycle, as they seek to attract support from voters who may have backed Trump in 2020.

While she stressed she had “concerns about attacks on our democracy,” Senator Maggie Hassan, D-New Hampshire, told WMUR News 9 in New Hampshire that “I think President Biden’s comments just painted with way too broad a brush”.

Republicans have accused Biden of divisive rhetoric. GOP officials believe he is a liability in competitive districts and states, although his approval ratings have brightened of late.

“I hope Biden keeps going around the country,” Senator Rick Scott, R-Florida, told Fox News Wednesday. “I hope he goes to every swing state and gives his raving lunatic speech everywhere around the country.”