As the First Presidential Election Since the Attempted Coup Approaches, Let's Reflect on How Much Democracy We Have to Protect and Defend
"We speak of possibilities, not carnage. We're not weighed down by grievances. We don't foster fear. We don't walk around as victims."
Three years ago we nearly lost democracy.
President Joe Biden kicked off his re-election campaign with a speech in Valley Forge, PA Friday to remind us of why we shouldn’t forget that fact — nor make the mistake of bringing it to fruition.
Several key moments stand out.
He asked (not rhetorically, academically, or hypothetically, he pointed out) whether the “sacred cause” of “liberty, democracy, American democracy” that brought George Washington and his “ragtag army made up of ordinary people” to Valley Forge the frigid winter of 1777 was still America’s sacred cause.
He connected that to the attempted coup the former slumlord host of Celebrity Apprentice fomented that nearly ended the cause for which George Washington and those ragtag ordinary people sacrificed so much:
Three years ago tomorrow, we saw with our own eyes the violent mob stormed the United States Capitol. It was almost in disbelief as you first turned on the television.
For the first time in our history, insurrectionists had come to stop the peaceful transfer, transfer of power in America. First time. Smashing windows, shattering doors, attacking the police. Outside, gallows were erected as the MAGA crowd chanted, “Hang Mike Pence.” Inside, they hunted for Speaker Pelosi. The House was chanting as they marched through and smashed windows, “Where’s Nancy?” Over 140 police officers were injured.
WATCH: Biden delivers remarks at campaign event in Valley Forge, Pa.
President Biden delivers remarks at a campaign event in Valley Forge, Pa., on Jan. 5. Read more…www.youtube.com
He asserted:
It was among the worst derelictions of duty by a president in American history. An attempt to overturn a free and fair election by force and violence.
WATCH: Biden delivers remarks at campaign event in Valley Forge, Pa.
President Biden delivers remarks at a campaign event in Valley Forge, Pa., on Jan. 5. Read more…www.youtube.com
Biden then goes on to underscore some of the fascist rhetoric Trump is proudly spewing, straight out of the collected speeches of Adolf Hitler Trump allegedly kept by his bed:
He calls those who opposed, oppose him vermin.
He talks about the blood of America’s is being poisoned, echoing the same exact language used in Nazi Germany.
He proudly posts on social media the words that best describe his 2024 campaign. Quote, revenge, quote, power, and quote, dictatorship.
There’s no confusion about who Trump is, what he intends do.
What does he intend to do? Biden, again, cited Trump’s own words:
Trump is now promising a full-scale campaign of revenge and retribution, his words, for some years to come.
They were his words, not mine. He went on to say he’d be a dictator on day one.
He called, and I quote…the termination of all the rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the U.S. Constitution should be terminated if it fits his will. Even found in the Constitution, he could terminate.
He’s threatened the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the death penalty. He says he should be put to death because the chairman put his oath to the Constitution ahead of his personal loyalty to Trump.
Biden hammered his predecessor when he announced:
Trump won’t do what an American president must do. He refuses to denounce political violence.
So hear me clearly. I’ll say what Donald Trump won’t. Political violence is never, ever acceptable in the United States political system. Never, never, never. It has no place in a democracy. None.
You can’t be pro-insurrectionist and pro-American.
Trump says he doesn’t understand, or he still doesn’t understand the basic truth. That is, you can’t love your country only when you win.
You can’t love your country only when you win.
WATCH: Biden delivers remarks at campaign event in Valley Forge, Pa.
President Biden delivers remarks at a campaign event in Valley Forge, Pa., on Jan. 5. Read more…www.youtube.com
A second Trump presidency wouldn’t be just a threat to the United States. As President Biden articulated, it would be an existential threat to the world. Toward the speech’s end, Biden said:
I can’t tell you how many, how many world leaders, and I know all of them, virtually all of them, grab my arm in private and say, “He can’t win. Tell me. No, my country will be at risk.”
WATCH: Biden delivers remarks at campaign event in Valley Forge, Pa.
President Biden delivers remarks at a campaign event in Valley Forge, Pa., on Jan. 5. Read more…www.youtube.com
No matter the issues one may have with the Biden administration’s handling of the Israeli-Gaza war or anything else, the facts don’t lie. And the facts about this president’s amazing accomplishments in spite of a Congress more divided than at any time in recent memory speak for themselves.
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1741489388528304489
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1743361912887210088?t=EJNnF25WCmIDpPDBY8u3TQ
The results of the 2024 election will literally shape the trajectory of our democratic republic’s future. What transpires will indicate how much harder we have to work to preserve and protect the democratic institutions the republican party, particularly the extreme MAGA contingent quickly subsuming it, threatens to eliminate. The presumptive GOP nominee is literally–out loud–threatening to turn America into a strong-man dictatorship. We can’t make the mistake of dismissing such extreme rhetoric after what we experienced from 2017–21.
It is our responsibility as civic-minded citizens to get the word out on how vital voter participation is, now more than ever. We do that by doing what the corporate media is not–touting Democrats’ accomplishments. Despite the obsession with “the polls” and “Biden’s age,” we have a lot to run on and brag about. The Biden administration’s accomplishments should speak for themselves, but, sadly, the billionaire-funded corporate media is ignoring them.
Topping the list is the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the massive Rooseveltesque landmark legislation that provides the largest investment in history — $385 billion — to fight climate change, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030; lower energy, prescription drug, and health insurance costs; and reduce the federal deficit by requiring a 15% minimum corporate tax rate on companies that report more than $1 billion in profits, and 1% tax on stock buybacks.
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1743273379203788916?t=6HZDPY24Z7OmYMqd77TD5A
Thanks to a key provision in that law, Medicare is now permitted to start negotiating for more affordable pharmaceutical drugs.
Then, of course, we have the American Climate Corps.
The Education Department, upon a directive from the White House, recently started tightening up years of “historical failures” and administrative errors to automatically forgive student loans — totaling $39 billion — for over 800,000 borrowers who have consistently paid 20 or 25 years of their income-driven repayment plans.
Democrats passed and President Biden signed into law the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act, a bill designed to expand health care and disability benefits for veterans exposed to toxic chemicals and burn pits.
More than 600 children have been reunited with the families from which they were separated at the US-Mexico border under the Trump administration’s 2018 “zero tolerance” policy.
The “No Surprises Act,” designed to eliminate surprise bills from health insurance providers for out-of-network care, is now law.
All federal employees and federal contractors must be paid at least $15 per-hour minimum wage.
Biden signed the Postal Service Reform Act that, among other things, “requires the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to establish the Postal Service Health Benefits Program within the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program under which OPM may contract with carriers to offer health benefits plans for USPS employees and retirees.” It also guarantees mail delivery six days per week, and repeals the provisions under the George W. Bush-era Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), requiring the postal service to calculate all its anticipated pension costs for 75 years and set aside five billion dollars per year to cover future employees.
Then there’s “the Safer Communities Act,” the most significant piece of gun safety legislation in 20 years, that includes millions of dollars allocated for mental health, school safety, crisis intervention programs, and incentives for states to incorporate juvenile records into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. It also incentivizes more states to pass “red-flag laws,” designed to permit law enforcement or family members to petition courts for temporary firearm removal if individuals pose potential danger to themselves or others, and extends current laws barring convicted felons and those convicted of domestic violence to abusive dating partners with domestic violence convictions or restraining orders, colloquially referred to as the “boyfriend loophole.” Gun purchasers under age 21 now must undergo expanded background checks. “Ghost guns” are now illegal.
We will finally start manufacturing some technology again in America thanks to the “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America (CHIPS) and Science Act” that will “strengthen American manufacturing, supply chains, and national security, and invest in research and development, science and technology, and the workforce of the future to keep the United States the leader in the industries of tomorrow, including nanotechnology, clean energy, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence.”
We mustn’t ignore it is the same Joe Biden who was so vehemently opposed to marijuana legalization his entire political career and refused to alter his stance even when running for president, issued federal pardons for thousands of Americans with simple marijuana possession convictions, and announced his administration would be taking steps toward marijuana decriminalization.
Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, codifying into federal law the right to same-sex and interracial marriages anywhere in the country, regardless of where the marriages were performed.
Congress passed an omnibus spending bill that includes a reform to the 1887 Electoral Count Act, an important step in helping prevent a repeat of the attempted coup against our government that occurred January 6, 2021.
In the revised law, the vice president’s role in the counting of presidential electoral votes proceedings is now purely ceremonial. Where previously it only took one House member and one senator to object to a state’s slate of electors, kicking off a potentially days-long debate, the new law raises the threshold for an objection to 20% of each chamber’s members.
Joe Biden nominated and got confirmed the first African American woman to the US Supreme Court.
He rallied our allies in defense of Ukraine against Russia’s unprovoked aggression.
He ended the 20-year illegal war in Afghanistan — the longest in US history.
Let’s not ignore the fact that, due to the prior administration’s negligence and malice, we unnecessarily lost over half a million of our fellow Americans to a plague, and it was the nascent Biden administration that prioritized the vaccine that returned us to a semblance of normalcy.
We are building more factories now than ever before in our history and unemployment is at its lowest point in over half a century.
The Biden administration recently announced it plans to invest $16.4 billion for 25 passenger rail projects on Amtrak Northeast Corridor.
At a June campaign event, President Biden announced, “We’re replacing every single, solitary lead pipe in America. Fewer children are going to die and have mental illness.”
As the President declared Friday:
We get up. We carry on.
We never bow. We never bend.
We speak of possibilities, not carnage. We’re not weighed down by grievances.
We don’t foster fear. We don’t walk around as victims.
We take charge of our destiny. We get our job done with the help of the people we find in America, who find their place in a changing world and dream and build a future that not only they but all people deserve a shot at.
We don’t believe, none of you believe America is failing.
We know America is winning.
That’s American patriotism.
It’s not winning because of Joe Biden. It’s winning.
WATCH: Biden delivers remarks at campaign event in Valley Forge, Pa.
President Biden delivers remarks at a campaign event in Valley Forge, Pa., on Jan. 5. Read more…www.youtube.com
The president concluded:
In the year ahead, as you talk to your family and friends, cast your ballots, the power is in your hands.
After all we’ve been through in our history, from independence to civil war to two world wars to a pandemic to insurrection, I refuse to believe that in 2024 we Americans will choose to walk away from what’s made us the greatest nation in the history of the world.
Freedom, liberty. Democracy is still a sacred cause, and there’s no country in the world better positioned to lead the world than America.
That’s why, I’ve said it many times, that’s why I’ve never been more optimistic about our future, and I’ve been doing this a hell of a long time.
Just to remember who we are.
With patience and fortitude, with one heart, we are the United States of America, for God’s sake. I mean it.
There’s nothing. I believe with every fiber there’s nothing beyond our capacity if we act together and decently with one another.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
I mean it. We’re the only nation in the world that’s come out of every crisis stronger than we went into that crisis. And that was true yesterday.
It is true today. And I guarantee you will be true tomorrow.
WATCH: Biden delivers remarks at campaign event in Valley Forge, Pa.
President Biden delivers remarks at a campaign event in Valley Forge, Pa., on Jan. 5. Read more…www.youtube.com