President Joe Biden has warned Americans that his predecessor Donald Trump and his die-hard followers try to “undermine” democracy and requested them to confront the “extremists” who fire up political violence in pursuit of energy.
Delivering his sharpest rebuke but of Republicans in a prime-time speech from the enduring Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the place the US Declaration of Independence was signed almost 250 years in the past, Biden warned that the supporters of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) agenda are a risk to American democracy.
“As I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault,” Biden, a Democrat warned, forward of essential mid-term elections in November that may decide management of Congress.
“Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and MAGA (Make America Great Again) Republicans represent extremism that threatens our very republic. MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution,” the 79-year-old president mentioned, in a uncommon occasion of slamming his predecessor by identify.
“There’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans,” Biden said, referring to Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan, Make America Great Again.
“And that may be a risk to this nation,” Biden said.
“MAGA forces are decided to take this nation backwards. Backwards to an America the place there isn’t any proper to decide on, no proper to privateness, no proper to contraception, no proper to marry who you like. They promote authoritarian leaders. They fanned the flames of political violence,” Biden said.
In his 25-minute speech, Biden repeatedly called out Trump, who is still questioning the outcome of the 2020 election.
“History tells us that blind loyalty to a single chief and a willingness to interact in political violence is deadly to democracy,” he said.
He said he was not condemning all 74 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020. “Not each Republican, not even a majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans,” he said.
Alleging that MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution, Biden called them “insurrectionists and election deniers” who “embrace anger and thrive on chaos”.
MAGA Republicans are a “clear and current hazard to our democracy,” he alleged.
They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies, Biden said.
“So, tonight, I’ve come to this place the place all of it started to talk as plainly as I can to the nation in regards to the threats we face, in regards to the energy now we have in our personal palms to satisfy these threats, and in regards to the unbelievable future that lies in entrance of us, if solely we select it,” Biden said.
“We should always remember that we, the individuals, are the true heirs of the American experiment that started greater than two centuries in the past,” he said.
Biden said Americans still believed in honesty, decency and respect for others. “Patriotism, liberty, justice for all, hope, prospects, we’re nonetheless at our core a democracy,” he said.
“For a very long time, we have informed ourselves that American democracy is assured, nevertheless it’s not. We should defend it, shield it, and rise up for it, every considered one of us. That’s why tonight, I’m asking our nation to return collectively, unite behind the only objective of defending our democracy no matter your ideology,” Biden said in his national speech.
“We’re all known as by obligation and conscience to confront extremists who put their very own pursuit of energy above all else. Democrats, Independents, mainstream Republicans, we have to be stronger, extra decided, and extra dedicated to saving the American democracy, and MAGA Republicans are simply — they’re destroying American democracy,” he said.
“We, the individuals, is not going to let anybody or something tear us aside. I wish to say this plain and easy, there isn’t any place for political violence in America,” Biden said.
MAGA republicans do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognise the will of the people, Biden said.
“They refuse to simply accept the outcomes of a free election and they’re working proper now as I communicate in state after state to present the facility to determine elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself,” he said.
Trump supporters thought of the mob who stormed the US Capitol last year as patriots rather than insurrectionists, he said.
“They take a look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January sixth brutally attacking regulation enforcement, not as insurrectionists who positioned a dagger on the throat of our democracy, however as patriots, they usually see their MAGA failure to cease a peaceable switch of energy after the 2020 election as preparation for the 2022 and 2024 elections,” Biden said.
His remarks come as Trump, once again at the centre of a criminal investigation this one involving classified documents lays the groundwork for a potential 2024 presidential run.
Biden’s address comes two months before the mid-term elections, which will decide the power balance in Washington.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, in the Republicans’ rebuttal speech, called on Biden to apologise for a remark calling MAGA philosophy semi-fascism.
“President Biden has chosen to divide, demean and disparage his fellow Americans. Why? Simply as a result of they disagree together with his insurance policies. That will not be management,” he said.
Last week, Biden equated what he called “excessive” Republicans with “semi-fascism”.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised Biden for his inspiring and optimistic remarks in which he made crystal clear that their rights and freedom are on the line.
“The American persons are rejecting the Republicans’ excessive MAGA agenda, and as an alternative, selecting the Democrats’ unifying imaginative and prescient of ‘People Over Politics’,” she mentioned.
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