On Thursday, an out-of-control President Joe Biden intimated that about half of the American electorate was either a threat to democracy or collaborating with them, standing in front of a menacing Independence Hall in Philadelphia that was lighted in the darkest red possible. On Friday morning, Biden argued that the conservative media was somehow responsible for all of this ugly talk.
Who are you going to believe—you, or your lying ears? Our president seemed to be playing the “who are you going to believe—you, or your lying ears?” trick. The “spirit of the nation” speech might have been something we were all just imagining, but a short search on Twitter showed that wasn’t the case.
Peter Doocy of Fox News questioned Biden on Friday morning. Did he “see all Trump backers as a menace to the nation”? This initially elicited the signature Biden “c’mon.” You know the drill. Imagine asking Vice President Biden if he ever wears hair plugs. I’ve never done that, he would say. “I just eagerly supported the regrowth of my hairline using transplanted follicles. You guys constantly attempting to portray that as a treatment for aesthetic reasons.
The “c’mon” in this instance was followed by the phrase: “You keep attempting to make that point. No Trump fan poses a threat to the nation, in my opinion.
“I do believe that anyone who advocates the use of violence, fails to denounce violence when it occurs, refuses to accept the results of an election, or insists on changing the rules — such as how you count votes — is a threat to democracy. Democracy,” he said further.
He is referring to the conservative media when he says to someone from Fox News, “You keep trying to make that point.” The issue is that Joe Biden was the one who presented the argument. Simply review the transcript.
Yes, Biden distinguished between “MAGA Republicans,” who “represent an extremism that challenges the fundamental basis of our republic,” and “mainstream Republicans,” with whom “I’ve been able to work.”
But there is no denying that Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans currently control, motivate, and frighten the Republican Party, which poses a threat to this nation, added Biden.
Do the math if so-called “MAGA Republicans” are a threat to “the very foundations of our republic,” if “there is no question that Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are dominated, driven, and intimidating the Republican Party today,” and if those people are chosen to hold office by “Trump supporters.”
Biden later claimed otherwise, but this is exactly what he said in his address. But even if that were the case, he may be excused for forgetting. The president appeared truly out of it during Biden’s remarks on Thursday; upset by lack of progress and still certain to lose at least one house of Congress in the midterm elections, even if things don’t seem as bad as they did a few weeks ago, the president seemed genuinely out of it.
It was similar to an enraged spouse insisting the morning after a nasty dispute that they didn’t call the other person all the foul names they shouted them. They would claim they didn’t mean those comments that way if a tape of them was aired.
But a marital quarrel cannot rule America. This historical period calls for the antithesis of hostility and resentment, but that’s all the president seems to have in his toolbox. We’re a democracy, not a divorce-ocracy.
Biden’s incorrect assertion that he doesn’t “think any Trump fan a threat to the country” has an apparent explanation, of course: He has such low opinion of us as a people that he expects his fans, who share his political views, to believe the lie.
In addition, he’s trying to blame Doocy’s candor on conservative media. If his supporters believe it, I assume they’ll believe anything, including the small number who attended the speech.
