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DEMOCRACY IS ON THE BALLOT Biden Is Telling You That Trump Is a Threat, and the Proof Is Everywhere 
Speaking truth to Trump. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times Original article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/09/opinion/biden-philadelphia-trump-maga.html Peter Burgess COMMENTARY President Biden's speach in Philadelphia in early September was inspiring in many ways and at many levels. I became motivated to learn more about the accomplishment of the Biden administration in a little over 18 months. My shorthand of what I have realized is that this Congress with Democrats in control with only just a tiny majority has succeeded in passing more consequential legislation than any session in decades ... going back to President Eisenhower who had landmark legislation to implement the Interstate Highway System and President Johnson who had a vision for a 'Great Society' and got significant legislation passed in that direction. I would argue that President Biden has done everything within his power to be a President for all Americans and has been frustrated in this endeavor by Republicans, many of whom came into Congress with the 'Tea Party' wave which emerged around 2008 and is not referenced very much a little more than a decade later. Peter Burgess | ||
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NYT OPINION ... JAMELLE BOUIE
Biden Is Telling You That Trump Is a Threat, and the Proof Is Everywhere By Jamelle Bouie ... Opinion Columnist Sept. 9, 2022 President Biden is right. The so-called MAGA movement, led by Donald Trump, is a direct threat to democratic self-government in the United States. “Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” as Biden put it in Philadelphia last week. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.” The proof is everywhere you look. Of the 540 Republican nominees nationwide this year in races examined by FiveThirtyEight, 199 deny the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. An additional 62 candidates have raised doubts about the legitimacy of the election, and 118 candidates didn’t answer the question. Pro-insurrection candidates lead the Republican ticket in Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania — key presidential swing states — and Trump-aligned Republican activists are targeting election officials across the country with harassment and threats of violence. On the more respectable, suit-and-tie side of the MAGA movement, the Claremont Institute and the right-wing Honest Elections Project (the latter of which is a production of Leonard Leo, a former vice president of the Federalist Society, an influential conservative legal group) have submitted amicus briefs to the Supreme Court on the side of North Carolina Republicans in a case that could give state legislatures the power to unilaterally change election laws unbound by state courts or even state constitutions. The goal, as was clear when lawyers from the Trump campaign pushed this “independent state legislature” theory before and after the 2020 election, is to create a path by which Republican state lawmakers can toss out results they don’t like. It is not for nothing that the author of the Claremont brief is none other than John Eastman, one of the legal architects of the plan to keep Trump in office against the will of the voters. “When performing federal functions, the legislatures of the several states are not operating pursuant to state authority,” Eastman writes, “but rather pursuant to federal authority, and cannot be constrained by anything in state law or even a state constitution to the contrary.” A large part of the Republican Party is, as Biden says, working to ensure that the next time Trump is on the ballot, he cannot lose. For Biden’s critics, however, there’s nothing — not even overwhelming evidence of MAGA subversion — that justifies his sweeping condemnation of Trump and his followers. “I was stunned at how divisive this speech was last night,” said Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, a Republican who has kept his distance from Trump even as he campaigns for candidates in Michigan and Nevada who believe the 2020 election was stolen or who question the result. One view of Biden’s speech says that if the president is serious about the threat to American democracy, he should sacrifice key political, policy and ideological goals for the sake of unity with conservative opponents of Trump. Another, similar view says that Biden should have made a more Lincolnesque appeal to the better angels of MAGA Republican voters, rather than condemn the entire movement as essentially anti-American. Neither argument really lands. Pre-emptive concessions on critical issues might appeal to a handful of conservative Republican dissidents, but they will outrage and demoralize Democratic voters at a moment when Democrats stand a meaningful chance of holding their majorities in Congress. The simple truth is that the best way to undermine and weaken the MAGA movement at this moment is to win elections. It makes no sense, then, for Biden to deliberately undermine the Democratic Party’s ability to do just that. Should Biden have used more conciliatory rhetoric? No. He was divisive — just as he was when he called MAGA Republicans “semi-fascist” the week before — but this is a moment that calls for a perfect contrast between the two parties. If Trump is leading an assault on the institutions of American self-government and if that assault implicates much of the Republican Party, then there’s no way that Biden can make his defense of the constitutional order without dividing people. What matters is the nature of the divide. To divide against a radical minority that would attack and undermine democratic self-government is to divide along the most inclusive lines possible. It is to do a version of what Franklin Roosevelt did when he condemned “organized money,” “economic royalists” and the “forces of selfishness and lust for power.” It’s also a version of what Abraham Lincoln did when, in his first inaugural address, he took aim at those who would subject the country to minority rule. “A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people,” he said. “Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism.” “You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government,” Lincoln added, “while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect and defend it.’ ” If there is a critique to make of Biden’s Philadelphia speech, it is that he did not say enough about the sentiments behind the MAGA movement’s contempt for democracy. In that sense, it was a missed opportunity. Trump is the chosen candidate of reactionary billionaires and fanatical opponents of racial and gender equality for a reason. Strip away the thin veneer of “populism,” and what you have in the Trumpified Republican Party is an old-fashioned movement to restrain democratic self-government for the sake of capital and hierarchy. It is not that Trump and the Republican Party are opposed to voting and elected office in and of themselves; it’s that they are opposed to a more equitable distribution of wealth and status, which a robust democracy — and only a robust democracy — makes possible. They are opposed to anything that might undermine the domination over others by people like themselves. Biden and the Democratic Party should make this clear — much clearer than they have so far. The struggle for democracy is the struggle for human equality is the struggle for a fairer economy is the struggle for the rights of workers and the dignity of labor. And if the enemies of democracy are fighting their war on every possible front, its defenders should, too. The coming midterm elections “There’s a stirring of Democratic hearts, a blooming of Democratic hopes, a belief that falling gas prices, key legislative accomplishments and concern about abortion rights equal a reprieve from the kind of midterm debacle that Democrats feared just a month or two ago.” 1 of 6 Frank Bruni, in a roundtable discussion with Molly Jong-Fast and Doug Sosnik, on Democrats’ chances in the coming midterms. Read the discussion. “So this constant distilling into the ‘Big Lie’ overlooks something key: A sea change is slowly happening on the right as it relates to policy expectations.” 2 of 6 Rachel Bovard, in a roundtable discussion with Ross Douthat and Tim Miller on the future of the Republican Party. Read the discussion. “The reproductive rights side has long had the numbers, just not the intensity. If Democrats can keep the pressure on, abortion politics could prove increasingly painful and destructive for Republicans.” 3 of 6 Michelle Cottle, in “Abortion and Trump Are Giving Democrats a Shot.” Read the essay. “In my 28 years analyzing elections, I’ve never seen anything like what’s happened in the past two months in American politics: Women are registering to vote in numbers I’ve never witnessed.” 4 of 6 Tom Bonier, a Democratic political strategist, in “Women Are So Fired Up to Vote, I’ve Never Seen Anything Like It.” Read the guest essay. “It is the direction of the line that is most important in politics. And I believe that Biden’s reversal will bode well for other Democrats.” 5 of 6 Charles Blow, in “Biden Becomes a Boon For Democrats.” Read the column. “While periods of divided government can yield gridlock, they also offer opportunities for progress.” 6 of 6 Oren Cass and Chris Griswold of American Compass, a think tank for conservative economics, in “What Republicans Should Do if They Win Big This Fall.” Read the guest essay. That’s why anti-democratic ideologues like Peter Thiel have poured millions of dollars into backing Trump and his allies, who hope to turn MAGA into something that outlives and outlasts the former president. Editors’ Picks
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va., and Washington. @jbouie A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 11, 2022, Section SR, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: Biden Is Right to Call Trump Out. Sign up for the Jamelle Bouie newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Join Jamelle Bouie as he shines a light on overlooked writing, culture and ideas from around the internet. More on Biden’s speech Opinion | Bret Stephens With Malice Toward Quite a Few Sept. 6, 2022 Opinion | Charles M. Blow Biden Shouldn’t Apologize to Republicans Sept. 4, 2022 Opinion | Ross Douthat Does Biden Really Believe We Are in a Crisis of Democracy? Sept. 3, 2022
| The text being discussed is available at | https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/09/opinion/biden-philadelphia-trump-maga.html and |