Biden presents his re-election as a fight to save democracy from Trump International

United States President Joe Biden invited a group of academics and historians to a luncheon at the White House on Wednesday to discuss the current threats to democracy and institutions. Biden has turned to history on several occasions in his crusade to defend democracy. In 2022 he gave a speech in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the 1776 Declaration of Independence was signed. This Friday he visited Valley Forge (Pennsylvania), where General George Washington reorganized his troops to prepare for the winter of 1777-1778. Counterattack against the British in the War of Independence. Shortly after, he held his first rally of 2024 in nearby Blue Bell, where he made it clear that he sees his re-election in the presidential election in November as a fight to protect democracy from the threat posed by Donald Trump, who has come to power. To say that if he wins he will become a “dictator” for a day.

The former president, however, returns the ball with the accusations against Biden, saying that he is a threat to democracy, although he does so based on fraud and lies.

The duel took place on January 6, 2021, the anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, which continues to mark American political and judicial life three years later. Faced with cross accusations, citizens, meanwhile, lose faith in the system. A poll released this Saturday by Gallup shows that only 28% are satisfied with the way democracy is working. That’s a new historic low, down from 35% the week after the attack on Congress to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.

“Americans are preparing to elect the next president at a time when they are less satisfied with the state of American democracy than at any time in at least 40 years. “The 2024 election is expected to pit a historically unpopular president against a former president whom voters previously rejected for a second term,” Summarizes Gallup.

Although Trump has hit back, it is Biden who has made the defense of democracy the centerpiece of his speech. Despite his record of job creation, with his legislative achievements promoting industrial and infrastructure investments, the President fails to convince voters with the economy. Abortion rights continue to rally Democratic voters, but it’s not an issue on which Biden, a practicing Catholic, feels very comfortable. The Gaza war has eroded his support among young people and Arab Americans, two groups that have closed with him in 2020. And, at 81, voters consider him too old. To a large extent, then, Biden’s assets for achieving re-election include mobilizing voters to prevent Trump from winning.

Perhaps that explains why, after avoiding at all costs quoting Trump for most of his term, Biden has decided to enter the fray. Until this Friday’s speech at the Blue Bell, on a stage draped with American flags and decorated with four columns of Ionic capitals, he was so harsh against his rival, whom he also blamed for the deaths of law enforcement officers in the attack. to the capitol. “They died because of Donald Trump’s lies, because those lies brought mobs to Washington,” he said.

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Insults beyond

Unusually for Biden, he called Trump a “loser” and “sick” and called his attitude “despicable.” The president, born in Scranton (Pennsylvania), first visited Valley Forge when he was Boy Scout This Friday he evoked the words of George Washington when he said his mission in the pursuit of freedom and democracy was a “holy cause.” Faced with that, Trump’s stance in the attack on the Capitol was “one of the worst derelictions of duty by a president in the history of the United States: an attempt to nullify free and fair elections through force and violence.” . “That was the day we almost lost America, we lost everything,” he added.

And he made it clear that the defense of democracy would be the main focus of his campaign. Because, according to the president, that threat is still very much alive: “Trump’s assault on democracy is not just part of his past. This is what promises for the future. It is straightforward. He doesn’t hide the ball. His first rally for the 2024 campaign began with a chorus of Jan. 6 insurgents singing from prison on cellphones while images of the riots (the attack on the Capitol) played on a giant screen behind him. “Can you believe it?” Biden said, recalling that Trump has promised to be “revenge,” “revenge” and “dictator” for a day.

The president recalled that Trump has called those who oppose him “vermin” and that he has talked about immigrants poisoning the blood of Americans, “repeating the same language that was used in Nazi Germany,” he said, adding his praise for the president. Also underlined. Russia, Vladimir Putin, and North Korea, Kim Jong-un, among others.

What the president once again avoided is mentioning the four charges against Trump for a total of 91 crimes. Biden has recused himself from the proceedings out of respect for the Justice Department’s independence; Attorney General, Merrick Garland and Special Prosecutors. Nor did he mention Trump’s temporary exclusion from primary ballots in Colorado and Maine, the same day the Supreme Court accepted the former president’s appeal of the Colorado decision, which it will rule on in February.

Trump is using his judicial woes to cast himself as a martyr and bring the Republican base closer to him. Additionally, he has accused Biden of instigating the action without evidence. “Yesterday, in one of the most ridiculous speeches I’ve ever heard, the corrupt Joe Biden likened himself to George Washington and likened his re-election campaign to a war for freedom, because Washington ensures our freedom,” the former president said this Saturday. In a statement to his followers.

“This is the same Joe Biden who is actively trying to erase your sacred right to vote by removing my name from the 2024 ballot. The same one who illegally arrested his main political opponent (servant) four times and tried to put me in jail. Life as an innocent man,” he adds. “I look at the scoundrels currently occupying the White House and I see no difference between Joe Biden and a third world Marxist dictator desperate to stay in power,” he added.

Such serious accusations between candidates do not happen often in US presidential elections. As Biden says, “Democracy is at the polls.” The 2024 campaign is being billed as one of the tightest in recent United States history.

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