PHOENIX — On Thursday, President Joe Biden will give a significant speech on defending American democracy, a topic that is quickly becoming key to his reelection campaign as he tries to clarify the differences between himself and the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump.
For his fourth big address on the topic, former Vice President Joe Biden chose Arizona, a state where President Trump has already tried to contest the results of the 2020 election and which is expected to be a significant battlefield again in 2020. It was also the birthplace of the late Senator John McCain, whom Vice President Joe Biden has held up as a symbol of the Republican Party’s values before Trump’s election.
According to the White House, Biden will utilize McCain’s legacy to argue that protecting American institutions shouldn’t be a party issue. Even though McCain was a strong Trump opponent until his death in 2018, the president likes to remind us that he would put country before party.
According to excerpts published by the White House, Biden planned to say, “We have to stand up for America’s values embodied in our Declaration of Independence because we know MAGA extremists have already proven they won’t.” Since MAGA fanatics have made it apparent they won’t defend the Constitution or democratic institutions, it’s up to the rest of us to do so.
One of the points that Vice President Biden will be emphasizing in his upcoming address is that “we must not walk away from the sacrifices generations of Americans have made to defend our democracy,” as a White House official put it in a preview.
Biden’s remarks follow the second Republican primary debate, wherein contenders took a few potshots at Trump (who didn’t attend) but ultimately failed to derail his seemingly unstoppable march to the nomination. With the general election drawing closer, Biden aides are hoping that an emphasis on democracy would boost the president’s campaign, especially in light of the recent spate of political violence and challenges to the integrity of the American electoral system.
Some of Biden’s closest associates think that this and the fight for abortion rights helped the Democrats do surprisingly well in the midterm elections of 2022. According to three people close to the president who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss private conversations, Biden has said both publicly and privately that pundits were wrong in suggesting his closing argument last November should have been about the economy rather than the dangers of political extremism.
The Biden camp originally anticipated that Trump’s threat would diminish with time or that the other Republican primary contenders’ assaults would weaken him. Despite the growing number of criminal charges against him, Trump has maintained his position as the Republican frontrunner.
That’s why Biden gave yet another speech on the need to defend American democracy. His statements at recent private fundraisers, including three in the past week in both California and New York, have likewise focused heavily on the issue. Biden has cautioned that “democracy is on the ballot” in these informal, off-camera settings, and he has also taken a number of his most blunt swipes at Trump so far.
“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy because they want to break down institutional structures,” Biden stated at a San Francisco fundraiser on Tuesday. In the United States of America, “political violence is never, ever, ever acceptable.”
Biden plans to stick to his strategy of not openly addressing Trump’s legal troubles in the coming months for fear of being perceived as influencing the process. Instead, he and his team think that the president should issue a series of warnings about the persistent risks to the nation’s foundation.
Although the former military post of George Washington in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, was considered for the speech’s delivery, it was finally decided to use the time to also honor McCain. His family, including his U.N. World Food Program director wife, Cindy McCain, was slated to show up on Thursday.
The McCain Library was slated to get funds from the American Rescue Plan, which Biden was anticipated to reveal. One of the president’s closest advisors claimed that earlier this month, when Biden was in Hanoi, he joined old friends in paying tribute to McCain, and that he later told associates that it was one of the most moving moments of his administration.
