President Joe Biden is arguing that “there is something dangerous happening in America” as he revives his warnings that Donald Trump and his allies represent an existential threat to the country’s democratic institutions.
“There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy. The MAGA movement,” Biden says in excerpts of the speech Thursday in Arizona, released in advance by the White House, referring Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan.
Although voting in the 2024 Republican primary doesn’t begin for months, Biden’s focus reflects Trump’s status as the undisputed frontrunner for his party’s nomination despite facing four indictments, two of them related to his attempts to overturn Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
He’s absolutely right. The GOP wants to abandon democracy and install Trump as a dictator. We are on a dangerous precipice.
"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”—David Frum, Republican speech writer under W. Bush
This was not a warning. It was a threat.
It was a warning. Frum is and always has been a staunch never-Trumper. He’s still a conservative, but he was never on board with Trump and to his credit has been pretty vocal in his opposition.
Oh my god, it was a republican that said that? That makes that line scarier, because that means was probably said with the idea that abandoning democracy is a good thing.
I had not given my brain the space to imagine that Trump would be the choice of dictator. I guess there would never be a ‘good’ dictator candidate but damn that would be insane.
I would be a good dictator. I don’t crave fame, fortune, or control. I like to live a quite life, have general good will for people and am kind.
I have a very technical background, a decent understanding of, and more importantly a high respect for, science. My number one skill is probably troubleshooting complex systems.
I’m am secure enough in my knowledge and abilities that I have no problem admitting when I’m wrong, and enjoy and am not threatened by other people being right so I can learn something new.
I make a terrible manager, so I’d have to delegate the vast majority of the actual work to competent people.
Mostly I just want everyone treated fair and equal, to have access to basic needs, and the ability to better themselves.
I absolutely don’t want the job, nor do I think anyone should have it, but yeah, I think I’d make a good dictator.
Because you don’t want it, you won’t make it as a dictator. People don’t hold power because it’s easy.
Putin wants that too, btw.
why would he do that? I genuinely am confused everytime this point is made.
What
we abandoned democracy a long time ago
Joe Biden is right about this. Republicans don’t believe in our democracy and they don’t want people who vote against them to be able to vote.
Joe really needs to actually take state action instead of talking about action lol
like just start arresting people, you did it to the BLM folks, why not against the literal fucking nazis
Yes! Push this! They’re UnAmerican! Let everyone know!
destroying democracy and installing a nationalist dictator is actually very american
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dude what the fuck
Call me a squid again. That’ll fix it!
you are quite deranged
Raspberry.
“Makes democracy a touchstone”
Wow man… It’s become this bad.
Not touchstone, touchtone! Beep boop beep
Fuck yeah I knew this Dark Brandon was coming. Going to be a long couple years.
And don’t forget Dark Brandon’s color changing dark roast mug with flashing laser eyes! It even donates to his campaign.
That is pretty sweet. I want one with real lasers.
Well the spineless Republican candidates jockying for the vice presidency aren’t going to say it.
I think it’s important to note that Trump’s “extremist movement” is the mainstream GOP.
Yeah I saw a poll/survey that said voters found Biden to be “too liberal” and the GOP is just about the right amount of conservative.
The Overton Window in the US is so fucked up.
Yeah, targeting the MAGA crowd is not going to work. The Dems need an identity outside of “We aren’t Republicans”
Edit: That said, I must confess it is good to see they’re finally taking the Right seriously as a threat instead “ThEy WaNT WhAT’s BeSt fOr tHE NaTIon, wE JuSt NeEd A BeTTeR ComPrOmISE”
I think this guy sucks, but he’s not wrong here. I’ll vote for him again because as shitty as he is, he’s not going to completely destroy our country and/or destabilize the entire world.
If Trump is elected, that guy is going to hand Ukraine to Putin, and sever ties between the US and the majority of our allies in Europe.
If Biden wants to fight extremism he could maybe make the alphabets do something about all the domestic terror threats.
Maybe by admitting it’s domestic terrorism to threaten to murder your milquetoast political opponents.
Damn I’m so trained by the talking points. When you said alphabets I thought you meant gay people. Like what am I supposed to do? 🤣
It’s ok, for a second I thought they meant Google
💀 lmao
Look, I’m not saying we should draft a Queer Anti-Terror Squad to take the fight to the Christofascists, but I bet they’d be well motivated.
Also extremely well dressed
I think this guy sucks, but he’s not wrong here. I’ll vote for him again because as shitty as he is, he’s not going to completely destroy our country and/or destabilize the entire world.
looking at the state of US foreign politics and the growing tensions with russia and china I think they’re already doing this. Biden will fight with russia and get us killed while trump will fight china and get us all killed.
Two sides, same coin, yada yada
It’s no secret. They make no attempt to hide their scorn for democratic principles.*
For example mininizing the number of eligible citizens who vote, by intimidation, “technical issues”, restricting in person voting times, targetting early and mail-in voting to name only a few tactics.
Also compare their legislative priorities with what actual Americans want… almost nothing in common. They continue to push a radical Christofascist agenda and are actually willing to destroy the country if they can’t get their way.
Republicans are the party of cruelty and misanthropy now, that is their absolute worst failing.
*Not our “democracy” because it has never been a democracy, but I’ll give him a pass there since literally every American politician abuses the language and people aren’t educated enough to know the difference.
… about fucking time?
But all politicians are equally at fault for not leglislating to ensure workers have livable salaries and encouraging the “outsourcing” thing that moved jobs overseas so people could buy cheaper Walmart stuff.
the 90s and its consequences
This is the best summary I could come up with:
President Joe Biden is arguing that “there is something dangerous happening in America” as he revives his warnings that Donald Trump and his allies represent an existential threat to the country’s democratic institutions.
The MAGA movement,” Biden says in excerpts of the speech Thursday in Arizona, released in advance by the White House, referring Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan.
Biden’s speech is his fourth in a series of presidential addresses on the topic, a cause that is a touchstone for him as he tries to remain in office even in the face of low approval ratings and widespread concern from voters about his age, 80.
In closed-door fundraisers, Biden has spoken at length about reelection, imploring supporters to join his effort to “literally save American democracy,” as he described it to wealthy donors this month in New York.
Republican state lawmakers used their subpoena power to obtain all the 2020 ballots and vote-counting machines from Maricopa County, then hired Trump supporters to conduct an unprecedented partisan review of the election.
The money comes from a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package passed in the early months of Biden’s presidency, and the project is in partnership with the with the McCain Institute and Arizona State University.
The original article contains 1,170 words, the summary contains 205 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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Im honestly sick of hearing how much they’re going to do and then they just never do it
like didn’t biden keep building the wall? We were supposed to have it stopped or teared down, but they just kept letting it go.
im sick of this country
Extremism is born out of fear and desperation. And the number one driver of that is financial insecurity. I really wish he would say he was doing something about these fundamental issues: a liveable minimum wage, housing issues, education, and health care. He’s not wrong about these asshole insurrectionist Republicans, but pointing out that their thinking is anti-American and backwards doesn’t really get to the root of the issues.
Oh my god; someone still selling the ridiculous narrative that these white supremacist fascists are being white supremacist fascists because of “economic anxiety”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/us/politics/trump-economic-anxiety.html
What they fear is losing the privileged status of white supremacy in America; what they’re desperate to stop is a more equal society. They didn’t march demanding more pay, better working conditions, or more upward mobility in Charlottesville, they marched chanting “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil.” They’ve been telling us, loudly, for years what it’s all really about and people still want to believe it’s about economics as if there weren’t dozens of very well-off people arrested for trying to attack Congress on January 6th.
. They didn’t march demanding more pay, better working conditions, or more upward mobility in Charlottesville, they marched chanting “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil.”
Yeah, because they’re fucking stupid and they don’t know why they have poor pay, poor working conditions, and no upward mobility. They literally believe it’s a conspiracy by Them to keep the white man down. They’re dummies.
But that doesn’t actually mean economic factors aren’t the primary motivator. There’s still an underlying, material problem.
It’s undeniable that more economic opportunity would shrink their pool of possible supporters, even if it would never eliminate that pool. We don’t have to stop every from being a white supremacist; we just need to stop them from coming up with the power to topple our government.
This reminds me of a good saying. The worst enemy of progress is doing nothing while waiting for a perfect solution. I agree with you.
Not having anyone doing hateful things would be better, but that’s a terrible reason to just let the problem grow.
“Extremism” Not just the fascists. If you can’t see the correlation between the shrinking middle class over the past 4-5 decades and the growth of extremism, I’m not sure what to say to that. These morons are anxious, and a lot of that is economic, and historically it doesn’t take much to point angry morons at the wrong target. Just define an “other” (Jews, Immigrants, LGBTQ) for them to focus on and they’ll run with it. I’m not excusing these assholes at all. But fighting the symptoms and not the disease is not a smart way to go about making change.
Also, for what its’ worth, I wanted to look at the article you posted, but I can’t get past the paywall.
Difference between discussing solutions to difficult problems and developing effective rhetoric to win a campaign.
Maybe if rural areas wouldn’t vote against their best interests they wouldn’t have been left behind.
Nah dude, white supremacist extremism is born out of the fear of losing privilege.
If the Democrats were able to institute their full economic plan, there would be less financial insecurity. It wouldn’t be enough, but it would be a huge boon for less wealthy Americans. Most importantly, it would move the conversation about what’s acceptable policy more to the left.
its foolish to think our little people conversations have any effect of US economic policy. We don’t live in an economic democracy lol
Well you support a failed model of communism that deteriorated into counter revolutionary nationalism and capitalism, so your opinions on democracy mean less than nothing to me.
But will he do anything to stop their extremism or reduce their numbers?
spoiler
No.
What exactly do you expect him to do?
he is the goddamn president of the USA. US presidents have invaded third world countries on a whim, signed countless kill orders, done excessive subversive action against activists, co-opted press for propaganda, have the most militarized police in the world, and absolutely crush any actual opposition. Its only when the white supremacists show up when they “forget” how to run their own country.
Shut down their press, arrest all online right wing activists. Shapiro, Rogan, etc. Get them on trumped up charges, Al Capone style. Crack down on protests. Use the 3 letter agencies to infiltrate and dismantle their political groups. That destroys their far right base. There is countless dirt against republicans (democrats are just as bad but this is a thing where dems take actual action), use it. Use the media they puppet for endless amounts of propaganda against republicans. monitor and censor right wing thought. You could literally just sign kill orders against them. The president has the power, legally, to do this or tell people to do this. Just say its for securing democracy or some shit.
literally any one of these things would cripple the loud but fragile right wing movement growing right now.
I didn’t read all of that because I’m not going to give that much of my time to someone who says people should be murdered and doesn’t have the cojones to do the murdering themselves.
Like I’d talk about hits on a public forum lol
Like you’ve ever killed anyone.
why would you need to kill
You tell me. You’re the one who wants to murder people. Why aren’t you doing it?
I’d say anything besides espousing how much he cares about the environment and then turning around and signing an environment-obliterating oil project. Or maybe pass any kind of real legislation that matters/codify court decisions. I’m not too picky.
Thanks for moving the goalposts. I’m sure no one will notice.
goalposts? what the hell are you talking about.
Can’t people have criticisms about both biden and trump being bad, or is that not allowed anymore.
You don’t have criticisms about them being bad, you want to murder their followers. So what’s stopping you?
I don’t want to murder everyone, what are you talking about, you’re going nuts
huh
No, you only want to murder certain people.
And I’d like to thank you for giving a snarky “gotcha” reply with absolutely zero substance because you have no rebuttal.
You’re right. I will not rebut someone who completely changes the subject. I don’t play games like that.
They never changed the subject, you just keep replying with shitty quips thinking that the vooote crowd will just nod along.
And you just keep suggesting people should be murdered when you’re not doing any murdering thinking that the crowd will just nod along.
Appreciate the confirmation of the above. Makes my life a lot easier when people just tell on themselves. Also, while we’re on the subject, I fail to see how you can’t connect the dots between Biden doing nothing and Biden doing nothing. Unless that’s somehow not what you’re implying and I changed the topic from Biden doing nothing to something entirely different.
Can’t wait to watch the world burn while people bicker on the internet rather than making change.
Again, I’m not going to discuss a change of subject with you. Not even if you insult me.
I don’t expect anything from Joe “nothing will fundamentally change” Biden.
But what he could do is use his unparalleled ability to communicate with the public to rally antifascist and progressive forces into direct action against the MAGA movement. Rather than just waiting until the next game of voteball, a united front could stand up and break up the fascists before they became a problem in the first place.
You. mean the thing he literally did?
No? He told us to play voteball. That’s it.
Ah, you’re one of those people who think voting doesn’t change anything. Got it.
okay seriously prove your point. how has voting for these people changed anything
didn’t trump lose the popular vote?
did we vote to bail out the banks in 08 but leave us all to die?
did we vote for the shitty covid response both candidates gave?
the presidents are all basically the same fucking thing policy wise.
I believe you’re the one with the point- that point being people should be murdered. So why aren’t you murdering anyone?
Well voting isn’t going to actually get rid of these people. They’ll still be here after the election no matter who wins.
Getting rid of them requires other action.
Oh, I see. You want to start murdering people. Go ahead and start. I’m sure the rest of us will be right behind you.
Do you expect the president to encourage vigilantism? That’s an… interesting line of thought.
I literally said I don’t expect him to do anything.
I’m just saying, there are options he won’t take.
And I’m saying it’s a good thing he won’t take those options.
Sometimes there’s no choice.
Nobody wants to encourage vigilantism, so if thats the only option you can provide then you don’t have any options either.
The enemy is encouraging vigilantism and insurrection. Keep fighting with one hand tied behind your back, see what happens.
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We should be punishing the people encouraging vigilantism, not encouraging more of it.
Oh, hey, how about that - didn’t expect to see an r/Iowa refugee over here. Welcome to the greener pastures that are generally just as painfully, unthinkingly liberal but far less cancerous.
😘
That requires active engagement in one’s community beyond vote-shaming and whining on social media - you’re not going to see much of this from either party.
Actual community involvement is hard. let’s go joe, blue no matter who, if you don’t vote blue you enable fascists etc. is easy and still lets them feel good about doing something… even if it’s ultimately ineffective.
I think they especially hate people who vote third party or conscientiously abstain from electoralism because they know, deep down, that none of that shit really matters.
And if voting doesn’t really matter, they have to face the truth - they have done absolutely nothing at all
You’re a fudder. There’s literally no reason to take a dump on Biden right now when Trump is the alternative.
Biden FTW.
“withhold criticism from this candidate because the other is worse” is not the defense you seem to think it is.
Seems pretty clear to me, right up that dystopian center line that reality seems to follow. I’ll let the pundits debate over the qualities of Biden but I think the right move for the rest of us right now is to support the group who is in support of democracy.
I think the right move for the rest of us right now is to support the group who is in support of democracy.
Oh? So “support this candidate” is somehow mutually exclusive with providing valid criticism of missteps and flaws?
That seems like a degree of intentional ignorance.
That’s not what I’m saying and you know it.
Not here to argue I’m just here to present my side. If you’re not interested then I’ll stop engaging.
how about ya’ll vote with guns and shoot the fascists
biden aint going to do shit. I dont see them taking serious action against anything.
nooo but muh harm reduction that hasn’t reduced any harm
lol I love that it was during the “harm reduction candidates” term that we got fucking abortion taken
‘nothing will fundamentally change’ is literally just as bad as the republicans
these people seriously think they can just waltz around and do nothing and thats better somehow.