“Something dangerous is happening in America right now”: Joe Biden once again launched, Thursday, September 28, a dark and solemn warning about the fate of democracy in the United States. But this time, the Democratic president attacked Donald Trump very directly, saying that the ideology of his Republican opponent and his supporters “threatened the very essence of our nation.”
“Democracies do not necessarily die by force of arms. They can die when people are silent, when people do not mobilize or when they do not condemn attacks on democracy. When people are willing to give up what is most precious because they are struggling with frustration, disillusionment, fatigue, a sense of exclusion,” Joe Biden said.
For this speech – the fourth, according to the White House, which he devotes to this theme of democracy – the 80-year-old president went to Arizona, to the land of former Republican senator John McCain in whose honor a library should be built.
Joe Biden, candidate for a second term, was linked to the late war hero by a friendship transcending partisan divisions, emblematic according to him of the values threatened by Donald Trump.
“Deafening silence”
A huge favorite in the Republican primaries, the former Republican president is accused by the courts of having played a role in the assault on the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021, and of having sought to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden, which is rare, named his opponent in his speech, and several times took up, to denounce them, extracts from speeches given by his opponent.
“Trump says that the Constitution gave him, I quote, the right to do what he wants as president,” launched the Democrat, denouncing a “dangerous notion”, also attacking the dissemination of “theories of conspiracy” by his adversary and his desire to “divide” the country. He ruled that his predecessor “was not guided by the Constitution, by a sense of duty or by respect for his compatriots, but by revenge and rancor.” Joe Biden also cited this sentence spoken by Donald Trump in March before a Republican Party conference: “I will avenge you. »
“There is no doubt that the Republican Party is driven today (…) by the Trumpists,” said Joe Biden, in this speech which coincides with the first day of an impeachment investigation led against him by parliamentarians from the “Grand Old Party” (GOP).
The president was particularly indignant at the “deafening silence” of Republicans after Donald Trump’s “hateful” remarks against the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, General Mark Milley. The billionaire had suggested that the latter had been guilty of treason, and indicated that such an act could have been punishable by death.
“The more people vote, the more the entire nation gets involved, the stronger democracy will be,” said Joe Biden, who has so far struggled to generate enthusiasm in the polls, mainly due to his age.
The campaign takes on a new dimension
In Tempe, near Phoenix, the American president was questioned by a man who criticized him for not having declared a “state of climate emergency”. Joe Biden promised to meet him after his speech if he agreed to remain silent, and continued by saying: “Democracy is never easy, we have just had the demonstration. »
Joe Biden had made the defense of the “soul” of America a major axis of his duel against Donald Trump in 2020, so he intends to campaign on the same theme before next year’s presidential election.
The electoral battle between the two men took on a new dimension this week, when they visited, one after the other, the Detroit (Michigan) region, the cradle of the American automobile industry. While the large United Auto Workers (UAW) union launched an unprecedented strike against three manufacturers, Joe Biden participated in a picket in front of a General Motors site, unheard of for an American president.
Donald Trump went to a small factory, which is not in the union fold. Each seeks to appeal to the popular electorate, and in particular the white working class, whose vote could be decisive in 2024.