President Joe Biden finds it easier to launch attacks on democracy than to stop it.
His primary rationale for running for president was that America’s democratic traditions were in jeopardy. Now, 20 months into his presidency, the stakes are worse, Biden’s warnings more dire — and the limits to his ability to solve the problem are even clearer.
Former President Donald Trump continues to fuel the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen, and so far he’s defending the results in some battleground states despite the lie being dismissed by dozens of courts and his attorney general. And that belief has taken root deep in the Republican Party, with dozens of candidates insisting Trump was right.
Never in the country’s history has elections been held in a climate in which one party directly questioned the integrity of the electoral process and actively sought to undermine confidence in it.
Princeton historian Shawn Willentz, who was among a group invited to White House recently, said to put today’s challenges in their historical context. “It could be dangerous.”
Biden discovered, even with a loudspeaker in the White House, how difficult it is to stand up to the Trump-inspired narrative and the millions of Americans who believe it. Trump allies have been touring the country spreading lies about the 2020 election and conspiracy theories about voting machines, while this year’s Republican candidates for office have repeated his lies to their supporters — messages that have reached a broad audience.
Every US president swears to “preserve, protect, and defend the US Constitution,” but even in normal times there is no evidence to uphold it. Biden swore this oath as the nation has faced challenges unparalleled since the American Civil War perhaps, in the view of some historians.
In a speech earlier this month at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Biden called democracy “under attack” and pledged that defending it was the business of his presidency. But he also said the solution must be bigger than him, and that he can’t undo what he sees as a years-long regression in American political mores on his own.
“We have been telling ourselves for a long time that American democracy is guaranteed,” he said. “But it is not.” “We have to stand up for her, protect her, stand up for her — each and every one of us.”
Has Biden done himself enough?
His efforts to persuade do not appear to have resulted in any significant shift in public opinion. His push for voting rights legislation in Congress has mostly failed.
Beyond the president’s increasingly stern warnings, White House officials are pointing to the administration’s efforts to push voting rights guarantees through Congress and their support for the electoral tally law, which would demystify Trump and his allies.
The Department of Justice is prosecuting those who violently stormed the Capitol. More than 870 people have been charged and more than 400 have been convicted.
The administration has also sounded the alarm about domestic extremist groups. There is a growing overlap with politically motivated violence, as a growing number of ardent Trump supporters appear willing to strike back at the FBI or others deemed to be going too far in the investigation of the former president. The National Security Council has developed a comprehensive strategy for the government to counter domestic violent extremism, which US intelligence officials have described as the greatest threat to homeland security.
While voters ranked threats to democracy the most important issue ahead of the midterm elections, according to an NBC News poll late last month, conspiracy theories put forward by Trump and his allies have succeeded in casting doubts about the integrity of the US election in a big way. segment of the population.
Two-thirds of Republicans believe Biden was not a legitimately elected president, according to an AP-NORC poll. They believe votes were swapped, voting machines were destroyed en masse, or fake ballot papers were cast for Biden because pandemic-era politics made voting so easy.
Trump-backed candidates win primaries and some will make it to Congress. In states, nearly 1 in 3 Republican candidates for positions with a role in supervising, certifying or defending elections have backed overturning the results of the 2020 presidential race.
Candidates showed a new willingness to simply refuse to accept the results of their election if they lost. Election workers across the country are receiving death threats and being harassed online, leading many to resign.
“We’re obviously playing with fire with some new tactics, allowing them to spread across the country,” said Matthew Weil, executive director of our Democracy Program at the Center for Bipartisan Policy Research. It’s: ‘If my candidate loses, I’m going to pull it off for as long as I can. I can cut off the legs of the person who hit me from taking office.” This is a new feature and it is very dangerous. We cannot have an electoral system that people do not want to lose.”
Checking the anti-democratic forces inside Trump is not just a political goal, it’s a political endeavor as well, and that clouds the picture.
Biden aides say the best way to try to preserve democracy is to use his bully pulpit to show voters that they play a vital role in participating in the electoral process and who will put them in positions of influence.
He’s not the only one raising the alarm. The special congressional committee investigating the 2021 Capitol Rebellion delivered the same message, as did state election officials across the country, historians and other lawmakers.
Administration allies say Biden’s efforts have resonated with voters, especially since Trump’s behavior in late 2020 and early 2021 was comforted by the Jan. 6 committee.
But the president’s comments were largely dismissed by Republicans unwilling to break with Trump.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, who was threatened to be hanged by Trump supporters on Jan. 6 and who hid in a safe under the building while crowds chased him down the halls, denounced Biden’s comments after the Philadelphia speech.
“Never in the history of our nation has a president stood before the American people and accused millions of his fellow countrymen of being a ‘threat to this country’,” Pence told conservatives.
Former UN ambassador and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley called Biden “the most lonely president of my life.”
However, the struggle the nation faces goes beyond the political parties. “Unless and until enough people fight for, protect, and build our democracy, the fever we see today will continue,” said Melody Barnes, chair of the University of Virginia Kush’s Institute for Democracy.
Historians say the closest analogy was to the Civil War era, when war broke out after the Southern states did not recognize Abraham Lincoln as president. After the fighting ended, there was a persistent refusal to accept the rule of law during Reconstruction, as deep-seated racism and violence pervaded, eventually leading to the Jim Crow era.
At crucial moments, US leaders took a stand to protect the nation from itself. George Washington left office to ensure future leaders willingly withdraw as well. Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon after Watergate—a deeply unpopular move in 1974, but one that has since been seen as an attempt to propel the country beyond a national nightmare.
Biden, at a summit last week on combating hate-fueling violence, spoke of how satisfied he felt years ago when he successfully worked with Senate Republicans to extend the Voting Rights Act. “And I thought, Well, you know, hate can be defeated,” he said.
“But he’s just hiding,” he said with a sigh. “And when any oxygen is given, it comes out from under the rocks.”
Copyright © 2022 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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