Newsman: The United States President Joe Biden amplified his argument that democracy itself is at stake, warning in a speech Wednesday evening that the United States is “on a path to chaos” amid growing fears of political violence.
President Biden began his 20-minute address by detailing the assault on Pelosi’s husband and noting that the assailant’s words – “Where is Nancy” – were the same words chanted by the mob in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. An intruder attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, with a hammer in their San Francisco home last Friday.
Americans must speak “with one overwhelming, unified voice” and make clear there is no place for voter intimidation or political violence in America, Biden said.
“We don’t settle our differences with a riot, or a mob, or a bullet, or a hammer,” he said. “We settle them peaceably at the ballot box.”
Speaking at a train station just blocks from the U.S. Capitol, Biden reminded Americans that next week’s election will be the first since a violent mob stormed the seat of democracy on Jan. 6, 2021 – a horde that was “whipped up into a frenzy,” he said, by former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
“I wish I could say the assault on our democracy ended that day,” Biden said. “But I cannot.”
Candidates are running for every level of office – for Congress, governor, attorney general, secretary of state – who refuse to commit to accepting the election results if they lose, Biden said.
“This is the path to chaos in America,” he said, standing in front of eight American flags. “It’s unprecedented. It’s unlawful. And it’s un-American. As I’ve said before, you can’t love your country only when you win.”
In warning about the dangers of election deniers, Biden blamed Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen for fueling much of the anger that Americans are confronting.
“Extreme MAGA Republicans” – a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan – are a minority but the “driving force” of the Republican Party, Biden warned. One of their aims, he said, is to to question not only the legitimacy of past elections, but elections being held now and into the future.
They are “trying to succeed where they failed in 2020, to suppress the right of voters and subvert the electoral system itself,” Biden said.
“We can’t allow this sentiment to grow,” he said. “We must confront it head on now. It has to stop now.”
Biden also condemned what he called “an alarming rise” in the number of people condoning political violence, “trying to explain it away” or simply remaining silent.
“Silence is complicity,” he said.
Republicans fired back by accusing Biden of demonizing and smearing Americans.
“President Biden is trying to divide and deflect at a time when America needs to unite – because he can’t talk about his policies that have driven up the cost of living,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., wrote on Twitter. “The American people aren’t buying it.”
Biden chose the venue – Union Station, a major transportation hub – for his speech because it’s near the Capitol, “where there was an attempt to subvert our democracy,” White House senior adviser Anita Dunn said in announcing the event during a live Axios interview earlier Wednesday.
