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Biden: To Defend Democracy, We Must Extend Democracy

Biden: To Defend Democracy, We Must Extend Democracy

“You are either with us, or with the terrorists.”

That’s how President George W. Bush framed the challenge just after 9/11. Bush went on to make some terrible decisions, including to invade a country—Iraq—that had nothing to do with the terrorist attack on the United States. But at the time, the clarity of those words was bracing.

Now, 21 years later, President Biden has done something similar in response to today’s threat. He has properly framed the great political challenge of our time, not just for the 2022 and 2024 elections but through at least the middle part of the 21st Century, when Donald Trump’s cult followers will still be roaming the land.

Biden was basically saying, You are either with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that were written just behind me—that’s “us”—or you are with the political terrorists who use fear and threats of violence to get their way. There’s no middle ground.

In parliamentary systems, politics is mostly about building coalitions. American politics requires that, too, but here politicians prevail by invoking our ideals, drawing lines, framing issues, stigmatizing the other side. Biden did all of that in his fine speech. He finally recognized that his gauzy message of unity was obsolete amid the Democracy Crisis (and yes, let’s start capitalizing it). So he jettisoned it in favor of the unvarnished truth.

When Biden first started calling Trumpsters “MAGA Republicans,” I thought it was too soft and abstract. I was wrong. The term simultaneously recognizes that the threat will last longer than Trump himself and leaves room for respecting patriotic Republicans. It will live in the American political lexicon forever.

It doesn’t matter that most TV viewers were watching Press Your Luck, Young Sheldon or a Law and Order rerun, or that much of the press dismissed the speech as a political pep rally, or that the usual rightwing blowhards were projecting again with their nonsense about Biden being the bad guy. The president hammered the new frame into wall, where it will hang just fine:

“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

“MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.”

“The Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.”

In early August, Biden met with a group of historians. They drew his attention to two other historic inflection points: 1860, when Abraham Lincoln ran for president after warning that “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” and 1940, a period described by historian Lynn Olson as “those angry days,” when emotions ran so high for and against intervention to stop Hitler that Arthur Schlesinger later said it was the most bitter struggle of his lifetime—worse than McCarthyism or fights over the Vietnam War.

I take no comfort from those historical analogies because both were only resolved by violence. In 1861, Southerners refused to accept Lincoln’s election and launched the Civil War. And in 1941, it was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—not FDR’s speeches about the importance of democracy—that ended the acrimony over intervention.

This time, we need to protect democracy peacefully. That means exercising it in the courtroom—by proving that even presidents aren’t above the law—and at the ballot box, where a big turnout can save the day. “We need everyone to do their part,” Biden said. “So speak up. Speak out. Get engaged. Vote, vote, vote.” It’s like the principle of fighting bad speech with good speech. The only way to defend democracy is to extend democracy.

This won’t be easy, and not just because the Orange Menace has the survival skills of a feral animal. As Biden put it, MAGA Republicans believe it’s “either we win or we were cheated.” A crisis that began with one megalomaniac’s refusal before the 2020 election to commit to the peaceful transfer of power has become the animating principle of what was once the party of Lincoln.

Biden’s speech should help Democrats build on their momentum this fall. His aim is not persuasion but mobilization—to place democracy itself on the ballot so that so-called “sporadic” Democratic voters (who usually vote only quadrennially), elusive independents and patriotic Republicans (about 20-30 percent of the GOP are pro-democracy) understand that this is not just another boring midterm election. Even if voters don’t like him, Biden reasoned, they like Trump less, and fear giving MAGA Republicans the keys to the car. In a new NBC News poll, “threats to democracy” passed inflation as the number one issue for voters in both parties—69 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Republicans placed it first. Of the latter, it’s hard to know how many are Liz Cheney Republicans and how many are more of the Kari Lake fascist variety, who believe “threats” are indistinguishable from “Democrats.”

A Biden-Trump rematch, in absentia, since neither is on the ballot in 2022, looks good for Democrats. Biden leads Trump by six points in a new Wall Street Journal poll, which also shows independents trending toward the Democrats. That’s because wedge politics—using an emotional issue to energize supporters and divide the other party—works, even in an uncertain economy. It was once a Republican speciality. Now the Big Wedge is wielded by Democrats. It seems that democracy, of all things, has the potential to deliver some stinging losses to the GOP.

An instinct for democracy can also help create unscripted, authentic moments that people remember. When a protester in Philadelphia first started shouting at the president through a bullhorn, I was hoping someone would politely escort him out of earshot. Biden knew better. He deftly incorporated the heckling into his message: “They’re entitled to be outrageous. This is a democracy.” And then he tapped into the sense of decency that powers the pro-democracy movement: “Good manners is nothing they’ve ever suffered from.” Perfect.

Contrast that to Trump shouting at his 2016 rallies, “Get him the hell out of here! Get him out of here! Throw him out!” in Alabama or “I’d like to punch him in the face” in Las Vegas, where he reminisced, “I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.”

Unfortunately, Biden missed a chance to drive home an even sharper contrast. At one point, he said, “They [MAGA Republicans] look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th — brutally attacking law enforcement — not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger to the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots.”

This would have been the perfect place to refer to Trump saying earlier in the day on a rightwing radio show that if he's reelected, he will offer “full pardons with an apology to many” of the insurrectionists. Pardons to people convicted of viciously assaulting Capitol police officers? This will be a great issue for Democrats. It crystallizes Trump’s contempt for law enforcement and lack of patriotism. As Biden explained, ”You can’t love your country only when you win."

The president was right to strike a hopeful tone. Even when it rang false (“I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future”), he grasped the importance of connecting Americans to our idealized version of ourselves.

For years, Biden has ended his speeches by saying “And may God protect our troops.” Now, with the war in Afghanistan over and a new crisis looming at home, he has amended that. He concluded the most important speech of his presidency this way:

“And may God protect our nation. And may God protect all those who stand watch over our democracy. God bless you all.”

Then one final word:

“Democracy.”

Jonathan Alter, a political analyst for MSNBC, writes the Old Goats newsletter on Substack. His most recent book is His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life.

Reprinted with permission from OLD GOATS with Jonathan Alter.



Don’t Paint President Bush In Rose Colors

Don’t Paint President Bush In Rose Colors

On a fresh March day, snow on the ground, here comes George W. Bush as the painterly president, 14 years after he launched the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Art is now his thing, as displayed in a No. 1 best-selling new volume of about 100 warriors wounded on his watch, “Portraits of Courage” (Crown).

As a fierce critic of Bush’s conduct as president, I’m amazed at the sensibility of the artist at work in this breathtaking collection. The Texan former president took up painting seriously since leaving office. He seems to see into his subjects, past their injuries, with real insight and compassion. The accompanying text gives stories of their struggles — representing all the armed services. He worked from photographs.

The gallery exhibit (at Bush’s presidential center) can be seen as an elaborate thank-you note. It’s a WASP thing. His father, the 41st president, famously dashed them off. The secret of his success.

Has Bush at last found himself in a field that requires no family name or fame, no credentials, clubs or wealth? He’s only 70, the same age as the current president, Donald J. Trump.

In the face of Trump’s reign of accusations, boasts and threats to close up shop at the State Department and Environmental Protection Agency, there’s been a softening of opinion on the second Bush president.

You see, he was rough-hewn, but Bush belonged to the political establishment as a genial governor when he ran. Trump is such an angry outsider that you can sense Washington wishing for the good ol’ days. Back then, presidents didn’t accuse others in the elite club of wiretapping.

Let’s not make that mistake. We should not elevate Bush from the basement of the presidential pantheon. History is only useful if it’s unvarnished.

During eight years in office, Bush played the commander in chief with bluff and bravado, landing on an aircraft carrier and declaring false victory. He never dwelled on regret for wars he started in Afghanistan and Iraq.

These are the longest wars in American history and by some military accounts, still unfinished. Those countries are now in a state of shambles and anarchy, and the United States is scarred by our own senseless 21st-century wars.

What were they for again?

One reason Trump became a leading presidential candidate is because he was the only outspoken critic of Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The public knew that was sad but true. Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War in the Senate, which came back to haunt her.

In Bush’s best-selling book, we see men, and a few women, their close-up countenances captured by an oil brush. These people paid the price for Bush’s war swagger, many losing limbs, some suffering post-traumatic stress, others with cracked skulls. Some spent months or years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Then there are those — almost 7,000 — the war dead who gave their lives serving in the all-volunteer military. It’s much easier for a leader to go to war without a draft to alarm the citizenry. The Pentagon figured that out after the lost Vietnam War.

Bush’s White House misled Congress and the United Nations on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice warned about a smoking gun becoming “a mushroom cloud.”

The brash secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, insulted our own soldiers by saying, “You go to war with the Army you have.” Secretary of State Colin Powell got bamboozled, making a speech to the U.N. that swayed the pundits who joined in the Greek chorus for war.

Most critical: The Sept. 11th terrorist attacks were used by the president and his men, from the first, champing for a reason to attack Saddam Hussein. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, which was carried out mostly by Saudi Arabian men. Bush was warned at his ranch in August that the CIA knew something like this was brewing but it did not penetrate.

Baghdad’s biblical antiquities got looted in plain sight because Rumsfeld had no plan for saving civil society.

If only someone had urged young promising George one summer in Maine: “Stick to painting from now on.”

Bush Follows Bush On Campaign Trail

Bush Follows Bush On Campaign Trail

By David Lightman, McClatchy Washington Bureau (TNS)

MANCHESTER, N.H. — The shadow of his brother and father followed Jeb Bush on the campaign trail Friday, leaving him torn whether to follow them or inch away.

He was peppered with questions from reporters in New Hampshire about how he differed with President George W. Bush’s foreign policy. Not relevant, Jeb Bush insisted. The previous night, a voter asked him to explain why another president should come from the Bush family.

At the same time, the Bush name, and more important, its financial and political network, provide a huge advantage in the early going.

Bush is well aware he can’t escape. When he spoke at a breakfast Friday, staring right at him from the opposite wall was a big picture of his brother. Photos of his father were also plastered on the wall of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, where Bush appeared. “Brings back really fond memories,” he laughed.

The family name adds a new layer of skepticism to the lengthy, detailed decision process voters endure in the nation’s first primary state. When Bush spoke at the Concord Snowshoe Club Thursday night to Republican activists, retiree Bill Doherty got up and put the question about family ties squarely to Bush.

“Why should only two families produce the leaders in this country?” he asked politely. A Bush or Clinton has been president for 20 of the last 27 years, and now both Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton are among those seeking the White House.

Bush first tried humor and humility. “I have enough self-awareness to know that that is an oddity,” he said. He joked how he wanted to “break the tie” with the Adams family. John Adams was the nation’s second president and his son, John Quincy Adams, was the sixth. “One way to get people to deal with this is to get people to laugh,” Bush said.

While Jeb Bush does not look like his brother, he has the same way of gesturing with his hands, and the same use of quick laugh lines to deflect tension.

“You have brothers and sisters so you may appreciate this, we’re not all alike. We make our own mistakes in life, we’re on our own life’s journey,” he told the breakfast group.

At a news conference later, he said he’d differ because he’d stress his record as governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. And, Bush insisted, “I’ll actually propose ideas for the future.”

One of his biggest challenges is defending, or deflecting, his brother’s national security policies. George W. Bush left office in 2009 deeply unpopular, largely because of American involvement in the Iraq War.

Asked if he would detail how his foreign policy might be different, Jeb Bush said, “No.”

Bush said earlier this year that intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which his brother used to justify the invasion of Iraq, proved “not to be accurate.”

Asked Friday about other disagreements with his brother’s foreign policy, Jeb Bush said: “That’s not particularly relevant in a world of deep insecurity. Focusing on the past is not really relevant.”

What’s relevant, he said, is “the role of America going forward. And in that world what I see is insecurities creating dramatic insecurity for our own country.”

Bush does command a decent following of people who remember his brother and father fondly. “The Bush dynasty is one of the most significant strengths he has,” said Beverly Bruce, a Tuftonboro software marketer. “He not only has the experience level but also a sense of history.”

Doherty, too, was sympathetic. “He answered (the question) fairly. After hearing him, I absolutely would vote for him,” he said.

Whether others would, though, is another matter.

“There is that dynasty issue,” he said. “It’s a question on everybody’s mind.”

(c)2015 McClatchy Washington Bureau, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr