Bahama Times

Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Biden Issued A Dire Warning: Democracy Is In Danger And Political Violence Is A Threat (but it’s ok if it’s in HK…)

Biden Issued A Dire Warning: Democracy Is In Danger And Political Violence Is A Threat (but it’s ok if it’s in HK…)

"Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm?" President Joe Biden asked during a speech at the US Capitol.
One year after former president Donald Trump's supporters tried to overturn an election, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a dire warning at the scene of the attack: The threat to democracy and the potential for political violence continues, driven by new, Republican-led voter restrictions across the country.

“Those who stormed this Capitol, and those who instigated and incited, and those who called on them to do so, held a dagger at the throat of America and American democracy,” Biden said. “They didn’t come here out of patriotism or principle. They came here in rage."

He asked: "Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm?"

Both Biden and Harris emphasized how, in the aftermath of the attempted insurrection, the fragility of American democracy and the need to actively defend it has been clear, evoking hard-won battles for the vote by Black civil rights leaders.

"If we do not defend it,” Harris said, “Democracy simply will not stand."

One year on, there are hundreds of criminal cases stemming from the riot winding their way through the court system. Far-right extremism continues to adapt and worm its way into the mainstream. And Republicans continue to push conspiracy theories around the election and stall voting rights reforms in the Senate.

“New laws are being written not to protect the vote but to deny it,” Biden said. "Not only to suppress the vote but to subvert it. Not to strengthen and protect our democracy. Because the former president lost, instead of looking at election results from 2020 and saying they need new ideas or better ideas to win more votes, the former president and his supporters have decided the only way for them to win is to suppress your vote and subvert our elections. It’s wrong. It’s undemocratic.”

He continued: “Let's speak plainly about what happened in 2020. Even before the first ballot was cast, the former president was preemptively sowing doubt about the election results."

Biden and Harris made the case that the Jan. 6 attack was not only a physical threat to democracy but that the election denial ideology behind the attack also spurred a series of voter restriction bills from Republican legislators across the country.

In the past year, 19 states have passed laws that restrict voter access, on the same basis that drove hundreds, including groups of white supremacists, to storm the Capitol grounds, assault and demean police officers, and hunt for elected officials while a gallows hung on the Capitol lawn: the false narrative, pushed by Trump, that Biden stole the election.

Biden called Trump out in his address on Thursday morning, pointing to his actions spurring on the attackers on Jan. 6 and his continued attempts to spread misinformation and inflame election denial conspiracy theories.

“For the first time in our history, a president not just lost an election. He tried to prevent a peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob reached the Capitol. But they failed. They failed,” Biden said.

“His bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution,” he said. "He cannot accept that he lost."

Harris compared the need to defend democracy from extremists today to the blood spilled in the battle for civil rights in decades past.

“What they sought to degrade and destroy was not only a building,” she said. “What they were assaulting were the institutions, the values, the ideals that generations of Americans have marched, picketed, and shed blood to establish and defend.”

“On Jan. 6, we all saw what our nation would look like if the forces who seek to dismantle our democracy are successful,” Harris said.

“The 'big lie' didn't just drive the insurrection,” said Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice. "It has driven a wave of anti-voter laws across the country, laws to restrict voting and pull cut back on voting rights and laws to change who does the counting — sabotage on top of voter suppression."

Waldman said Biden has been “more muted than would have been ideal” about voting rights and the threats to democracy over the past year, but that he sees the president being more proactive now: between his remarks this week and plans to travel to Georgia next week specifically to talk about voting rights reform.

Voting rights advocates said it was important to hear Biden clearly and specifically condemn anti-democratic forces. But they ultimately have their eyes on key voting rights legislation.

Protecting American democracy, voting rights advocates said, means going beyond holding those responsible for Jan. 6 responsible for their actions — the real goal is passing those voter protection measures, which a majority of Republicans in the Senate oppose. Biden directly pointing to voting reform bills as a means to stem the tide of anti-voter access bills underwritten by election denial ideology was a welcome sign to voting rights advocates.

“Republicans will say, Oh, he's politicizing this solemn day of remembrance or whatever,” Waldman said. “Every major speech by presidents that are effective at a moment like this have a political purpose,” he added, referring to the Gettysburg Address and Bill Clinton’s speech after the Oklahoma City bombing, a right-wing terrorist attack.

On the eve of the anniversary, Rev. Leah Daughtry, campaign manager with Fighting for Our Vote, said that she wanted to see Biden make a clear connection between the events of Jan. 6 and the need for voting rights protection to counter the ongoing threats to elections and democracy in the US.

“I want to see Joe Biden remind us of who we are, of what our principles are, what our higher calling is, and then I want to see him tie that to the existential threat that we have right now,” Daughtry said. “That we shouldn't take for granted that what happened on Jan. 6 can never happen again. That he is fully committed with everything that he and the administration has to ensure that our voting rights are protected.”

Two bills, the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, would represent the most significant defenses to voters' rights since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. The first bill would set national standards for elections, outlaw gerrymandering, enshrine the right to vote by mail, and standardize voter ID laws. The second would reestablish antidiscrimination protections stripped away from the Voting Rights Act by two Supreme Court decisions in recent years, which has left voters of color, in particular, vulnerable to having their access to voting cut off by state and local officials.

“In response to Jan. 6, it would stop the voter suppression wave,” Waldman said.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urged the Senate to pass voting rights reforms in response to Jan. 6 in a "Dear Colleague" letter on Monday.

“January 6th was a symptom of a broader illness — an effort to delegitimize our election process and the Senate must advance systemic democracy reforms to repair our republic or else the events of that day will not be an aberration — they will be the new norm,” Schumer wrote.

Senate Democrats support both bills — but that’s not enough to get past Republicans, in an evenly divided Senate where it takes 60 votes to pass any legislation because of the filibuster. The current challenge for Biden and Senate Democrats is to convince Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to support changes to Senate procedure that would provide an exception to filibuster rules, preventing Republicans from shooting down voting rights legislation.

“I mean, it's just been a series of unfortunate events and fumbles,” New Georgia Project CEO Nsé Ufot said about how the Biden administration has handled the voting reform bills.

While voting rights advocates acknowledge that Biden may not have more forcefully called out Republicans for stalling voting reform — the way activists have — because he may need them on his side to pass other aspects of his agenda, Ufot said she’s disappointed he hasn’t used his years of experience and relationships in the Senate to push harder for voting rights bills.

“I did not serve four decades in the United States Senate. I can't whip votes. I can't get my former colleagues to get rid of the filibuster. They can,” she said. “So there are things that I can and should be doing, as an organizer, as an activist, as a citizen. And there are things that only the president of the United States can do.”

Daughtry, by contrast, said she thought Biden has been forceful already in pushing for the bills. "I want to see him continue to double down with his colleagues, his former colleagues in the Senate, to put the full resources of the administration to work in ensuring that we can pass voting rights legislation," she said.

“The buck stops with the United States Senate, and they've got to do their jobs to preserve democracy,” Daughtry said. “It is not the president's job alone.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

Bahama Times
0:00
0:00
Close
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
Israel: Unprecedented Civil Disobedience Looms as IDF Reservists Protest Judiciary Reform
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The politician and the journalist lost control and started fighting on live broadcast.
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
Joe Biden admitted, in his own words, that he delivered what he promised in exchange for the $10 million bribe he received from the Ukraine Oil Company.
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
Europe is boiling: Extreme Weather Conditions Prevail Across the Continent
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Italian Court's Controversial Ruling on Sexual Harassment Ignites Uproar
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
40,000 child slaves in Congo are forced to work in cobalt mines so we can drive electric cars.
BBC Personalities Rebuke Accusations Amidst Scandal Involving Teen Exploitation
A Swift Disappointment: Why Is Taylor Swift Bypassing Canada on Her Global Tour?
Historic Moment: Edgars Rinkevics, EU's First Openly Gay Head of State, Takes Office as Latvia's President
Bye bye democracy, human rights, freedom: French Cops Can Now Secretly Activate Phone Cameras, Microphones And GPS To Spy On Citizens
The Poor Man With Money, Mark Zuckerberg, Unveils Twitter Replica with Heavy-Handed Censorship: A New Low in Innovation?
Unilever Plummets in a $2.5 Billion Free Fall, to begin with: A Reckoning for Misuse of Corporate Power Against National Interest
Beyond the Blame Game: The Need for Nuanced Perspectives on America's Complex Reality
Twitter Targets Meta: A Tangle of Trade Secrets and Copycat Culture
The Double-Edged Sword of AI: AI is linked to layoffs in industry that created it
US Sanctions on China's Chip Industry Backfire, Prompting Self-Inflicted Blowback
Meta Copy Twitter with New App, Threads
The New French Revolution
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Application Refiled, Naming Coinbase as ‘Surveillance-Sharing’ Partner
×