President Joe Biden speaks from the Blue Room Balcony of the White House in Washington, as he announces that a U.S. airstrike killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri in Afghanistan, Aug. 1, 2022. (Jim Watson/Pool via AP, File)
“History shows us that blind loyalty to a single leader . . . is fatal to democracy,” the president said.
By Debbie Reiss, World Israel News
President Joe Biden has warned that his predecessor Donald Trump and “MAGA Republicans” represent a threat to American democracy.
“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic,” Biden said prime-time speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, using the acronym for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.
“History shows us that blind loyalty to a single leader . . . is fatal to democracy,” he said.
“Equality and democracy are under assault,” the president said.
While he acknowledged that not all GOP voters are Trump supporters, he charged the party with being “dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans.”
They “are determined to take this country backward,” he declared, “to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.”
They seek to “fan the flames of political violence,” he added.
“For a long time, we’ve reassured ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed. But it is not. We have to defend it. Protect it. Stand up for it. Each and every one of us.”
Biden’s speech on Thursday night was promoted as an official, taxpayer-funded event, The National reported, indicating how the president views defeating Trump as much as a policy aim as a political one.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy accused Biden of “launch[ing] an assault on the soul of America, on its people, on its laws, on its most sacred values.”
“He has launched an assault on our democracy. His policies have severely wounded America’s soul, diminished America’s spirit and betrayed America’s trust,” McCarthy said at a speech in the nearby city of Scranton.
Trump has not confirmed whether he will run in the 2024 election but has hinted at it on several occasions.
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