Biden urges Americans to defend democracy on election eve, On the eve of Tuesday’s midterm elections, President Joe Biden urged Democrats to defend democracy by defeating Donald Trump’s Republicans in a contest that polls indicate has the potential to shake up the balance of power in Washington.
Biden urges Americans to defend democracy on election eve
Democrats prepared for the worst as Republicans appeared well-positioned to capture at least a portion of control of Congress and Trump hinted at a run for the White House in 2024 at his own rally late Monday. Republicans’ legislative plan for the final two years of Vice President Biden’s first term would be derailed even if they just take control of the House of Representatives, which may undercut US backing for Ukraine’s battle against Russia.
“Our lifetimes are going to be shaped by what happens,” Biden told an enthusiastic crowd at a historically Black university in Bowie, near Baltimore, late Monday. “We know in our bones that our democracy is at risk and we know that this is your moment to defend it.”
“The power’s in your hands,” he told Democrats. “So vote, get out the vote.”
The transformation that has been occurring within the Republican Party ever since former real estate billionaire Donald Trump shocked the world by defeating Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 would also be accelerated by an inflow of far-right Trump supporters in Congress.
Trump is now using the midterm elections to solidify his position as the de facto leader of the Republican Party and the presumptive nominee for president, despite being the subject of criminal investigations for stealing top-secret documents from the White House and attempting to rig the 2020 election. In a typically dark, rambling speech to fans in Dayton, Ohio, Trump said, “if you support the decline and fall of America, then you must, you absolutely must vote for the radical left, crazy people.”
“If you want to stop the destruction of our country, then tomorrow you must vote Republican in a giant red wave.”
– Lame duck? –
More than 40 million ballots had been cast through early voting, meaning the outcome was already taking shape before polls opened nationwide Tuesday. Biden tried to remain upbeat during his closing address in Baltimore, but in a call with party allies earlier Monday he conceded that his dreams of keeping Congress, which Democrats currently control by a thin margin, amounted to a “very high expectation.” Trump Republicans are “some of the darkest forces we’ve ever seen in our history,” he said.
Biden’s speech laid out what he said was “a choice between two very different visions of America,” arguing that his administration has successfully steered the world’s largest economy out of the Covid pandemic, with unemployment at 3.75 percent and manufacturing industries on the rise. Republicans, he said, would return to “trickle-down economics” that favor the rich.
However, polls show that Republican messaging emphasizing four-decades-high inflation, crime, and illegal immigration has left voters in an angry mood. As the party controlling the White House and — albeit barely — Congress, the Democrats are likely to get punished.
If Democrats can’t even hold the Senate, then Biden would find himself in a state of constant political warfare in Washington. There would also be immediate, harsh questions over whether Biden, who turns 80 this month, should seek a second term or give way to a younger party member.
Kevin McCarthy, who would likely become the Republican speaker of the House — placing him second in line to the president — refused to rule out impeachment proceedings. “We will never use impeachment for political purposes,” McCarthy told CNN. “That doesn’t mean if something rises to the occasion, it would not be used at any other time.”
The whole of Biden’s plan would be put on ice. That would raise concerns about everything from the president’s plans to address the climate problem at the COP27 conference this week in Egypt to Republican reluctance to continue the level of US financial and military support for Ukraine.
McCarthy told CNN there could be no “blank check” while maintaining his support for Ukraine’s fight, giving a nod to the party’s isolationist Trump side and probably sending shivers through Kyiv. Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch with ties to the Kremlin, boasted that Russia was trying to influence the outcome, escalating tensions and serving as a reminder of Moscow’s ambiguous role in US politics during the Trump administration.