Biden embraces tough tone on 'MAGA Republicans' for threat to democracy

In recent days, President Joe Biden has sharpened his attacks against Donald Trump and the so-called MAGA Republicans for posing a threat to democracy.

He's likened the philosophy undergirding the dominant strain of the modern-day GOP to semi-fascism. And Democrats are taking notice.

The gloves-off, no-holds-barred approach from Biden as of late has emboldened Democrats across the country, rallying the party faithful ahead of the November elections even as his harshest rhetoric makes some vulnerable incumbents visibly uncomfortable.

Biden's increasingly stark warnings about Trump-fuelled elements of the Republican Party are making up the core part of his midterm message, combined with repeated reminders to voters about recent Democratic accomplishments and a promise that democracy can still produce results for the American people.

 

But it's the blistering statements from Biden about his predecessor and adherents of the Make America Great Again philosophy that have given many Democrats a bolt of fresh energy as they campaign to keep control of Congress.

It's a particularly strong issue for our base, said Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, who leads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm of Senate Democrats.

Biden's forceful campaign-year posture comes as Democrats are feeling more optimistic about the midterms, when the party controlling the White House has historically faced losses in Congress.

A combination of legislative accomplishments, polarising Republican candidates and voter fury stoked by the overturning of Roe vs. Wade have Democrats feeling they could see smaller losses in the House than initially anticipated, while retaining their barebones majority in the Senate.

The president began road-testing his midterm message at a rally in the Washington suburbs late last month, as he railed against a Republican ideology that he said largely resembled semi-fascism.

The White House chose Philadelphia's Independence Hall as the backdrop for last week's address that outlined the danger that Trump's extreme ideology posed to the functioning of US democracy.

And in a pair of Labour Day events in critical mid-term battle grounds, Biden continued to hammer the contrast while becoming even more comfortable in invoking his predecessor, whom he had avoided referring to by name for much of his presidency.

You can't call yourself a democracy when you don't, in fact, count the votes that people legitimately cast and count that as what you are, Biden said on Monday in front of a union crowd in Pittsburgh.

Biden will headline another political event Thursday, hosted by the Democratic National Committee in suburban Maryland.

There, the president will speak about "the choice before Americans" on issues of abortion, Social Security and Medicare, democracy, school safety and climate, and how extreme MAGA Republicans are working to take away our rights, according to a Biden adviser who requested anonymity to preview his remarks.

That will be followed by a trip to Ohio on Friday, a state where the Senate contest between Democrat Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. Vance is becoming increasingly competitive.

Those close to Biden say the president has never shied away from a political fight.

Republicans have accused Biden of divisive rhetoric in his string of speeches, particularly with his Philadelphia address.

They say the president has tagged tens of millions of Americans who supported Trump as threats to democracy, although both the president and his aides have been careful to distinguish elected officials from voters themselves.

GOP officials still believe Biden remains a liability in competitive districts and states, although his approval ratings have brightened somewhat in recent weeks as the White House notched a series of achievements and as Trump's legal troubles starting with the FBI search of his southern Florida estate have dominated headlines.

I hope Biden keeps going around the country, Senator Rick Scott, R-Fla., said in a Fox News interview on Tuesday night. I hope he goes to every swing state and gives his raving lunatic speech everywhere around the country.

Yet in those swing states, more Democrats who had initially shied away from joining Biden are increasingly comfortable in doing so.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat who is in one of the most closely contested gubernatorial races nationwide, joined Biden in Milwaukee on Monday, although Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes stayed away.

After avoiding other presidential visits to the state, Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman, a Democrat, appeared with Biden in Pittsburgh.

Peters, the DSCC chairman, said it was up to each Democratic candidate to decide whether to appear alongside Biden, but said he believed the president was an asset.

Peters noted that he was the sole Democratic candidate in 2014 to actively campaign with President Barack Obama during a midterm year heavily favorable to Republicans.

Everyone ran away. I had him come in, and I won, Peters said. So that's my data point.