Mr Biden’s speech is his first major campaign event of the 2024 election season
Mr Biden’s speech is his first major campaign event of the 2024 election season
President Joe Biden marked the third anniversary of the January 6 attack on the Capitol by warning that the issue of American democracy will be “what the 2024 election is all about,” as he runs against former president Donald Trump once more.
Mr Biden, who spoke near the Valley Forge historical site where George Washington and the Continental Army were encamped during the winter of 1777 and 1778, told attendees that they were there “to answer the most important of questions: Is democracy still America’s sacred cause?”
“This isn’t rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical. Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time,” he said.
Mr Biden said his speech, his first major event of the 2024 election season, was “deadly serious,” and about a topic that needed to be raised at the outset of his campaign.
Massive efforts deprogramming cultist behavior needs to be priority. How does one get through to these people, or do you just write them off as broken and focus on those you can save or still on the fence? (we know this is the strategy of the Right, after all).
When Biden wins, who's betting we'll see Trump on the ballot again in 2028? And if not, in 2032? And so on, and so on...and if not him one of his kids...and if not them someone far more insidious and intelligent than them all...this is only the beginning. Trump is just the tip of evil rearing its horrific head.
What frightens me: who is going to be the next Trump? Let's face it, there will likely be another Republican president at some point. Our election system almost guarantees it. Will they do the decent thing and try to work towards the betterment of the country, or will they continue their predecessors' path towards dictatorship? The other front-runners don't inspire much confidence in the former (exception: maybe Christie, but there's virtually no way he'll win).
Nearly every Republican that voted to impeach Trump lost their primary vote, so I only see them going further right, and a lot of people seem to be okay with this.
We’re living in a time when creating extremists is too easy. People used to have to stand in little rooms full of disgruntled people and yell into a microphone. They had to organize and create newspapers and pamphlets. They had to have money to spread their message. They had to lose money to spread their message in hopes of taking power. It took years to rile up enough people to create problems.
Now, any dangerous person has the ability to reach an audience with ease.
It has gotten so bad that even people who aren’t even remotely connected to the internet are extremists. Pawpaw with his flip phone stands at the gas station being radicalized by his old work buddy.
I actually feel like I have to just have faith that everything will work out and our system can save itself.
I hope we don’t end up having to rebuild it all one day with some big nasty lesson we learn and then forget again.
Republican politicians only care about winning. If Trump fails yet again, they will change their strategy. The right wing base are mostly subservient people so they'll fall in line.
Fascist movements oftentimes fizzle out. There's generally a cult of personality involved with these movements, and when the leader dies it tends to fade away. Trump isn't young nor is he healthy, it's very unlikely he'll live to 2028. Same goes for a lot of his supporters in the boomer generation.
Sure there is a good number of fashy types in the younger generations but not enough to win an election.
Most important thing is that young people go out and vote in this election.
With one of the shittier implementations of it in the world, I think it's not. Capitalism seems more sacred to the US, anyway. In a truly democratic system, the US would have a decent and cheaper healthcare system, a sensible way to report taxes, a political class actually responsible to the people, no "political dynasties" etc.
Also, Biden wouldn't be president, or at least he couldn't campaign as a protest candidate against Trump.
Trump is not "willing to sacrifice democracy". He's actively fighting against it. The guy is not behaving like "democracy is important, but me being president is importanter", he's going "I lost because of democracy, so let's get rid of it".
American healthcare system is very good and affordable for a large majority of Americans. Sure it sucks if you're poor, but most Americans are not poor.
Taxes are not that hard to do. The vast majority of people get a single income statement from an employer and use the standard deduction. Could it be better? Sure but it's not bad for most people.
American healthcare system is very good and affordable for the vast majority of Americans. Sure it sucks if you’re poor, but most Americans are not poor.
Taxes are not that hard to do. The vast majority of people get a single income statement from an employer and use the standard deduction. Could it be better? Sure but it’s not bad for most people.
This is just...
My god dude. Try living in another country for a while. You're speaking like an abuse victim who keeps defending their abuser. The US's societal infrastructure, including health care and taxation, are 50 years behind the rest of the developed world. Americans pay top-tier costs for bottom-tier society.
"Sure it sucks if you're poor" is the kinder sibling of saying "Got mine, fuck you!" Being poor sucks everywhere, just by nature, but the entire point of societal programs is to uplift the poorest and make it suck less, not to give handouts to the rich so they can say "Well geez, at least I'm not poor!"
We're not poor. We're also over $10,000 in medical debt. Anyone can get sick. Sometimes very sick. Even if you say you have a good immune system because you exercise and take care of yourself.
You can always say, "it's not that bad" but what I'm saying is that it's worse than in much of the world.
In the places I've lived, if I got sick, especially if I got a long-term sickness, I am not just not paying for it, I get money from my insurance, so my life doesn't go to shit because I can't work. And the healthcare systems here are cheaper. My insurance costs around a grand a month, and there are no copays, maximums, deductibles or other bullshit. I am not bearing the risk of me falling ill. And it costs the state less than the US is paying for what they have, both per capita and in total.
And with taxes. I haven't done my taxes ever. I get a mail saying that my taxes have been done for the year, and I should check it out, I usually have a look if I don't forget. It is also a cheaper system on both my side and the state's.
Mr Biden, who spoke near the Valley Forge historical site where George Washington and the Continental Army were encamped during the winter of 1777 and 1778, told attendees that they were there “to answer the most important of questions: Is democracy still America’s sacred cause?”
The president said the violence that day was the “one desperate act” left available to Mr Trump, and pointed out that even though Republicans in the House and Senate — and their allies on the Fox News Channel — had “publicly and privately condemned the attack,” the disgraced ex-president and many of his allies have chosen instead to accept a revisionist history, in which the attack was a peaceful protest and those who’ve been arrested for committing crimes that day are political prisoners.
The president’s appearance at Valley Forge comes as the Department of Justice marked the three-year anniversary of the January 6 attack by noting that there have been 1,265 arrests made of pro-Trump rioters, including 452 who’ve been charged with assaulting or otherwise obstructing police officers that day.
But the president noted how Mr Trump has chosen to lionise those criminals, and how he had “began his 2024 campaign by glorifying the failed violent insurrection at our capitol”.
Mr Biden contrasted the late first president with the disgraced 45th and his supporters, and pointed out that many of the rioters who stormed the Capitol in support of Mr Trump passed by the iconic portrait of then-General Washington resigning his commission as a general in the Continental Army at the end of the American Revolution, setting a precedent of civilian control over the military that persists in the US today.
Continuing, he reminded attendees that the painter, John Turnbull, once called that moment “one of the highest moral lessons ever given to the world” and recalled how Washington “could have held onto that power as long as he wanted”.
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Writers of articles generally don't write headlines and people who share them are supposed to post the headline as-is. It's not worth ignoring an article solely because an editor wrote a clickbait headline.
Sir, as long as you sit idly by and do nothing, and worse arm and fund the killing of innocent civilians and veto cease-fire attempts you are a piece of shit.
"democracy" was never americas "sacred cause", you're thinking of stealing land from indigenous people. I don't think that's going to stop even if we elect the red maga instead of the blue maga.
Wow maybe we should get rid of all of them and make a new government with some popular legitimacy. Oh you were being sarcastic because you support one of the genocide teams, have fun with your star wars or whatever lol.