In
Tempe, Arizona, [yesterday], President Joe Biden
spoke at the dedication ceremony for a new library, named for the late Arizona
senator John McCain, who died in 2018. Biden used the opportunity not only to
honor his friend, but to emphasize the themes of democracy and to call out those
who are threatening to overturn it. While Biden has made the defense of
American democracy central to his presidency, he has never been clearer or more
impassioned than he was today.
Biden
recalled that when McCain was dying, he wrote a farewell letter to the nation
that he had served in both war and peace. “We are citizens of the world’s
greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil,” McCain wrote.
“Americans never quit…. We never hide from history. We make history.”
Biden
reiterated the point he makes often: that the United States is the only nation
founded on an idea, articulated in the Declaration of Independence, that we are
all created equal and have the right to be treated equally before the law.
While “[w]e’ve never fully lived up to that idea,” he said, “we’ve never walked
away from it.” Now, though, our faith in that principle is in doubt.
“[H]istory
has brought us to a new time of testing,” Biden said. “[A]ll of us are being
asked right now: What will we do to maintain our democracy? Will we, as John
wrote, never quit? Will we not hide from history, but make history? Will we put
partisanship aside and put country first? I say we must and we will. We will.
But it’s not easy.”
Biden
laid out exactly what democracy means: “Democracy means rule of the people, not
rule of monarchs, not rule of the monied, not rule of the mighty. Regardless of
party, that means respecting free and fair elections; accepting the outcome, win
or lose. It means you can’t love your country only when you win.”
“Democracy
means rejecting and repudiating political violence,” he said. “Regardless of
party, such violence is never, never, never acceptable in America. It’s
undemocratic, and it must never be normalized to advance political power.”
“Today,” he warned,
“democracy is…at risk.” Our political institutions, our Constitution, and “the
very character of our nation” are threatened. “Democracy is maintained by
adhering to the Constitution and the march to perfecting our union…by
protecting and expanding rights with each successive generation.” “For
centuries, the American Constitution has been a model for the world,” but in
the past few years, he noted, the institutions of our democracy—the judiciary,
the legislature, the executive” have been damaged in the eyes of the American
people, and even the eyes of the world, by attacks from within.
“I’m
here to tell you,” Biden said: “We lose these institutions of our government at
our own peril…. Democracy is not a partisan issue. It’s an American issue.”
“[T]here
is something dangerous happening in America now,” Biden said. “There is an
extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy: the
MAGA Movement.” After high praise for his Republican friend McCain, and
recollections of working with Republicans to pass bipartisan legislation
throughout his career, Biden made it clear that he does not believe “every
Republican,” or even “a majority of Republicans” adheres to the MAGA extremist
ideology. But, he said:
“[T]here
is no question that today’s Republican Party
is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists. Their extreme agenda,
if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American
democracy as we know it.”
The
MAGA Republicans, Biden said, are openly “attacking the free press as the enemy
of the people, attacking the rule of law as an impediment, fomenting voter
suppression and election subversion.” They are “banning books and burying
history.” “Extremists in Congress [are] more determined to shut down the
government, to burn the place down than to let the people’s business be done.”
They are attacking the military—the strongest military in the history of the
world—as being “weak and ‘woke’.”
They
are “pushing a notion the defeated former President expressed when he was in
office and believes applies only to him: This president is above the law, with
no limits on power. Trump says the Constitution gave him…’the right to do
whatever he wants as President.’ I’ve never even heard a president say that in
jest. Not guided by the Constitution or by common service and decency toward
our fellow Americans but by vengeance and vindictiveness.”
Biden
accurately recounted the plans Trump has announced for a second term: expand
presidential power, put federal agencies under the president’s thumb, get rid
of the nonpartisan civil service and fill positions with loyalists. Biden
quoted MAGA Republicans: “I am your retribution,” “slitting throats” of civil
servants, “We must destroy the FBI,” calling the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff a “traitor” and suggesting he should be executed. These extremists, he
said, are “the controlling element of the House Republican Party.”
“This
is the United States of America,” Biden said. “Did you ever think you’d hear
leaders of political parties in the United States of America speak like that?
Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and
packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for
profit and power to divide America in every way, inciting violence against
those who risk their lives to keep America safe, weaponizing against the very
soul of who we are as Americans.”
“The
MAGA extremists across the country have made it clear where they stand,” Biden
said. “So, the challenge for the rest of America—for the majority of
Americans—is to make clear where we stand. Do we still believe in the
Constitution? Do we believe in…basic decency and respect? The whole country
should honestly ask itself…what it wants and understand the threats to our
democracy.”
Biden
knew his own answers:
“I
believe very strongly that the defining feature of our democracy is our
Constitution.
“I
believe in the separation of powers and checks and balances, that debate and
disagreement do not lead to disunion.
“I
believe in free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power.
“I
believe there is no place in America…for political violence. We have to
denounce hate, not embolden it.
“Across
the aisle, across the country, I see fellow Americans, not mortal enemies.
We’re a great nation because we’re a good people who believe in honor, decency,
and respect.”
Pointing
to the fact that the majority of the money appropriated for the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law has gone to Republican-dominated states, he added: “I
believe every president should be a president for all Americans” and should
“use the Office of the President to unite the nation.”
The
job of a president, he said, is to “deliver light, not heat; to make sure democracy
delivers for everyone; to know we’re a nation of unlimited possibilities, of
wisdom and decency—a nation focused on the future.”
“We’ve
faced some tough times in recent years, and I am proud of the progress we made
as a country,” Biden said, “But the real credit doesn’t go to me and my
administration…. The real heroes of the story are you, the American people.”
Now, he said, “I’m asking you that regardless whether you’re a Democrat,
Republican, or independent, put the preservation of our democracy before
everything else. Put our country first…. We can’t take democracy for
granted.”
“Democracies
don’t have to die at the end of a rifle,” Biden said. “They can die when people
are silent, when they fail to stand up or condemn the threats to democracy, when
people are willing to give away that which is most precious to them because
they feel frustrated, disillusioned, tired, alienated.”
“I
get it,” Biden said. But “[f]or all its faults…, American democracy remains the
best…[path] forward to prosperity, possibilities, progress, fair play,
equality.” He urged people not to sit on the sidelines, but “to build
coalitions and community, to remind ourselves there is a clear majority of us
who believe in our democracy and are ready to protect it.”
“So,”
he said, “let’s never quit. Let’s never hide from history. Let’s make history.”
If we do that, he said, “[w]e’ll have proved, through all its imperfections,
America is still a place of possibilities, a beacon for the world, a promise
realized—where the power forever resides with ‘We the People.’”
“That’s
our soul. That’s who we truly are. That’s who we must always be.”
—Heather
Cox Richardson
Notes:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/27/politics/john-mccain-farewell-statement/index.html
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