July 14, 2021
by Matthew Rothschild, Executive Director
President Biden gave a great speech in Philadelphia yesterday. He highlighted the grave threat to our democracy that we face: from Donald Trump’s toxic demagoguery to the efforts by Republicans in legislatures around the country to suppress and overturn the vote.
This was the most direct attack that Biden has made on his predecessor since Nov. 3. He didn’t mention Trump by name, but there was no mistaking who he was talking about.
“The Big Lie is just that: a big lie,” Biden said. “ In America, if you lose, you accept the results. You follow the Constitution. You try again. You don’t call facts “fake” and then try to bring down the American experiment just because you’re unhappy. That’s not statesmanship; that’s selfishness. That’s not democracy; it’s the denial of the right to vote.”
Just days after Trump called those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 “tremendous people,” Biden denounced the “deadly and violent insurrection” and mocked the Senators who minimized it as just “another day at the Capitol.”
Biden also took aim at Republican legislators in state after state who are passing laws erecting barriers to the exercise of our sacred right to vote and who are even passing laws that would allow officials loyal to them to change the results.
“It’s about who gets to count the vote — who gets to count whether or not your vote counted at all,” said Biden. “It’s about moving from independent election administrators who work for the people to polarized state legislatures and partisan actors who work for political parties. To me, this is simple: This is election subversion. It’s the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and fair elections in our history.”
The combination of these orchestrated anti-voter bills with Trump’s Big Lie and the ugly forces he has unleashed has brought our democracy to the edge, Biden said.
“Make no mistake, bullies and merchants of fear and peddlers of lies are threatening the very foundation of our country,” Biden said. “We’re facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War.”
And in classic Biden fashion, he added: “I’m not saying this to alarm you; I’m saying this because you should be alarmed.”
To meet this crisis, he urged passage of H.R. 1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
He admonished his “Republican friends” to “stand up, for God’s sake, and help prevent this concerted effort to undermine our elections and the sacred right to vote,” adding, “Have you no shame?”
And he called on citizens across the country to come to the defense of our democracy.
“We have to forge a coalition of Americans of every background and political party — the advocates, the students, the faith leaders, the labor leaders, the business executives — and raise the urgency of this moment.”
Biden’s speech was a clarion call to all of us to recognize the real and imminent threats to our democracy, and to act on them before it’s too late.
Thank you, Mr. President!