Kcable ties, adhesive tape, a rope and a hammer – the attacker carried these items with him. Joe Biden began Wednesday night’s speech by recalling the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Where’s Nancy? the attacker shouted as he broke into the couple’s San Francisco home. Biden said, “Those were the same words the mob used when he stormed the Capitol on January 6th.” the stolen election.
Washington Central Station is just a few blocks from the House of Congress, and you can see the Capitol dome from Union Station. So it was no coincidence that the American President gave his speech on the dangers to American democracy here of all places – broadcast live on television, not a week before the congressional elections next Tuesday. “Democracy itself is in danger,” Biden warned at the event of the party organization Democratic National Committee. “Democracy itself is up for election.”
In the final days of the election campaign, Republicans bombard voters in the states with commercials about inflation, high gasoline and diesel prices and rising crime. Biden, on the other hand, tried to shift this focus in his last major individual speech before the congressional elections: It’s not just about current politics. Democracy is a conscious decision, he said in the Columbus Club in the station building. Every generation in America had to defend them.
“America is at a turning point”
President Biden recalled the threats against election workers and politicians after the 2020 presidential election. Americans would have to counter the lies with the truth. “The future of our nation depends on it.” The United States is at a tipping point. One must speak with one voice: There is no place for voter intimidation or political violence in America – “whether it is directed against Democrats or Republicans”.
Many of the Republican candidates, whether for governor, congressman, attorney general or secretary of the interior, refused to commit to accepting the election results. “This is the road to chaos in America,” Biden said Wednesday night. “This is unprecedented, lawless and un-American. As I’ve said before, you can’t love your country just by winning.” An October analysis by The Washington Post found that more than half of Republican midterm election candidates doubt or doubt the outcome of the 2020 presidential election at least question, 291 out of a total of 569.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security warn of increasing post-election violence, including from “actual or perceived efforts to suppress voting access.” In many states, election workers are therefore given special protection. Threats against members of Congress have also increased tenfold since 2016, according to Capitol Police; there were almost 10,000 last year.
Biden delivered a speech similar to the one in Washington in September in Philadelphia. Even then, he warned: “Trump’s extremism is shaking the very foundations of the republic.” In Union Station, Biden then said that the Trump Republicans wanted to pick up where “the defeated former president” failed in 2020. They wanted to “suppress the right of voters and undermine the electoral system itself”. In an October poll by The New York Times, just over a third, 35 percent, of those polled said they had “very much” confidence that the results of the midterm elections would be correct.
