Rule number 1 of news casting – be dramatic enough to draw an audience. Rule number 1a -- create the drama by asking the tough questions. Thus we find even progressive reporters asking absurd questions that seem to be based on right wing talking points. Last week Chris Jansing was asking whether Joe Biden's democracy in peril speech was divisive. As is so often the case, this supposedly tough question is the wrong question. The most important question is whether Biden is right about Trump and the MAGA Rs posing such a grave threat to our democracy! And the answer to that question is a resounding YES!
So now we come down to a discussion of what we can do about the threat. That discussion often begins with statements about how we can get the reasonable, none MAGA Rs, to join us in defending our democracy from the threat posed by the authoritarian extremists. And here is where we run into problems because as desirable as it is to enlist Republicans in defense of our democracy such an effort assumes that there are still reasonable people in the Republican Party, and that is questionable at this point. Non MAGA “Conservative” Republicans, such as Susan Del Percio, are inadvertently admitting just how partisan and unreasonable Republicans are by telling us that no Democrat can reason with Republicans. She and other “conservatives” warn that any criticism of any Republicans by any Democrat will be offensive to all Republicans! So are we supposed to let the fascist threat go without sounding the alarm? Should the leader of this country and others who have taken the oath to defend the constitution from all threats foreign and domestic stand aside, silently hoping, maybe praying, that the good former Republicans who still believe in our form of government can pull reasonable Republicans out of Trump's cesspool and into the light! Sorry but standing by, hoping and praying, while the fascist Rs suppress the vote and even threaten to ignore the results of elections sounds like a gross dereliction of duty to me!
Like everyone else who actually knows what they are talking about, David Jolly indicates that there is no unifying with the MAGA Rs. It cannot be done! Joe Biden extended an olive branch and an invitation to all people who believe in our system of government when he said there are still good Republican who are not MAGA. But it appears as though Joe is too optimistic about there still being a significant number of reasonable, patriotic people who have not left the Republican Party. It is estimated that only 25 to 30% of Republicans do not identify themselves as MAGA, and as Biden noted the ones who do identify themselves as MAGA control the party. In all likelihood, a majority of the non-MAGA Republicans will continue to go along with the leaders of their party because that is what people are inclined to do. So is Biden being unrealistic? I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and interpret his statement of inclusion as going beyond trying to appeal to mythical Republicans who have not sold their souls to the fascist movement. I think he was talking to a larger audience as he drew a contrast between the tribal warfare mentality of the R-fascists and a democratic society that respects diversity and protects the rights of its citizens to participate in its political and economic system. Although I am sure Biden is hoping that the shrinking number of rational Republicans will heed his warning, I think he is appealing to independents who lean Republican and perhaps to suburban Republican women who realize that the outrageous “anti-abortion laws” being passed by MAGA states in the wake of the Dobbs decision will take us back to time when women were second class citizens. I find it hard to believe that anyone (female or male) with an open, rational mind, and a functioning olfactory system can believe that taking away the rights of women will “Make America Great Again.”
The gravamen of Biden's speech is that Republican bull shit is preparing the soil in which Trump's MAGA brown shirts are planting sedition and tyranny. It does not take a genius to know that defending our democracy from a fascist movement is no more of a partisan issue than was our declaration of war after the bombing of pearl harbor. This is where the focus of the news media should be, on the effort and the need to defend and preserve our democracy! Now is the time for all good people to rally round the constitution in defense of our liberty and of the laws protecting our liberty from attacks by would be autocrats! If we lose our democracy freedom of speech and freedom of the press will go with it.
