The Biden administration is terrified of Donald Trump, and in their desperation, they’re making huge mistakes.
First, there was the raid on Trump’s home in Florida, which was a blatant strong-arm tactic by an administration so drunk with power that it would use the Department of Justice to fish for dirt in the hopes of thwarting Trump’s potential 2024 bid. It quickly backfired, and everyone was working overtime to distance the White House, Biden, and even Merrick Garland from the raid. Then polling showed that the Department of Justice is losing the public relations battle following the raid on Mar-a-Lago. The action was supposed to end Trump’s political career, not bolster his political comeback. Whoops.
But the Biden administration didn’t learn its lesson. In recent weeks, Biden has ramped up his divisive rhetoric, labeling Trump supporters “semi-fascists” and “threats to our democracy” in a carefully crafted campaign. It culminated in a primetime speech Thursday that, ironically, bore an uncanny resemblance to a Hitler rally, both in style and rhetoric.
Related: Okay, Biden is Literally Hitler Now
“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic,” Biden declared in his speech. He clarified that he meant “not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans.” But he negated that sentiment shortly after by insisting that “there is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.”
Biden added that the millions of American voters who chose Trump as president or plan to support him in 2024 pose a “clear and present danger” to democracy in the United States.
As PJ Media’s Stacey Lennox pointed out, Merriam-Webster defines “clear and present danger” specifically as “a risk or threat to safety or other public interests that is serious and imminent; especially: one that justifies limitation of a right (as freedom of speech or press) by the legislative or executive branch of government.” This can be interpreted to mean that Biden admitted he sees it within reason to deny Trump supporters their constitutionally protected rights. Additionally, as Stacey noted, “those are also conditions required to launch a military response” — which brings added meaning to Biden being flanked by two Marines during the speech.
After the address ended, Americans were justifiably horrified. Even some CNN commentators called the speech inappropriate — which says a lot.
The speech was also rather scary because just a couple of days earlier, Biden seemed to threaten millions of Republican voters with military weapons. “For those brave right-wing Americans,” he sneered, “if you want to fight against the country, you need an F-15. You need something little more than a gun.” It wasn’t a good look, and it seems very likely that the speech will backfire just as the raid did.
Did the White House realize they’d once again made a gross miscalculation? It appears so.
Sure enough, on Friday, President Biden attempted to walk back the incendiary rhetoric he had used in the speech the night before. He even had the audacity to deny that he had attacked Trump voters, even though he had done so multiple times.
“Do you consider all Trump supporters to be a threat to this country?” Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked.
“Come on, look, guys, you keep trying to make that case. I don’t consider any Trump supporter to be a threat to the country,” Biden said. “I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence, fails to condemn violence when it is used, refuses to acknowledge when an election has been won, insists upon changing the way in which they can count votes, that is a threat to democracy.”
It looks like the White House saw that the speech had a lot of negative reactions and is already attempting to mitigate the damage. So perhaps instead of worrying about how to stop Trump, they should try solving the problems hurting Americans — because what they’re doing now isn’t helping them.