Trump Poses Existential Threat to Future of Democracy

Trump Poses Existential Threat to Future of Democracy

Postby admin » Fri Sep 02, 2022 11:52 pm

Historian of Radical Right: Biden Is Correct, Trump Poses Existential Threat to Future of Democracy
by Amy Goodman
Democracy NOW
SEPTEMBER 02, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/9/2/b ... transcript

GUESTS
Nancy MacLean
author and historian who teaches at Duke University.
LINKS
Nancy MacLean on Twitter
"Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America"

In a primetime address Thursday, President Biden warned Donald Trump and his radical supporters are threatening the foundations of the republic. Biden said, “Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” and that MAGA Republicans present a “clear and present danger to our democracy,” referring to Trump’s campaign slogan of “Make America Great Again.” We speak with Nancy MacLean, author and Duke University historian, who says Biden’s speech was a “wake-up call” for the nation and mainstream media. “He was absolutely right, in my opinion, that the Trump wing of the party and the MAGA Republicans have jumped the rails of constitutional democracy, of the factual universe and of representative democracy.”

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

President Biden gave a primetime speech Thursday night warning Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters are threatening the foundations of the republic. Biden spoke in Philadelphia in front of Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were debated and signed. This is part of President Biden’s speech.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. Now, I want to be very clear, very clear up front: Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology. I know, because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans. But there’s 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. …

MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state, to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.

MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards, backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love. They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.

They look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th, brutally attacking law enforcement, not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger to the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots. And they see their MAGA failure to stop a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election as preparation for the 2022 and 2024 elections. They tried everything last time to nullify the votes of 81 million people. This time, they’re determined to succeed in thwarting the will of the people.

That’s why respected conservatives, like Federal Circuit Court Judge Michael Luttig, has called Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans, quote, “a clear and present danger” to our democracy.

AMY GOODMAN: President Biden, speaking in Philadelphia Thursday night. He went on to say the soul of the nation is at stake.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I ran for president because I believed we were in a battle for the soul of this nation. I still believe that to be true. I believe the soul is the breath, the life and the essence of who we are. The soul is what makes us us. The soul of America is defined by the sacred proposition that all are created equal in the image of God, that all are entitled to be treated with decency, dignity and respect, that all deserve justice and a shot at lives of prosperity and consequence, and that democracy — democracy must be defended, for democracy makes all these things possible.

AMY GOODMAN: President Biden, speaking Thursday night. Just after the speech, Democracy Now! reached Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way, former head of the NAACP, to get his response.

BEN JEALOUS: Tonight we saw Joe Biden give the most presidential speech he’s ever given as president. I say this as somebody who’s both been a friend of Joe for a long time in politics and yet also taken serious issue when I thought that he was moving in the wrong direction. I was arrested for voting rights protests five times in front of his White House last year. And what we saw tonight was exactly the president we need in this moment.

He was confident. He was clear about big victories for the climate, big victories for students, big victories for the economy. He was also very clear that he was drawing a line between MAGA extremists and the patriots that are the rest of this nation. He was very clear that we are at an existential moment, a moment I think most of us feel in our bones. And he was also clear, as a student of history, that we have been through worse and triumphed over it.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about President Biden’s speech, we’re joined by Nancy MacLean, author of the book Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, professor of history and public policy at Duke University in North Carolina. She’s actually joining us now from Raleigh.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Professor MacLean. Why don’t you start off by sharing your overall response to the speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia?

NANCY MacLEAN: Thank you, Amy. It’s good to be with you again.

My overall response is that this was the most important speech of President Joe Biden’s political career, and it was a wake-up call to the nation, and particularly to the mainstream media, in the nick of time. He was absolutely right, in my opinion, that the Trump wing of the party and the MAGA Republicans have jumped the rails of constitutional democracy, of the factual universe and of representative democracy. You cannot have a democracy in which one party does not accept the legitimacy of the other party’s candidates, elected officials and the outcomes of elections. But that is where we have come with Donald Trump and the MAGA faction since they first questioned the legitimacy of President Obama’s election and denied that he had been born in America. That was the start of all that has ensued since. And it’s really important that President Biden called that out for the nation.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to President Biden speaking last night in Philadelphia.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Today there are dangers around us we cannot allow to prevail. We hear — you’ve heard it — more and more talk about violence as an acceptable political tool in this country. It’s not. It can never be an acceptable tool. So I want to say this plain and simple: There is no place for political violence in America, period. None. Ever.

We saw law enforcement brutally attacked on January the 6th. We’ve seen election officials, poll workers — many of them volunteers of both parties — subject to intimidation and death threats, and — can you believe it? — FBI agents, just doing their job as directed, facing threats to their own lives from their own fellow citizens.

On top of that, there are public figures — today, yesterday and the day before — predicting and all but calling for mass violence and rioting in the streets. This is inflammatory. It’s dangerous. It’s against the rule of law. And we, the people, must say: This is not who we are.

AMY GOODMAN: President Biden, speaking at Independence Hall last night in Philadelphia, the second of three trips to Pennsylvania in just a matter of days. His third one will be in the next few days. Professor MacLean, as he talks about political violence, you have said the best predictor for a successful coup is a failed coup for which there is no accountability. Talk about the political violence, how it’s been dealt with, what it means and what should be done.

NANCY MacLEAN: Yes. Thank you. And I think that’s extremely important for people to understand. And that’s not just me speaking; that is the consensus of comparative political scientists who study coups. So, absolutely, we do not yet have accountability at the highest levels for the events of January 6 and the ongoing criminal conspiracy against our country that has been more than demonstrated by the House select committee to investigate the events of January 6. And the problem is that if you don’t have accountability, those acts become normalized, and the people who engage in them become emboldened to become more aggressive, more violent, more threatening.

And I think, you know, something that Biden said at the very top of his remarks is extremely important, that so much that has happened in recent years, and certainly in the last year, is not normal. And the problem that I see as an educator is that there are young people growing up who have known nothing else but this moment. And there are many of us who have been so bruised by the pandemic and inured by years of this Trump rhetoric and aggression, and that coming from his followers, that we can start to think that this is how a normal democracy functions.

But it is not. The United States has slipped radically down the scale of healthy democracies. Ten is the highest rating you can get. By 2021, global evaluators were saying that we were down at five, with Poland, Slovenia and Hungary. Hungary is interesting, because the MAGA Republicans and figures like Tucker Carlson look to Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orbán, as a model. And he is a model for them of how to use democracy to completely undermine democracy and make it impossible to remove an authoritarian leader.

So, Biden’s calling out of all this is extremely important, because we have allowed ourselves to get to the point where threats and intimidation and violence are routinely used to intimidate people. Let me be frank: This is terrorism. It has been directed most recently at the FBI, at our National Archives, where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are housed. It has been directed at teachers and school boards. It has been directed at public health officials. It has been directed at Dr. Fauci and his family.

And yet mainstream news continues to practice bothsidesism, continues to pretend that these things are just partisan. You know, I am so glad that you are doing this extended segment on President Biden’s speech, because I was shocked last night to learn that three major news networks were not carrying the speech. Even NPR, when I got up this morning and turned on the radio, they gave it the most minimal coverage and just put it in the context of the midterms, as though this was politics as usual. And I think that’s the exact opposite of the message the president was rightly trying to send.

We face existential threats to democracy in America, and they are coming from one place: from Donald Trump and those he has persuaded to follow him with the big lie, with a calculated system of media disinformation. And what’s most important is that he and the donors behind this, and that media, have also cowed every Republican elected official in office, except Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both of whom have been defeated, and others less well known who have spoken the truth, who have stood up to Donald Trump and who have stood up to the lies, who have lost office or are leaving office because they know they cannot be reelected by this MAGA party.

We are absolutely, as the president said, at an inflection point in our country, and we must take stock and treat the coming midterms as truly the chance we have to save democracy from further wreckage. There’s no point in talking about candidates for 2024 if we do not stop the election deniers and the election riggers from gaining control in state after swing state, as they are trying to now. Those are the people who won all the Republican primaries.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to Donald Trump, who appeared on Newsmax this week, admitted he’s financially supporting people arrested during the January 6th insurrection and more.

DONALD TRUMP: So, I met with a number of fans, but I met with and I’m financially supporting people that are incredible. And they were in my office actually two days ago. It’s very much on my mind. It’s a disgrace what they’ve done to them. What they’ve done to these people, it’s disgraceful. And mostly, I mean, you know, it’s firemen, they’re policemen, they’re people in the military. … And I will tell you, I will look very, very favorably about — about full pardons.

WENDY BELL: Amen.

DONALD TRUMP: If I decide to run and if I win, I will be looking very, very strongly about pardons.

WENDY BELL: Amen.

DONALD TRUMP: Full pardons.

AMY GOODMAN: So, President Donald Trump, former, who is signaling he might be running again, that he would give them full pardons, and also talking about police and firefighters that he’s supporting. In fact, a former New York police officer was just sentenced to 10 years in prison — that’s the latest news out from yesterday — because he attacked a police officer with an American flag pole. If you can talk about what he has just said, Professor MacLean?

NANCY MacLEAN: Yeah. What he has just said, Amy, is something that should terrify us all. We have seen a Republican Party over the years that has tried to treat the rival party of Democrats as illegitimate, ever since the days of Newt Gingrich using language that’s inflammatory, tossing around words like “treason.” Well, frankly, what Donald Trump just described was treasonous conduct. He is talking about issuing blanket pardons to people who waged an attack on our country, an attack that took the lives of, ultimately, seven police officers, that resulted in millions of dollars’ worth of damage, that desecrated our Capitol and shamed us before the world. And he is talking about financially supporting those people and plans to issue pardons to them. And not only is he not calling them criminals, people who violated the law, engaged in violence, attacked our country, he is actually elevating them as heroes.

And here I want to go back to something that Joe Biden said that got him in a lot of trouble with Republicans because he called out something accurate. When he used that phrase “semi-fascist” the other day to describe the MAGA Republicans, I believe that was an apt phrase. We are not in a fascist situation in America, but we have elected officials and their followers in one party behaving in a fascistic way. Donald Trump just illustrated that with his lionization of people who engaged in criminal violence.

This is extremely important, because if you look back to the interwar period that brought us the regime of Mussolini, which is marking its 100th anniversary this year of the March on Rome, and later Hitler, they started with that kind of violence, that kind of celebration of violence, and also an effort to conquer major institutions of the society and make them serve this project.

Look at what Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are doing. They are trying to conquer critical institutions. He has pardoned people in the military who engaged in illegal conduct. He has lifted them up as heroes. He has now elevated, as you’re saying, those police officers who violated the law on January 6. We have had, again, such attacks on election boards and public health workers in this country, and on teachers, that we are seeing hemorrhaging in those fields. We don’t have enough nurses. We don’t have enough public health people. We don’t have enough people in so many of the core institutions of our society. We also have Republicans attacking the domain where I work — higher education — spreading lies, attacking teachers, trying to divide students and faculty from community.

We are at red-alert stage. In military terms, it is DEFCON 1 for democracy in America. And it’s time that the mainstream media started to recognize that. President Biden gave us the call and said exactly what is happening in very clear and eloquent terms. So we can only hope that Americans respond calmly, deliberately and with determination to alert their neighbors, to canvass for these midterms, to make sure people understand the high stakes of these elections. It is only the people who will be the guardrails of our democracy responding in a calm, nonviolent, determined way to ensure that we still have a democracy for generations to come, for our children and grandchildren.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor MacLean, you’ve also made it clear that this is not just about President Trump, saying that our situation is driven by our extreme-right fossil fuel and dirty industry donors who have radicalized the Republican Party. Can you elaborate?

NANCY MacLEAN: Yes. Thank you, Amy, for raising that, because the donor question has all but fallen out of so much of the conversation and of the media attention to the problems we’re facing. But this is what I researched for Democracy in Chains, and particularly the Koch network of donors, convened by Charles Koch, the CEO of Koch Industries, one of the richest men in the world, who has convened other wealthy donors, not only in the United States, by the way, but globally, particularly from the fossil fuel sector, tobacco and other dirty industries, to try to shackle democracy. They have supported this Republican Party. They were the ones who drove it to the far right with the tea party, you know, and, before that, the efforts of the radical Republicans, like Newt Gingrich, in Congress. They are a serious threat to our democracy.

And actually, this is one of the interesting things that distinguishes our moment from the interwar period that saw Mussolini and Hitler come to power. Mussolini and Hitler came up from the streets, through street fighting and radical violence, and then later won the backing of right-wing sections of capital and other institutions, like the church and the military. In our country, we’ve seen something different. These dark money, fossil fuel donors, led, above all, by Charles Koch, have so poisoned the workings of our electoral system that we are in this position. And we will not solve this problem that we face, we will not get out of this crisis, unless we address that dark money, not only the money going to elected officials, but the money that is going tax-free to fund an apparatus of literally hundreds of organizations that are polluting our public debate, that are turning us against one another, that are distorting and deforming our institutions and that have brought us to this precipice.


AMY GOODMAN: Last question, Nancy MacLean. Before you wrote Democracy in Chains, you wrote Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan, published decades ago. But there you look at that period in the 1920s, right around the time, in the ’20s, ’30s, when you had Mussolini and you had Hitler rising to power, but in the United States, where you looked at how some 5 million ordinary white Protestant men joined the second Ku Klux Klan in the ’20s. Do you see parallels to today?

NANCY MacLEAN: Yes, Amy, and it — really, it gives me chills to say it. And sadly, the book is getting a second life all these years later, because it’s not just me: Ordinary Americans see the parallels. Donald Trump and this radicalized Republican Party has breathed life into these white supremacist, white nationalist forces. It’s no longer the Ku Klux Klan in the forefront, but we see groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters and all these, you know, kind of freelance militias, who are committed to a set of ideas very much like those of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s, and milder forms of which are embraced by this MAGA faction of the Republican Party, namely the idea that only certain people are legitimate Americans, particularly white middle-class Christians, that other people don’t belong, that they’re there on suffrage, that — sufferance, rather — that white Christian Americans have the right to run the country, have the right to drive others out or subdue them, and have the right to dictate, and that somehow that is God-given, and that those elements of our history that President Biden referenced last night, the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal, that all people deserve dignity and voice, that is a reaction against that. It is a rejection of the multiracial democracy and the country that is supposed to be open to the progress and achievement of all.

So, these ideas, sadly, have come back to us. It’s like rocks have been lifted up around the country, and oxygen has been given to these forces that were always there but not encouraged in the way that they have been in the last several years of Donald Trump’s dominance of the public discussion. So, again, I think President —

AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds.

NANCY MacLEAN: — Biden was absolutely right to say — to mention white supremacists and to say that this is an emergency for our country and that we all must pay attention and, if we care about democracy, commit to making sure it will last and it will work for all of us.

AMY GOODMAN: Nancy MacLean, author of the book Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, professor of history and public policy at Duke University in North Carolina.
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Re: Trump Poses Existential Threat to Future of Democracy

Postby admin » Fri Sep 02, 2022 11:57 pm

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT BIDEN ON THE CONTINUED BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF THE NATION
by President Joe Biden
Independence National Historical Park
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
September 1, 2022, 8:03 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: My fellow Americans, please, if you have a seat, take it. I speak to you tonight from sacred ground in America: Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

This is where America made its Declaration of Independence to the world more than two centuries ago with an idea, unique among nations, that in America, we’re all created equal.

This is where the United States Constitution was written and debated.

This is where we set in motion the most extraordinary experiment of self-government the world has ever known with three simple words: “We, the People.” “We, the People.”

These two documents and the ideas they embody — equality and democracy — are the rock upon which this nation is built. They are how we became the greatest nation on Earth. They are why, for more than two centuries, America has been a beacon to the world.

But as I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault. We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise.

So tonight, I have come this place where it all began to speak as plainly as I can to the nation about the threats we face, about the power we have in our own hands to meet these threats, and about the incredible future that lies in front of us if only we choose it.

We must never forget: We, the people, are the true heirs of the American experiment that began more than two centuries ago.

We, the people, have burning inside each of us the flame of liberty that was lit here at Independence Hall — a flame that lit our way through abolition, the Civil War, Suffrage, the Great Depression, world wars, Civil Rights.

That sacred flame still burns now in our time as we build an America that is more prosperous, free, and just.

That is the work of my presidency, a mission I believe in with my whole soul.

But first, we must be honest with each other and with ourselves.

Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal.

Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.

Now, I want to be very clear — (applause) — very clear up front: Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology.

I know because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans.

But 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.

These are hard things.

But I’m an American President — not the President of red America or blue America, but of all America.

And I believe it is my duty — my duty to level with you, to tell the truth no matter how difficult, no matter how painful.

And here, in my view, is what is true: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.

They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.

MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards — backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.

They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.

They look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th — brutally attacking law enforcement — not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger to the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots.

And they see their MAGA failure to stop a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election as preparation for the 2022 and 2024 elections.

They tried everything last time to nullify the votes of 81 million people. This time, they’re determined to succeed in thwarting the will of the people.

That’s why respected conservatives, like Federal Circuit Court Judge Michael Luttig, has called Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans, quote, a “clear and present danger” to our democracy.

But while the threat to American democracy is real, I want to say as clearly as we can: We are not powerless in the face of these threats. We are not bystanders in this ongoing attack on democracy.

There are far more Americans — far more Americans from every — from every background and belief who reject the extreme MAGA ideology than those that accept it. (Applause.)

And, folks, it is within our power, it’s in our hands — yours and mine — to stop the assault on American democracy.

I believe America is at an inflection point — one of those moments that determine the shape of everything that’s to come after.

And now America must choose: to move forward or to move backwards? To build the future or obsess about the past? To be a nation of hope and unity and optimism, or a nation of fear, division, and of darkness?

MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.

But together — together, we can choose a different path. We can choose a better path. Forward, to the future. A future of possibility. A future to build and dream and hope.

And we’re on that path, moving ahead.

I know this nation. I know you, the American people. I know your courage. I know your hearts. And I know our history.

This is a nation that honors our Constitution. We do not reject it. (Applause.)

This is a nation that believes in the rule of law. We do not repudiate it. (Applause.)

This is a nation that respects free and fair elections. We honor the will of the people. We do not deny it. (Applause.)

And this is a nation that rejects violence as a political tool. We do not encourage violence.

We are still an America that believes in honesty and decency and respect for others, patriotism, liberty, justice for all, hope, possibilities.

We are still, at our core, a democracy. (Applause.)

And yet history tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy.

For a long time, we’ve told ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed, but it’s not.

We have to defend it, protect it, stand up for it — each and every one of us.

That’s why tonight I’m asking our nation to come together, unite behind the single purpose of defending our democracy regardless of your ideology. (Applause.)

We’re all called, by duty and conscience, to confront extremists who will put their own pursuit of power above all else.

Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans: We must be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving American democracy than MAGA Republicans are to — to destroying American democracy.

We, the people, will not let anyone or anything tear us apart. Today, there are dangers around us we cannot allow to prevail. We hear — you’ve heard it — more and more talk about violence as an acceptable political tool in this country. It’s not. It can never be an acceptable tool.

So I want to say this plain and simple: There is no place for political violence in America. Period. None. Ever. (Applause.)

We saw law enforcement brutally attacked on January the 6th. We’ve seen election officials, poll workers — many of them volunteers of both parties — subjected to intimidation and death threats. And — can you believe it? — FBI agents just doing their job as directed, facing threats to their own lives from their own fellow citizens.

On top of that, there are public figures — today, yesterday, and the day before — predicting and all but calling for mass violence and rioting in the streets.

This is inflammatory. It’s dangerous. It’s against the rule of law. And we, the people, must say: This is not who we are. (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, we can’t be pro-ex- — pro-ex- — pro-insurrectionist and pro-American. They’re incompatible. (Applause.)

We can’t allow violence to be normalized in this country. It’s wrong. We each have to reject political violence with — with all the moral clarity and conviction this nation can muster. Now.

We can’t let the integrity of our elections be undermined, for that is a path to chaos.

Look, I know poli- — politics can be fierce and mean and nasty in America. I get it. I believe in the give-and-take of politics, in disagreement and debate and dissent.

We’re a big, complicated country. But democracy endures only if we, the people, respect the guardrails of the republic. Only if we, the people, accept the results of free and fair elections. (Applause.) Only if we, the people, see politics not as total war but mediation of our differences.

Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: either they win or they were cheated. And that’s where MAGA Republicans are today. (Applause.)

They don’t understand what every patriotic American knows: You can’t love your country only when you win. (Applause.) It’s fundamental.

American democracy only works only if we choose to respect the rule of law and the institutions that were set up in this chamber behind me, only if we respect our legitimate political differences.

I will not stand by and watch — I will not — the will of the American people be overturned by wild conspiracy theories and baseless, evidence-free claims of fraud.

I will not stand by and watch elections in this country stolen by people who simply refuse to accept that they lost. (Applause.)

I will not stand by and watch the most fundamental freedom in this country — the freedom to vote and have your vote counted — and — be taken from you and the American people. (Applause.)

Look, as your President, I will defend our democracy with every fiber of my being, and I’m asking every American to join me. (Applause.)

(A protestor disruption can be heard.)

Throughout our history, America has often made the greatest progress coming out of some of our darkest moments, like you’re hearing in that bullhorn.

I believe we can and we must do that again, and we are.

MAGA Republicans look at America and see carnage and darkness and despair. They spread fear and lies –- lies told for profit and power.

But I see a very different America — an America with an unlimited future, an America that is about to take off. I hope you see it as well. Just look around.

I believed we could lift America from the depths of COVID, so we passed the largest economic recovery package since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And today, America’s economy is faster, stronger than any other advanced nation in the world. (Applause.) We have more to go.

I believed we could build a better America, so we passed the biggest infrastructure investment since President Dwight D. Eisenhower. And we’ve now embarked on a decade of rebuilding
the nation’s roads, bridges, highways, ports, water systems, high-speed Internet, railroads. (Applause.)

I believed we could make America safer, so we passed the most significant gun safety law since President Clinton. (Applause.)

I believed we could go from being the highest cost of prescriptions in the world to making prescription drugs and healthcare more affordable, so we passed the most significant healthcare reforms since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. (Applause.)

And I believed we could create — we could create a clean energy future and save the planet, so we passed the most important climate initiative ever, ever, ever. (Applause.)

The cynics and the critics tell us nothing can get done, but they are wrong. There is not a single thing America cannot do — not a single thing beyond our capacity if we do it together.

It’s never easy. But we’re proving that in America, no matter how long the road, progress does come. (Applause.)

Look, I know the last year — few years have been tough. But today, COVID no longer controls our lives. More Americans are working than ever. Businesses are growing. Our schools are open. Millions of Americans have been lifted out of poverty. Millions of veterans once exposed to toxic burn pits will now get what they deserve for their families and the compa- — compensation. (Applause.)

American manufacturing has come alive across the Heartland, and the future will be made in America — (applause) — no matter what the white supremacists and the extremists say.

I made a bet on you, the American people, and that bet is paying off. Proving that from darkness — the darkness of Charlottesville, of COVID, of gun violence, of insurrection — we can see the light. Light is now visible. (Applause.)

Light that will guide us forward not only in words, but in actions — actions for you, for your children, for your grandchildren, for America.

Even in this moment, with all the challenges we face, I give you my word as a Biden: I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future. Not because of me, but because of who you are.

We’re going to end cancer as we know it. Mark my words. (Applause.)

We are going to create millions of new jobs in a clean energy economy.

We’re going to think big. We’re going to make the 21st century another American century because the world needs us to. (Applause.)

That’s where we need to focus our energy — not in the past, not on divisive culture wars, not on the politics of grievance, but on a future we can build together.

The MAGA Republicans believe that for them to succeed, everyone else has to fail. They believe America — not like I believe about America.

I believe America is big enough for all of us to succeed, and that is the nation we’re building: a nation where no one is left behind.

I ran for President because I believed we were in a battle for the soul of this nation. I still believe that to be true. I believe the soul is the breath, the life, and the essence of who we are. The soul is what makes us “us.”

The soul of America is defined by the sacred proposition that all are created equal in the image of God. That all are entitled to be treated with decency, dignity, and respect. That all deserve justice and a shot at lives of prosperity and consequence. And that democracy — democracy must be defended, for democracy makes all these things possible. (Applause.) Folks, and it’s up to us.

Democracy begins and will be preserved in we, the people’s, habits of heart, in our character: optimism that is tested
yet endures, courage that digs deep when we need it, empathy that fuels democracy, the willingness to see each other not as enemies but as fellow Americans.

Look, our democracy is imperfect. It always has been.

Notwithstanding those folks you hear on the other side there. They’re entitled to be outrageous. This is a democracy. But history and common sense — (applause) — good manners is nothing they’ve ever suffered from.

But history and common sense tell us that opportunity, liberty, and justice for all are most likely to come to pass in a democracy.

We have never fully realized the aspirations of our founding, but every generation has opened those doors a little wider to include more people who have been excluded before.

My fellow Americans, America is an idea — the most powerful idea in the history of the world. And it beats in the hearts of the people of this country. It beats in all of our hearts. It unites America. It is the American creed.

The idea that America guarantees that everyone be treated with dignity. It gives hate no safe harbor. It installs in everyone the belief that no matter where you start in life, there’s nothing you can’t achieve.

That’s who we are. That’s what we stand for. That’s what we believe. And that is precisely what we are doing: opening doors, creating new possibilities, focusing on the future. And we’re only just beginning. (Applause.)

Our task is to make our nation free and fair, just and strong, noble and whole.

And this work is the work of democracy — the work of this generation. It is the work of our time, for all time.

We can’t afford to have — leave anyone on the sidelines. We need everyone to do their part. So speak up. Speak out. Get engaged. Vote, vote, vote. (Applause.)

And if we all do our duty — if we do our duty in 2022 and beyond, then ages still to come will say we — all of us here — we kept the faith. We preserved democracy. (Applause.) We heeded our wor- — we — we heeded not our worst instincts but our better angels. And we proved that, for all its imperfections, America is still the beacon to the world, an ideal to be realized, a promise to be kept.

There is nothing more important, nothing more sacred, nothing more American. That’s our soul. That’s who we truly are. And that’s who must — we must always be.

And I have no doubt — none –– that this is who we will be and that we’ll come together as a nation. That we’ll secure our democracy. That for the next 200 years, we’ll have what we had the past 200 years: the greatest nation on the face of the Earth.

We just need to remember who we are. We are the United States of America. The United States of America. (Applause.)

And may God protect our nation. And may God protect all those who stand watch over our democracy. God bless you all. (Applause.) Democracy. Thank you. (Applause.)

8:27 P.M. EDT
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