DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Biden continues attack on MAGA Republicans in Wisconsin speech
Whether you refer to him as President Biden or by his recent sobriquet “Dark Brandon,” there is no doubt that Joe Biden is on a major roll.
With his poll numbers soaring again after bottoming out earlier this summer, Biden is riding a series of legislative victories and charging into leading the Democrats to accomplish a rare reversal of the mid-term curse against incumbent parties thanks to an unprecedented series of missteps from Republicans — most recently the discovery of stolen classified documents in the possession of their presumed 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump.
President Biden has been hitting the road to campaign for Democratic candidates and to press his attacks on the anti-democracy leanings of Trump’s MAGA Republicans, carefully exempting traditional mainstream members of the GOP from his critiques.
On this Labor Day, President Biden traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to give a wide-ranging speech that hit all of the points that he wants to communicate to the public.
Biden was careful to couch his remarks as aimed at that subspecies of Republicans who support the “semi-fascist” Trump agenda, not those few who reject that authoritarian wing.
Biden: I want to be very clear, not every Republican is a MAGA Republican.. but the extreme MAGA Republicans in Congress have chosen to go backwards full of anger, violence, hate, and division pic.twitter.com/pd3dTn46c4
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 5, 2022
Biden: Democrats, Republicans and independents, we have to be stronger and more determined and more committed to saving American democracy than the Maga Republicans and that guy.. destroying democracy pic.twitter.com/GSeyOzfBnQ
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 5, 2022
Still, it was difficult to exempt members of a party that unilaterally and mostly unanimously rejected the bulk of the Democratic legislative agenda aimed at helping the average American rather than corporate oligarchs. Biden blamed the fear that many moderate Republicans have of being primaried out of a job.
Biden: Not a single Republican congressman voted to protect your pensions. Not one. And by the way, I know a lot of them wanted to vote for it. They’re afraid of losing primaries in this new Republican Party pic.twitter.com/V7lMpbKqrC
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 5, 2022
Biden: Every single Republican voted against it. Some of them thought it made sense but couldn’t let Biden have a victory. It’s not my victory, it’s the American people’s victory pic.twitter.com/F40ADdiH02
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 5, 2022
While lambasting MAGA politicians, Biden maintained his self-effacing brand of humor — a welcome change from the megalomaniacal ravings of the former narcissist-in-chief.
Biden: I’ve been fighting them since I got in Congress 180 years ago pic.twitter.com/lWZVhpNMDr
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 5, 2022
The Democratic president was brutal in his assessment of the pharmaceutical industry and the incumbent Republican Wisconsin senator who kowtows to Big Pharma’s wishes.
Biden: For decades big pharma won year in, year out, because they own chunks of the congress, because they had help, like your senior
senator, Ron Johnson who said he opposed lowering drug costs because it would result in punishing the pharmaceutical industry. Come on Man pic.twitter.com/dFQWhWI7ar— Acyn (@Acyn) September 5, 2022
Biden reminded the audience that for all his law & order rhetoric, Senator Johnson had referred to the violent January 6th insurrection and riot at the Capitol as a “peaceful protest.”
Biden: To this day, MAGA Republicans defend the mob that stormed the Capitol. Senator Johnson said it was a peaceful protest. Have you seen the videos of what happened that day pic.twitter.com/uhF6QGDrZY
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 5, 2022
He also vowed to be as persistent in his defense of democracy as Senator Johnson has been as one of the MAGA Republicans who Biden is now calling the “Trumpies.”
Biden: Along comes Ron Johnson
Crowd: *boos*
Biden: This guy never stops but guess what… I ain’t stopping either. pic.twitter.com/9TkM6CMywV— Acyn (@Acyn) September 5, 2022
Biden refers to MAGA republicans as “The Trumpies” pic.twitter.com/I49hQZRzIe
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 5, 2022
One of those “Trumpies” tried to disrupt Biden’s speech with a prolonged bout of heckling, but Biden waved off the Secret Service who were escorting the heckler out of the building, citing his free speech rights that entitle him “to be an idiot.”
A heckler was just escorted out by secret service after repeatedly shouting, interrupting President Biden at Laborefest pic.twitter.com/vZd53qvspj
— Jason Smith (@thejsonsmith) September 5, 2022
Biden responds to heckler: Let him go. Everyone is entitled to be an idiot pic.twitter.com/fFbeiHcMAt
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 5, 2022
Democrats are heartened by President Biden’s new-found aggressiveness toward his political opponents, a likely cause for the rise in his approval numbers.
With Biden on the campaign trail, Democrats have an opportunity to avoid a red sweep of the midterms — as long Biden switches his focus away from trying to unify all Americans to instead simply appealing to the sane people out there.
If this is what they call “Dark Brandon,” then please, Mr. President, go darker!
Original reporting by Acyn.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
