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Biden Warns That MAGA Republicans Pose ‘Clear and Present Danger’ to Nation
It was fitting for Joe Biden to deliver Thursday night’s Independence Hall speech at a venue lit by gas lights. Backed by a blood-red background and two military men shrouded in darkness, the president condemned half the nation as insurrectionists who pose a “clear and present danger” to the United States.
The language was deliberate as it was divisive. “Clear and present danger” is a legal doctrine created by the Woodrow Wilson-era Supreme Court to curtail the free speech of Americans. At the time, an antiwar activist was jailed for advocating draft resistance during World War I. In Schenck v. United States (1919), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., wrote for the majority:
The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that the United States Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree. When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.
Thereafter, courts employed the “clear and present danger test” to limit citizens’ First Amendment rights. That is, until Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) replaced it to address only “imminent lawless action.”
Notably, Biden resurrected this extinct phrase to attack his political enemies just as the authoritarian Wilson used it to attack his detractors. He floated a legal pretext to silence Republicans heading into the midterm elections. The administration has already directed tech companies to ban dissenting voices on social media, so such a move would be in character. Not to mention using the FBI to raid Trump’s home and the DoJ to harass Trump’s legal team.
The speech, titled “Soul of the Nation,” was an attempt to reframe the November elections as a battle between the virtuous bearers of light (like himself) and the sinister, Ultra MAGA semi-fascists. His serial message-switching between good-vs.-evil rhetoric and bipartisan unity was jarring.
“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic,” Biden said, adding they “are determined to take this country backward … promote authoritarian leaders and fan the flames of political violence.”
“For a long time, we’ve reassured ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed. But it is not,” Biden said between coughs. “We have to defend it. Protect it. Stand up for it. Each and every one of us.”
Having dropped back to a 38 percent approval rating, the president and his allies are obviously sweating the election looming two months away. Joe “he’s gonna put y’all back in chains” Biden has thus reverted to form, spreading hatred and division in the name of “preserving democracy.”
But a one-party state isn’t democracy. It’s an oligarchy at best and authoritarianism at worst.
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It’s a shame that Nuremberg stadium is in such a state of disrepair. Perhaps Joe will be content with a few torchlight rallies.
I did like this reply.
That will be neat to see
How long has that dog been dead, BTW?
I have these same questions and I didn’t even listen to (or read the transcript of) his speech. I just got the drift from reading about it and the lead-up to it.
I think it is probably about the midterms, but also, as I said about the Mar-a-Lago raid, it is intended both to intimidate and provoke. They’re looking for any excuse to put down their political enemies, one way or another. Get ready for 2 + 2 = 5.
If ever there was a time calling for conservatives to be clever as serpents, this is it. And with Republicans leading us, we’re doomed. Someone tell me I’m wrong.
That number is climbing fast . . .
Someone at Twitter ain’t gonna be happy.
What would WFB say? Biden is a moron who will do or say anything to demonize conservatives. So just call him out. He can call us a threat and semifascist all he wants, but consider the source: moron. Always was only now, more so. Biden is a moron and as every day passes, he finds new depths for his moronity.
I don’t get it but I’m going to look it up.
“Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”
It’s totally predictable, but telling, that Biden’s speechwriters slipped in the line about the culture-war stuff:
See, I can understand why a president who thinks an angry mob is on the verge of wrecking the political system and shredding the Constitution might give a speech about it, but this gives the game away: It’s all cynical politicking. Base-turnout games. Rank hypocrisy. Lies, lies, lies, all the way down. And also a boring piece of rhetoric, since it’s hardly different from what Biden has been saying from day one, or what his party has been saying for the last decade.
What these people really object to is the existence of political opposition to schemes they believe to be righteous. They’re whigs. They want to reach those storied sunlit uplands, and you and I are standing in the way.
All true, except PedoHitler is just the vehicle here. Someone wrote this speech. Someone approved it. Probably several someones. Joe is a brain-dead puppet. Who are his puppet masters? And do they have horns and pointy tails?
Sometimes I really wonder if he’s possessed. Seriously.
But the danger is that now that he’s incited violence against half of America, what comes next?
I’m totally on board with calling the fascist half of our country fascists.
It’ll all be ok. The GOP response will be to make sure Biden’s corporate buddies get a few more tax cuts so they can use the money to ship their female employees to Cali for abortion. Don’t worry.
His handlers are hoping some fool they can trace to the right does something stupid, so they can crack down on all of us.
I wouldn’t put it past them to already have the patsy ready to go.
Apparently that was too much even for some at CNN.
Biden wouldn’t cause violence, even if he wants it. Who will cause violence? Our members in Congress and our pundits if they continue to ignore us and treat us with condescension. People, like vigilantes, take matters in their own hands when they think they are the last hope. That is why Jan 6 happened.
Michael Walsh:
And as I have said before, my comment in green was written several years ago. Called it.
Oh, don’t worry, we have the FBI to protect the country
forfrom the lawless.I wish Rush Limbaugh were here.
I kept hoping that the blonde lady from the Apple 1984 Super Bowl commercial would come running in and smash the TV screen. No such luck.
It was appalling!! And I only heard a small portion of it as I was driving around doing some errands. If I had seen that display of the red lighting and the Marines forced to stand back there at attention, I’d have completely flipped out. I am glad that at least some of his lap dogs at CNN felt that the Marines were too much.
I can’t even say what I’m thinking about this hideous spectacle because I try not to use that type of language in public.
I read somewhere that the Marine Band members were appalled at what they had to sit through.
The President’s Own Marine Band. If I were they, I’d mutiny.
What happened to Jonah Goldberg? I used to enjoy his thinking. With this Tweet I find his reasoning repulsive
To he whom shall not be named:
NOW do you get it?
Funny, Jonah didn’t seem to think the FBI pushing the Steele Dossier or the “Hunter Biden Laptop was Russian Disinformation” was a threat to Democracy
Time again to be told how the Dispatch is so much different than the Bulwark
I’m wondering which concerns me most – the speech, if you can call it that, or the backdrop. Either one by itself should send a chill up every thinking person’s spine.
None of this is Biden. He doesn’t have enough cognition left to plan an afternoon tea for Dr. Jill and himself. It’s the committee. The committee is running the show. It is they who made the calculated decision to light Independence Hall (shame on them for picking such a place for this debacle) red. It is they who decided to place two Marines in the picture. It is they who got the Marine Band there – against all regulations and ages of precedent, politicizing the military, and telling the world about it. It is they who are dropping the curtain, and signaling – shouting – an ominous message that they are coming to get us.
Just who is on this committee?