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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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He claims to be from Ann Arbor. He just went to high school there. I and my wife were born and raised there. Turned us into conservatives. Real ones, not Nordlinger, Goldberg faux-conservatives. Left as soon as we could.
😂😂😂
I don’t really agree with you here but this phrase made me laugh.
But it’s true, innit?
Loved the speaker list for 2023. Just is outside our price range.
OMG
So it is for the rich. Got it.
21 grand is the cheapest? Even when I was a CEO there was no way.
Must be nice to be able to blow that kind of cash.
This is why at Ricochet I always feel like I suddenly fell in among the upper crust, and if they ever saw where I live and what I make, I would be shunned as one of those lowlife beggars you pass on the street corners.
At least they are our elites and their support of Hillsdale does us a great service. Usually, people in this category are older, retired, and will pay for more luxury since they can’t take it with them. Younger folks have other priorities. Even we aren’t old enough for that , yet.
That was me until two years ago. Even now I drive a 13-year-old car and live in a cheap house. I like the car and neighborhood.
I would bet that all of us who enjoy each other’s company at meetups are cut from the same mold.
The Mediterranean cruise with Hillsdale last year would have been our first, and likely last. If it hadn’t been for the sale of the company we work for and Mr. C’s stock buyout, we wouldn’t have considered it either. But, Larry Arnn, VDH, Mollie Hemingway from Monte Carlo to Italy to Barcelona to Ibiza to Casablanca to Gibraltar to Seville? Yeah, we splurged. And then it was cancelled because the cruise line went under (not literally).
This year the stops are Istanbul to Athens via Jerusalem (Ephesus, Patmos, Rhodes Paphos, Heraklion, Santorini — with classicist VDH as your guide.
But, yeah, when my brother heard about our plans last year, he said, “you better class up, or they’re going to expect you take their drink orders.”
Just don’t start doing your business on Ricochet’s virtual sidewalks, m’kay?
Wow! That Hillsdale cruise is seriously expensive. Way more than the previous two we took. And you are also on the hook for airfare to Europe to the departure point.
They want more than my entire annual disability income.
Actually, I’m confident that both Hillsdale and National Review cruises cost more than I get in an entire year.
This needed to be a simple image too, for easy sharing:
DISCUSS!
Email to friends and relatives!
Cruises for the rich. The rest of us don’t deserve access.
It was the $5000 differential for airfare for a couple that got my attention.
I just paid under $1500 roundtrip for two tickets from Chicago to London/Paris back to Chicago. And that was retail, not part of a group buy.
Guessing the clientele for these cruises don’t fly in economy class.
I love that you do that
Looks to me like airfare is included with the “cruise and air” prices.
Since I get Social Security Disability, I try to make myself useful. :-)
It’s all inclusive — including food and drink — even at restaurants. And all off-shore expeditions. Still pricey, but worth it if you can manage it, just for the company alone.
I hope @jameslileks and the others don’t feel insulted that I can’t afford $50,000 to meet them.
Spot on. I have attempted to scan all these comments in search of any response to your pithy reminder of what one Ricochet colleague had to say mere moments after the January 6 “armed” “insurrection”, surely the only such event under that description in history without a single firearm being discovered. I found none.
Your comment perfectly describes what this observer would fervently wish for this [ ] of a [ ] and I pray every night that we will be delivered, as is prayed for in The Lord’s Prayer, “from [this] evil.”
I note that before I finished this comment and hit the comment button, I went back and looked at the original post in search of any such plea for this wretched, corrupt excuse for a human being as this author made for President Trump. Maybe I missed it but, if there was no such exhortation, I do find such an omission at the very least curious and worthy of note.
Thanks again for your brief, but incisive, comment. Jim
The company of people who hate me. Well. Not Hillsdale, but NR
They don’t hate YOU, only the way you THINK… and the way you VOTE… and the way you LIVE…
Oh.
Right, I was referring to Hillsdale. People like us have a kinship with the folks at Hillsdale and Claremont.