The president’s speech at Independence Hall was appropriate and necessary
Joe Biden said what needed to be said last Thursday night in his “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” address in Philadelphia. It was not his best speech. I found it scattered and overly repetitive. But then again sometimes things need to be repeated—over and over and over again.
Conservatives were outraged by what they believed to be the partisan nature of the speech. I did not see it that way. This was only a partisan speech if you believe that Donald Trump and his followers—the MAGA Republicans, as Biden called them—are a political faction worthy of the American democratic tradition. They are not. Biden was correct when he said that “MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundation of our republic.” Like those in the audience at Independence Hall, I cheered at that line.
Throughout its history, American democracy has accommodated a lot. It has changed and adapted over and over again. Yes, it collapsed in the years between 1861 and 1865, but it bounced back, albeit imperfectly and in fits and starts, in the century and a half after the Civil War. Because the founders created a republic built upon institutions—three branches of government reciprocally checking one another, a free press, the rule of law, the peaceful transition of power, and more—American democracy has been able to weather many storms. We live in a society that welcomes dialogue, debate, free speech, and the art of persuasion. As citizens we have reasonable differences over issues such as immigration, abortion, foreign policy, active government, the climate crisis, and public health. Fierce debate over such differences is a sign of a healthy republic—as long as we share a commitment to American institutions and pluralism.
The MAGA crowd is not interested in any of this. They do not care about American institutions. Some of Trump’s followers in the House and Senate are so drunk with the cheers and wails of the MAGA faithful that they actually believe the former president is good for the United States. They praise the insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol—a symbol of American democracy—on January 6, 2021. They peddle conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen. According to FiveThirtyEight, sixty percent of Americans will have an election denier on the ballot in November.
But other GOP members of Congress—dare I say most of them—know that Trump and the MAGA movement are pushing past what Biden called “guardrails of the republic” much in the same way the crowd of deplorables did on January 6. And yet these politicians sit back in cowardly fashion and watch it happen. When Trump says that he would, if reelected, pardon the insurrectionists, they remain silent. They refuse to call out the MAGA lies about the 2020 election even though most of them believe Biden won. They rail on Attorney General Merrick Garland for executing a search warrant on Trump’s home only to disappear from their own social media feeds when they learn the former president was holding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Meanwhile FBI agents—men and women devoted to serving their country in law enforcement—fear for their lives and the lives of their families due to threats from the MAGA faithful.
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy had the audacity to appear a couple hours before Biden’s speech last Thursday night to demand that the president apologize to MAGA Republicans for referring to them as “semi-fascists” in a speech he gave earlier in the week. One historian of fascism writing in The Washington Post noted that the label “semi-fascist” was actually a pretty good description of Trump and his followers. Or consider my recent Current column on Ignazio Silone, the Italian writer who diagnosed fascism in 1930s Italy as a movement that encourages anti-intellectualism, forces lawmakers to abandon moral standards, pursues power for power’s sake, is fueled by its spiritual connection with loyal followers, tries to rewrite national history, and thrives on political chaos. I can’t think of a better way to describe the MAGA movement and its debased brand of populism.
Back in April 2021, when we started Current, editor Eric Miller described this little venture as something akin to an arena. We hope Current will be a place where people of different views on some of the most important issues of the day might appear on the same page. We want Current readers to see the world through the eyes of thoughtful people who might not share the same convictions. We have a comments section where those committed to our intellectual community can express their opinions in an open and honest way.
Like Current, democracy is also similar to an athletic arena. The participants in the arena must abide by certain rules of engagement. There is no moral equivalency between those who follow the rules and those who choose to ignore them or deliberately break them. While it is impossible in a free country to silence Trump and the MAGA Republicans, they nevertheless must be pushed to the fringes where they belong, well out of the mainstream. My belief on this matter has little to do with my views on border walls, originalist Supreme Court justices, trade policy, Christian nationalism, or government spending on healthcare and college loans. It has everything to do with my longing for a public square defined by facts, science, reasoned discourse and, most importantly, a respect for American institutions.
Joe Biden is a gift to the American republic at such a time as this. He refuses to let democracy die on his watch.
John Fea is Executive Editor at Current
Great job! You express well the dangers of the MAGA crowd and why we all needed President Biden’s speech.