Dem
51
GOP
49
At his campaign kickoff speech near historic Valley Forge, PA, Friday, Joe Biden lit into Donald Trump and called him a "dire threat to democracy." Biden noted that Trump has called for the Constitution to be suspended, his opponents to be prosecuted, and the nation's top general to be executed. Biden said: "Donald Trump's campaign is about him—not America, not you. Donald Trump's campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He's willing to sacrifice our democracy [to] put himself in power."
This kind of attack on a political rival is unusual, to say the least. But there has never before been a candidate like Trump, one who wanted to shred the Constitution and said so openly. Normally, campaigns are about issues like taxes, immigration, abortion, crime, and other policy issues. Not whether democracy was nice while it lasted, but maybe now is the time to end it and go for a (fascist) dictatorship, even for one day. It is not an exaggeration to say that the upcoming election is about the future of democracy more than anything else. In his speech, Biden said: "We nearly lost America—lost it all. We all know who Donald Trump is. The question we have to answer is: 'Who are we?'"
Trump did not take any of Biden's remarks lying down. He responded by doing what he does so well: telling lie after lie after lie. He continued to repeat his claim that Jan. 6, 2021 was "a beautiful day," and that the 1,240 people arrested so far are "hostages," not "prisoners." On Friday he said: "The J6 hostages, I call them. Nobody has been treated ever in history so badly as those people." We suspect that some Native Americans or older Japanese Americans who lived in California in 1942 might beg to differ. Trump also said that Biden is the actual threat to democracy due to his weaponizing the Justice Department and having it indict him. Last month, Trump said: "Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy. Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy and it's him and his people. They're the wreckers of the American dream. The American dream is dead with them in office." And he has repeated that thought over and over in many contexts.
All of this is totally false, of course, but Trump has a good feeling for what his supporters want. They don't want to move on from Jan. 6. They want retribution. At a rally in Mason City, IA, Barbara LaGow, who drove 2 hours from Minnesota to hear Trump, said he "was cheated out of the last election." Gayle Lasley said: "There was no insurrection on his part at all." Ryan Sloth said: "I watched it on TV that day, and I said this is a complete joke. I could tell from the beginning that this was a setup. Plain as day." Michael, who wouldn't give his last name, said: "It was all a set-up. [Joe] Biden planted people in there."
These interviews and more show that many Americans truly believe that Trump was robbed of the presidency. He has completely brainwashed them by simply telling the same lies over and over until many people believed them. It worked. A recent WaPo/UMD poll showed that 34% of Republicans believe that the FBI organized and encouraged the attack on the Capitol. That rises to 44% among Trump voters. Even 13% of Democrats believe that. The election campaign is going to be brutal and unlike any one ever before. (V)