Biden's speech on the 1/6 coup attempt

Biden’s speech was remarkably pointed in criticizing Trump for the 1/6 coup attempt and the lies that preceded and followed it. His criticism of the Republican Party was more muted the but criticism was still clear. To at least some significant extent, the president has finally woken up. Biden says he will not allow anyone to place a dagger at the throat of democracy. The speech was billed intended to “speak to the truth of what happened, not the lies that some have spread since.”

The speech focused on tree big Trump and Republican lies, the first being the lie that Trump won the 2020 election. Biden was blunt in blaming Trump for inciting the attack. The second was the lie that the election results cannot be trusted, citing all the lawsuits that failed to show any flaws in the election. Third, he called arguments and beliefs that the people at the 1/6 coup were patriots lies. 

His speech also expressed concern about preventing election subversion at the hands of political partisans in future elections.

Whether this will make any significant difference or not remains to be seen. If one scans through this 1 hour 23 minute Frontline documentary that aired a few days ago, it seems that neither the extremists at the coup attempt nor the average rank and file insurrectionists are open to even listening to truth, much less being persuaded by it. Most of them, but not the cynics or woke opportunists, truly see themselves as patriots fighting for democracy, not against it. Those minds appear to be intractably closed. The cognitive dissonance and self-deflation of truth is probably too much for most of those people to handle and accept. I do not know how Democratic Party attempts to protect democracy will play out. I cannot to predict. My hope is that this speech and what follows is not too little or too late.