President Biden took the stage at an Independence Day barbecue just a few hours after the latest horrific shooting to upend an American city — but at his first opportunity to address the nation in person about the Highland Park killings, he did so only obliquely.
“You all heard what happened today,” Biden said. “Things will get better still, but not without more hard work together. .... We’ve got a lot more work to do. We’ve got to get this under control.”In contrast, J.B. Pritzker, Illinois’ Democratic governor, delivered a fiery response that took direct aim at those blocking gun control legislation. “If you are angry today, I’m here to tell you to be angry,” he said, seething while Biden was consoling. “I’m furious. I’m furious that yet more innocent lives were taken by gun violence.”
In the view of many distraught Democrats, the country is facing a full-blown crisis on a range of fronts, and Biden seems unable or unwilling to respond with appropriate force. Democracy is under direct attack, they say, as Republicans change election rules and the Supreme Court rapidly rewrites American law. Shootings are routine, abortion rights have ended and Democrats could suffer big losses in the next election.
Biden’s response is often a mix of scolding Republicans, urging Americans to vote Democratic and voicing broad optimism about the country. For some Democrats, that risks a dangerous failure to meet the moment.
“There is a leadership vacuum right now, and he’s not filling it,” said Adam Jentleson, a Democratic consultant and former top adviser to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid of Nevada. “I sympathize with the argument that there’s very little they can do legislatively. But in moments of crisis, the president is called upon to be a leader. And when people are feeling scared and angry and outraged, they look to him for that, and they’re not getting much.”
But as the Democratic rank-and-file’s thirst for a more combative attitude becomes increasingly evident, other party leaders are beginning to showcase an alternative tone, one that goes far more sharply at Republican attitudes and tactics. Pritzker mocked the notion that “you have a constitutional right to an assault weapon with a high-capacity magazine” — something Biden has done previously — and California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been displaying a notably pugnacious spirit.
On July Fourth, Newsom took the unusual step of airing an ad in Florida, ....
“Freedom? It’s under attack in your state,” Newsom said in the ad, addressing Florida residents and citing book bans, voting restrictions and laws on classroom instruction. “I urge all of you living in Florida to join the fight. Or join us in California — where we still believe in freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom to choose, freedom from hate and the freedom to love. Don’t let them take your freedom.”
Biden has, if anything, been criticized at times for going too far in his tone, his aides note, as when he compared modern-day Republicans to 1960s-era segregationists, incurring the wrath of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and others, including some in his own party.
In case anyone missed the point, Ian Calderon, the Democratic former majority leader of the California State Assembly, tweeted, “Governor @GavinNewsom is the only Dem that seems to understand that democrats everywhere want their leaders to push back with a strong message and to stop letting the GOP control the narrative. Republicans are loud and it’s time for Democrats to get louder.”
Biden has dismissed other ideas by saying they would be struck down in court or would never pass Congress. His critics say he should be pushing on all fronts, not second-guessing actions before attempting them.
“What the president and the Democratic Party needs to come to terms with is that this is not just a crisis of Roe, this is a crisis of our democracy,” Ocasio-Cortez said recently NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “This is a crisis of legitimacy, and President Biden must address that.”
Clearly, some Democratic Party elites are aware of the danger the GOP poses to democracy, truth and civil liberties. Biden and his team defend what Biden does, but from what I can tell, his messaging is weak. Republicans, not the Democrats, control the narratives, which are mostly lies and outrageous slanders.
Biden's supporters citing Republican pushback for calling Republicans 1960s era segregationists is lame. The allegation is more true than false. McConnell expressing outrage does not change inconvenient truth into a lie. Most modern Republican elites are a lot like 1960s era segregationists, whether they know it or believe it or not. Maybe most of the rank and file is too. Republicans now openly support elimination of existing civil liberties, including freedom from racial segregation. Defense of civil liberties was the point of the Newsome ad in Florida.
Going forward, it appears that Biden will stay in character. He apparently believes that what he is doing now is the best way to deal with rising fascism in the Republican Party, assuming he sees any fascist threat, which he may not. It is not clear that he has major concerns about rising laissez-faire capitalism, which is also a deadly serious threat to democracy, truth and civil liberties. Biden is a neoliberal and pro-corporation. He appears to have a blind spot when it comes to the power and intent of major corporations to take our democracy down, whether they know it or believe it or not.[1]
Footnote:
1. This point needs to be made over and over and over: When corporations are deregulated, power always or almost always flows from government and its ability to defend the public interest, civil liberties and the environment. Power flows back to the corporations, which operate mostly without much or any social conscience. For the most part, profit is the only moral value of major concern. All of that is sacred laissez-faire capitalist dogma.
“Social responsibility is a fundamentally subversive doctrine" in a free society, and have said that in such a society, "there is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.” -- Economist Milton Friedman, The Ethics of Competition and Other Essays, 1969
“Like the raging, blind ideologue he was, Milty-poo conveniently ignored the gigantically inconvenient fact that major corporations and sectors of commerce buy politicians with campaign contributions, a/k/a, free speech. Corporations literally write the rules of the game for the purchased politicians to insert into federal laws. The corporation’s rules of the game legalized corruption, deception and fraud. The rules of the game are rigged to serve special corporate interests at the expense of the public interest, including the environment. Wealth influences policy, not public opinion or the will of the people.” -- Germaine Descant, Dissident Politics, July 6, 2022
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