On Labor Day, Joe Biden delivered two speeches; one in Milwaukee, WI, and the other in Pittsburgh, PA. He showed no inclination, in either address, to unite the country as he had promised to do during his 2020 election campaign. Rather than devoting both appearances to American workers, as would have been appropriate, Mr. Biden chose instead to repeat the divisive rhetoric he used in his already infamous September 1 speech outside Independence Hall.
In Milwaukee, the chief executive rehashed a large part of the Philadelphia address. He raised the dreaded specter of “MAGA Republicans” and repeated the allegation that supporters of former President Donald Trump and elected Republicans who continue to promote his brand of America First populism represent a violent threat to democracy.
The unsettling aspect of this demagogy is that, in a roundabout or indirect way, it is an incitement of political violence, the very sin of which Biden accuses his predecessor. If one tells a group of people enough times that another group of people threaten their rights and freedoms and are also dangerous and violent, one creates the possibility that volatile and impressionable members of the former group will decide to act pre-emptively to neutralize the threat of violence posed by the latter group. Wars, both civil and international, have been started by such rhetoric.
(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Is Labor Day About Workers or Elections?
In Pittsburgh, addressing a small crowd of steelworkers’ union members, Biden was less than inspiring, to say the least. He devoted a significant part of his short speech to himself; his upbringing in Pennsylvania and Delaware, and the fact that he owed his entry into the US Senate to an endorsement by the steelworkers’ union. That last part was one of the few references to the actual point of Labor Day.
Thankfully, the president did not regurgitate too much of the “threat to democracy” rant, but he couldn’t help throwing in a little of it. He told the small crowd, “All of us love the country, but you can’t love the country and say how much you love it when you only accept one of two outcomes from an election; either you won, or you were cheated.” As Liberty Nation has previously observed, Democrats have disputed the outcomes of elections they lost on more than one occasion. Furthermore, the democratic process is itself threatened when questioning the legitimacy of an election result is forbidden. Transparency is the bedrock of fair elections, after all. If no vote count can ever be questioned without fear of being branded a threat to democracy, then democracy dies in darkness, as the most well-known Washington, DC, newspaper likes to remind us.
Interestingly – in an ironic way – Mr. Biden reminded his West Mifflin audience of the three reasons he claims he ran for the presidency in 2020. The first, he said, was to “restore the soul of America.” He expanded on that by saying he meant “decency, honor, meaning what you say, literally treating people with some respect.” About half of the American people Biden labeled “semi-fascist” might wonder whether the definition of “respect” has recently changed. Biden’s second reason was being “so sick and tired of trickle-down economics.” Coming from the leader of the party that has clearly abandoned the working class and now enjoys the support and financial patronage of America’s largest and wealthiest corporations, this one also seems a little confusing. One almost wonders why Democrat politicians mark Labor Day at all anymore. The real kicker was Mr. Biden’s third reason, which was, “I wanted to unite the country.” Again, those dangerous, democracy-threatening semi-fascists might be scratching their heads.
The American people can probably look forward to multiple repeats of this same narrative from Biden as the midterm elections draw closer. It might be good, rare, red meat for his dwindling base, but it is hardly likely to drive the masses to the polls to support his party’s agenda in November.
