I get emails all the time from supposedly sane citizens who insist that President Biden has dementia, but I didn’t get that vibe while watching his first address to Congress. He sure seems coherent to me, especially when he talks policy in everyday conversational language – and most especially when he reminds us that the insurrectionists still live among us, threatening to destroy our democracy.
We all know that Biden is determined to go big and bold on everything from jobs to climate change, with massive “investments” that only the federal government is “in a position to make” – and rightly so, because the times demand it, and the corporations and one-percent folks can certainly afford it. We’ll see how this plays out in the months ahead; if he and his thin congressional majority manage to enact even a modest share of his ambitious plans, we’ll be better off. But what’s arguably most noteworthy – as evidenced again in his first congressional address – is his contention that America stands at an historic crossroads, and that we should view his progressive blueprint as a patriotic bulwark against the dark forces that fester in our land.
In the House chamber, this was his key passage:
“As we gather here tonight, the images of a violent mob assaulting this Capitol – desecrating our democracy – remain vivid in all our minds. Lives were put at risk, many of your lives. Lives were lost. Extraordinary courage was summoned. The insurrection was an existential crisis, a test of whether our democracy could survive. And it did.
“But the struggle is far from over. The question of whether our democracy will long endure is both ancient and urgent, as old as our republic, (and) still vital today. Can our democracy deliver on its promise that all of us – created equal in the image of God – have a chance to lead lives of dignity, respect and possibility? Can our democracy deliver on the most pressing needs of our people? Can our democracy overcome the lies, anger, hate and fears that have pulled us apart?
“America’s adversaries, the autocrats of the world, are betting we can’t…They believe we are too full of anger and division and rage. They look at the images of the mob that assaulted this Capitol as proof that the sun is setting on American democracy. But they are wrong. You know it, I know it. But we have to prove them wrong. We have to prove democracy still works, that our government still works, and we can deliver for our people.”
A lot of congressional Republicans – the insurrectionist sympathizers who abetted what Biden calls “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” – sat silently as the president spoke, no doubt biding their time until the next opportunity to spew agitprop on Fox News. It’s a tough time for them right now, given the public’s landslide majority support for so many planks in Biden’s big-ticket agenda. They don’t have much to talk about these days, except stuff like Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head, and innately decent Biden is a hard guy to hate, especially since (unlike his Democratic predecessor) he’s not Black with a funny name. But rest assured that ill-named “loyal opposition” has no intention to join the American mainstream and do its part to strengthen our fragile bonds.
This passage also fell on the GOP’s deaf ears:
“In another era when our democracy was tested, Franklin Roosevelt reminded us, in America, we do our part. We all do our part. That’s all I’m asking. That we do our part, all of us. If we do that, we’ll meet the central challenge of the age by proving that democracy is durable and strong. Autocrats will not win the future. We will…We’ve stared into the abyss of insurrection and autocracy…and ‘We the people’ did not flinch.”
More than 400 people have been arrested in connection with the failed Capitol coup, and 100 more are expected. The test, going forward, is whether we can steer clear of the abyss that Biden referenced. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, one of the insurrectionist fellow travelers, followed up Biden’s address by fleeing to Fox News for a fresh round of fact-free fuming: “He wants control of your life! He’s gonna control how much meat you can eat!” Yes, they’re still pushing that BS.
The president said last night that democracies renew themselves only when they choose “hope over fear, truth over lies.” Let that be a warning to us.