Biden lays out the stakes: It’s about democracy

by Jennifer Rubin,

If nervous Democrats had any doubts, President Biden made crystal clear with his kickoff ad and speech in Blue Bell, Pa., that this election is about democracy vs. dictatorship, the Constitution vs. the cult of personality, and the rule of law vs. the rule of the mob.

Put differently, what makes us great is our democracy, and democracies reject those would-be dictators who cling to power in defiance of the people’s will.
Biden was as biting and aggressive toward former president Donald Trump as we have heard. “I had won the election, and he was a loser,” Biden asserted in a made-for-bumper-sticker turn of phrase. (Some lines were ruthlessly candid: “Trump is trying to steal history the same way he tried to steal the election.”)

“Donald Trump’s campaign is about him. Not America. Not you,” Biden warned. “Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He’s willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power.” Biden reminded voters that Trump has picked up where he left off, beginning his “2024 campaign by glorifying the failed violent insurrectionist, insurrection at our, on our Capitol.” He all but called Trump a coward guilty of betraying his oath. “[Trump] retreated to The White House. As America was attacked from within, Donald Trump watched on TV in the private small dining room off … the Oval Office,” Biden noted. “The entire nation watched in horror, the whole world watched in disbelief, and Trump did nothing.” (True to form, this cycle, Trump refused to sign the Illinois pledge vowing not to overthrow the government.)

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